From DNA to Delivery: AI100’s third cohort of leaders open new avenues of innovation

KPMG recently announced plans to integrate an intelligent agentic AI system into its ops. AI enthusiasts hopped on the Studio Ghibli AI trend. Meta, meanwhile, is gathering some backlash for its Instagram AI comment experiment. There’s never a dull day in the AI world. And, things are about to get even more interesting. 

AI100, an initiative by YourStory and AWS, is launching its third cohort of leaders. Over the past few weeks, the AI100 initiative has been unveiling cohorts of innovators disrupting India’s AI landscape. From industry veterans and ambitious startup founders to scientists and tech mavericks, each cohort features an exciting mix of individuals from a range of industries with one common factor.

The third cohort of AI100 spotlights the role that academia and research play in AI. From a scientist dedicated to decoding DNA with AI to an academician who worked on the earliest ML for text-to-speech conversion, these thinkers are pushing the boundaries of what AI can do. Rounding up the cohort are three seasoned leaders who work at leading food delivery companies like Swiggy, sprawling B2B marketplaces like IndiaMART, and at futuristic tech companies like Stellar Innovations. Want to know how Swiggy fed millions of Indians during pandemic lockdowns? Eager to know how AI will transform your smartphone in the future? Wondering where leaders find the latest developments in the field? Find the answers in the third cohort of AI100!  

Goda Doreswamy

Goda Doreswamy always knew that AI was the missing ingredient when it came to innovation. As Vice President, Data Science, at Swiggy, she has accelerated AI adoption in the company, leveraging its capabilities for everything from personalised recommendations to logistics optimisation. However, Doreswamy’s discovery of AI dates further back - to her school days. This fascination carried through her years at IIT Madras, her time at Sabre (a travel company), Ola and now Swiggy. She realised AI made all the difference in user experience and business efficiency at scale. Today, her efforts have made a difference in how we book cab rides, buy flight tickets, and order food. Get to know a leader who unleashes the power of AI by day, and unwinds with a Bollywood movie at night. Know more about her.

Rajesh Kumar Rathinaswamy Karthigesan

Rajesh Kumar Rathinaswamy Karthigesan, Chief Solutions Architect, Stellar Innovations Pvt. Ltd, has consistently bet on cutting-edge technologies. And it has paid off! Always curious and willing to learn, he began his AI journey in college. As a freelance web developer, he embraced cloud computing and serverless environments with enthusiasm. When he turned to entrepreneurship, he founded an internet of things (IoT) based venture to monitor the function of solar power plants. At Stellar Innovations, he has found the perfect fit, providing AI, ML and IoT-powered solutions for business process management and transformation. His hope for the future hinges on technology as well. Karthigesan envisions a world where Marvel’s “Iron Man” robotics will become a reality. Understand the experiences that drive this technologist and seasoned leader here.

Amarinder Singh Dhaliwal

In the bustle of busy B2B marketplaces, Amarinder Singh Dhaliwal, Chief Product Officer (CPO) of IndiaMART, has found a solution to cut through the chatter and clutter. IndiaMART’s platform operates at a massive scale: 15 matchmaking requests per second, 100 million monthly visits, and a supplier base of 8 million across 100,000 categories. Dhaliwal discovered that AI deftly turned chaos to calm. From helping buyers find the perfect supplier to contextual search results and AI-powered chatbots, AI is charting a new course for B2B marketplaces like IndiaMART, with Dhaliwal at the helm. Learn how this visionary leader charts his own course - whether it has to do with work, experimenting with AI tools, participating in marathon runs, or hiking and skiing during his time off. To know more about him.

Dr Divya Tej Sowpati

Did you know that the DNA in a single cell, if stretched out, would be about 2 metres (roughly 6 feet) long? Sowpati, a scientist at Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB), is attempting to divine the secrets of our DNA. Alongside his team, this experienced academician is using AI to uncover what genetic material says about people across the country. By leveraging AI, he is able to unravel massive biological datasets, spot patterns in the data, and identify genetic variations associated with diseases or traits. His work will impact the way we experience healthcare. From faster diagnosis to personalized medicine — a trip to the doctor will look very different in the future. Learn how this scientist improves his mind, inside and outside the lab.

Jithendra Vepa

AI offers different fields of study and application, but Jithendra Vepa, Co-founder and CTO, Observe.AI, has always been laser-focused on voice and speech AI. His passion for the subject started at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, continued as he completed his PhD at University of Edinburgh in 2000 and, was cemented during his postdoctoral research at IDIAP Research Institute in Switzerland. Having worked with the earliest ML models for text-to-speech conversion, pioneered the application of hidden Markov models and early neural networks to speech synthesis, and researched transcriptions of meetings, speech summarization, and natural language processing (NLP), he made the switch from academia to industry. In 2018, when Vepa joined Observe.AI, he was primed to solve complex voice challenges in contact centers. Today, he has helped develop a proprietary Contact Center Large Language Model (LLM) with 40 billion parameters, trained specifically on customer service interactions. His journey is testament to the phrase “knowledge is power”. Know more about his forays into voice and speech AI, his love for badminton and his pioneering work.

Learn more about these visionaries at www.ai100leaders.com and stay tuned for the next cohort from the AI100 campaign.