Our Team

Nixon Patel

Founder & CEO, Qulabz

Nixon has been a serial entrepreneur with a proven track record of building & growing 7 start-ups into large profitable entities. Nixon’s enviable list of educational qualifications include:

Master of Business & Science (MBS) in Analytics, Rutgers University

Master of Science (MS) in Computer Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)

Bachelor of Technology (Hons) in Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Certificate in Quantum Computing (2018)

Johns Hopkins University Certificate in Data Science & Analytics (2015)

Appointed to ISO Quantum Computing International Standards Working Group (2018)

Nixon has also founded multiple startups over the past many years - Kovid Analytics, Yantrae Solar, YantraSoft, Bhrigus Soft, eComServer and Objectware

Nixon has also been the Chief Data Scientist -Brillio & Collabera (2014 -2016).

Currently Nixon spends time between Hyderabad, India and Kolkata, India in his role as Adjunct Professor at IIT Hyderabad (2019 - Present) and Adjunct Professor & Mentor, NSHM College, Kolkata (2019 – Present)

Bill Whisenhunt

Chief Product Officer, Qulaz

For over 30 years Bill has combined creativity with engineering prowess.

Specializing in communications networks and distributed applications, he has served as CTO for Redbox LLC and iTouchPoint.

As VP of Technology, he lead teams in creating industry standard solutions including stints at eTalk, Bhrigus, YantraSoft, Spoken and viz Communications.

These projects have included a major technology refresh for the US Treasury Dept, applications that became industry standard offerings, and proprietary networks for

wholesale delivery to all major Telecom and Cable companies.

Bill moves between design and prototype development to leading teams that operate and maintain the systems supporting international deployments.

Bill has lead language development teams deployed globally and developed conversational AI solutions for fortune 200 clients. With a background in creative uses of computing, BM and MM degrees in Computer Music Composition, he also served as a research fellow at the CEMI (the Centre for Experimental Music and

Intermedia) at UNT.

Bill is a member the IEEE Photonics Society.

Prof. Sugata Gangopadhyay

Head of the Department, CSE, IIT Roorkee

Prof. Gangopadhyay has about twenty years of teaching and research experience in BITS Pilani, IIT Kharagpur, Indian Statistical Institute, and IIT Roorkee. He has been devoted to understanding Boolean functions in the quantum computing context since 2010.

Prof. Sugata Gangopadhyay He is a resource person for the master’s program in Cryptology at Novosibirsk State University, Russia, and member of the program committee of NSUCRYPTO, the International Students Olympiad in Cryptography organized by Novosibirsk State University, Russia.

He has been a visiting professor within the framework of Erasmus+ program at University of Primorska Koper, Slovenia, and obtained ONR-Global VSP award to conduct research on communication theory at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California USA .

Prof. Panduranga

Associate professor, CSE, IIT Hyderabad.

M. V. Panduranga Rao is an associate professor at the department of CSE, IIT Hyderabad.

He did his BTech from REC Warangal (now NIT), MTech from IIT Kanpur and PhD from IISc Bangalore.

His areas of interest are algorithms, complexity, quantum computing and formal methods.

Dr Goutam Paul

Associate Professor, Head of Cryptology and Security Research Unit (CSRU), R. C. Bose Centre for Cryptology and Security, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata

Dr Paul is currently Associate Professor at ISI Kolkata in the Cryptology and Security Research Unit (CSRU). He is a computer engineer by training and an expert in the area of cryptology.

He has co-authored several works on RC4 stream cipher and its variants and has various cited publications in eminent international journals. He has also been to several institutes of international repute as visiting scientist.

Dr Paul has overseen and participated in several sponsored research projects sponsored by DST, BARC, DAE etc

Prof. Debabrata Goswami

Experienced Senior Professor with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry. Works at the forefront of interdisciplinary research that embodies theoretical and experimental research.

Skilled in Femtosecond Spectroscopy experiments, Mathematical Modeling, quantum computing, Nanomaterials, and Bio-imaging.

Strong education professional with a long record of teaching several UG and PG courses, popularizes Science Education and has the distinction of being a popular K12 teacher on Indian television. Recipient of several distinctions and honors.

Dr Mansi Dhuria

DST-Inspire faculty fellow at Institute of Infrastructure Technology Research and Management (IITRAM), Ahmedabad

Dr. Mansi Dhuria has been working as DST-Inspire faculty fellow at Institute of Infrastructure Technology Research and Management (IITRAM), Ahmedabad, India since November 2018. Before joining IITRAM, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (2016-2018) and Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad (2014- 2016). She received her Ph.D. degree in theoretical high energy physics from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in 2014.She is a physicist by raining and works at the interface of theoretical high energy physics, astroparticle Physics and cosmology. Her research work done so far has contributed in developing new ideas of probing the unknown physics from various cosmological/astrophysical observations as well as results from high energy accelerators. She is the recipient of prestigious DST-Inspire faculty fellowship, SERB-NPDF fellowship and DST-travel award sponsored by Department of Science and Technology India.

She also got a short term visiting position at The Abdus Salam Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), Italy in 2018. Currently she is trying to delve more into the data driven aspects of astrophysics and cosmology by using different advanced computational tools such as classical machine learning and deep learning.

Mr. Vipul Mankad

Investment professional with extensive experience of managing VC / Impact funds and implementing Development Projects in different emerging markets (South Asia-India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and East Africa- Tanzania).

Developed and led many early/ growth stage transactions -investment / divestment / M&A- across multiple industries.

Led and mentored top performing, multi-cultural teams to build high quality portfolio. Seamlessly coordinated geographically distributed teams and a centralized investment committee.

Served on many Boards providing strategic inputs for growth, governance and sustainability.

Provided strategic inputs for evolving policy framework for development of Alternative Investment ecosystem to regulatory agencies in India and Bangladesh.

Core Competences:

Fund Structuring, Documentation, Investor relationship.

Investment evaluation, due diligence, deal structuring, monitoring and exit.

Strong analytical and negotiation skills.

Understand challenges of an entrepreneur / early stage business through different stages of evolution

Developing growth strategies and risk mitigation.

Extensive network.

Mr. Naresh Kumar Emani

Position: Associate Professor

Department(s):

Electrical Engineering

Ph.D.: Purdue University , West Lafayette Campus

Research Interests:

Nanophotonics

Photovoltaics

Optoelectronic devices

Nanofabrication

Sensors

Semiconducting Devices

Nanoscience & Technology

Optics/Photonics/Spectroscopy

Mr. Sai Santosh Kumar Raavi

Position: Associate Professor

Department(s):

Physics

Climate Change

Ph.D.: University of Hyderabad

Research Interests:

Optics and Spectroscopy of Energy Conversion Materials

Sensors

Semiconducting Devices

Climate Change

Energy

Nanoscience & Technology

Optics/Photonics/Spectroscopy

Mr. Sai Santosh Kumar Raavi

Position: Associate Professor

Department(s):

Physics

Climate Change

Ph.D.: University of Hyderabad

Research Interests:

Optics and Spectroscopy of Energy Conversion Materials

Sensors

Semiconducting Devices

Climate Change

Energy

Nanoscience & Technology

Optics/Photonics/Spectroscopy