Akshay Nanavati is a Marine Corps veteran, an adventurer, an entrepreneur and the creator of Fearvana. A recovery from drug addiction, PTSD from fighting the war in Iraq, and a battle with alcohol that pushed him to the brink of suicide, Akshay decided to dedicate his life to mastering the forces that drive human behavior.
Fearvana is art of learning to find bliss in the face of struggle by using coping mechanisms that allow you to embrace fear. Today, Akshay runs a global business helping people embrace their fears to live limitless lifestyles. He has just finished writing his book ‘Fearvana: The Art And Science Of How To Find Bliss Through Fear’, which will be published early in 2017.
Akshay uses the proceeds from his work to fund his nonprofit, the Fearvana Foundation. It is the change-making arm of his lifelong mission to run across every country in the world to create enduring peace, one community at a time.
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Aparna received her Ph.D in medicine from University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy. As a senior research scientist in Molecular Engineering Laboratory in Singapore, she is currently heading a stem cell differentiation project to develop in vitro cellular models for neurological conditions.
She is also actively involved in the Stem Cell Society of Singapore and is the chairperson of their biennial Young Investigator’s Symposium
Dheeraj is a neuroscientist and Presidential Graduate Fellow at MIT. Following his graduation, Dheeraj pursued a prestigious research assistantship at Harvard University, where he realized his passion for neuroscience. He has been at MIT since 2013, in the lab of Prof. Susumu Tonegawa, who received the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine.
Dheeraj’s research in the field of learning and memory is focused on cases of amnesia, using animal models. Recently, he discovered that seemingly lost memories might be retrievable if we developed novel strategies. Extending this work to models of Alzheimer’s disease, Dheeraj found that not only were memories stored in the brain during the early stages of Alzheimer’s (even though these animals were amnesic), but that there is a way to bring these supposedly lost memories back permanently
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As Co-founder and CEO of SproutsIO, Jennifer leads the development of new technologies that redefine our interaction with food. Drawing from her childhood experience growing fruits and vegetables in the suburbs of Detroit, sher believes the spirit of the gardener extends beyond growing plants- it represents the ability to thoughtfully nurture and participate in the world around us.
Jennifer has an M.S. in Media Arts and Sciences from the MIT Media Lab, an M.S. Advanced Architecture Design from Columbia University, and a BArch from the University of Miami. She has taught at Columbia University, Pratt Institute, and at the New York City College of Technology, and continues to lecture internationally. She was selected as an Innovation Fellow by Wired Magazine, a Tech Hero by Glamour Magazine, a finalist for the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards, and is now also an INK Fellow.
Nachiket Udupa graduated as a Civil Engineer from IIT Guwahati after which he worked for a year as a Derivatives Trader. Subsequently he worked for a year at a non-profit in Bangalore and then did his Masters in Education Leadership from Teachers College, Columbia University. For the past few months he has been volunteering with the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan. In the long term he plans to work on agricultural cooperatives, education and health.
Nina Tandon is CEO and co-founder of EpiBone, the world’s first company growing living human bones for skeletal reconstruction. She is the co-author of Super Cells: Building with Biology, a book that explores the new frontier of biotech. She has a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union, a Master’s in Bioelectrical Engineering from MIT, a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, and an MBA from Columbia University. Her PhD research focused on studying electrical signaling in the context of tissue engineering, and has worked with cardiac, skin, bone, and neural tissue.
Tandon spent her early career in telecom at Avaya Labs and transitioned into biomedical engineering via her Fulbright Scholarship in Italy, where she worked on an electronic nose used to “smell” lung cancer. She was named one of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast Company, a Crain’s 40 under 40 people who have achieved success in business before turning 40, and a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer.
Nishikant’s research work lies at the intersection of Medical Imaging, Computer Vision, Parallel Programming, and Computer Graphics. He primarily works on accelerating an ultrasound-based technique called elastography that enables surgeons to perform cancer tumor detection during a surgery.
Combining 3D B-mode and 3D elastography visualized over time gives a 5D ultrasound system. Nishikant has developed the world’s first 5D ultrasound system. The 5D ultrasound system work has been published in the International Journal for computer assisted radiology and systems. Nishikant has developed these systems as a real-time system capable of acquiring data from an ultrasound machine to elastography processing.
Nitesh K. Jangir is a co-founder of Coeo Labs, a medical device company solving unmet clinical needs in the field of emergency and critical care. VAPCare is one of the products which he has developed at Coeo. VAPCare is a patented device to reduce chances of contracting ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), a fatal lung infection which kills more than 250,000 patients in India alone. His work has won many awards including MassChallenge Boston, Millennium Alliance, 3M Young Innovators Award, ASME I-Show, American College of Cardiology, 1776, Tata Social Enterprise Challenge etc.
Pavan is the cofounder of Cocoon Cam, a Silicon Valley startup that is developing a the next-generation of smart baby monitors. Cocoon Cam uses computer vision to analyze video streams and provide real-time insights on the safety and wellbeing of your baby. It detects and streams your newborn’s heart rate, respiration and skin temperature to a secure mobile app, without ever touching your baby, giving parents peace of mind they deserve.
Pavan and his team presented Cocoon Cam to President Obama at the first-ever White House Demo Day (2015) and are currently running a paid pilot program with 100 parents and have started an IRB-approved study this summer in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford.
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Prashant Gade is the Founder & CEO of Inali Assistive Tech as well as head of the R&D department at Inali Assistive Tech. Inali Arms is India’s most affordable bionic arm for the differently-abled. Unlike most prosthetics that are connected to muscle movements, Inali Arms operates by detecting brain signals.
Prashant founded Inali with an intent to provide affordable yet advanced prosthetic arms to the underserved living in developing countries with upper limb amputation. Till date Inali has given a new lease of life to over 1,500 amputees in India.
Forever a social innovator, rising to the need of the hour, Prashant has now been working to create low cost ventilators which could be easily manufactured across the world to aid the fight against Covid-19.
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Pratik works at the intersection of nanotechnology, imaging, low-cost diagnostics, entrepreneurship and scalable solutions for improving human health. He is leading the health and technology efforts run by the MIT Media Lab’s Camera Culture Group. Patik has scientific expertise in clinical imaging for machine learning, low-cost diagnostics, non-profits; startups, medical devices and several high-throughput approaches, including massively parallel DNA sequencing, digital gene expression technology, proteomics and metabolomics. He is developing and deploying the next-generation of non-ionizing clinical imaging systems powered by computer vision and machine learning platforms.
Pratik is the recipient of a National award from the American Society for Microbiology, as well as an independent fellowship award from Massachusetts General Hospital. He holds a BS, MS and a PhD in Microbiology and completed fellowship training at The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
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Siddharth is an entrepreneur, a dedicated researcher, and an ardent advocate for technological advancements in neurotechnology. His relentless pursuit of understanding the intricacies of the human brain, which started in 2010, has led him to the creation of Zeuron.ai, an innovative platform set to revolutionize the way we comprehend and approach brain health.
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