Lakshman is an Independent Consultant with 35 plus years’ experience, advises companies in the area of Strategy, Innovation, Design, and Technology. He enables companies to plan, adopt and scale Design Led Innovation initiatives.

Earlier, as a senior management professional, he played leadership roles spanning across 22 years plus at SAP. Prior to SAP, Lakshman held leadership roles at IBM Global Services and Digital Equipment Corporation (India), NIIT and Transprojects.

Lakshman is an Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore & Udaipur and earlier with the School of Design Thinking, Hasso Plattner Institute, Potsdam, Germany.

Lakshman earned his Master’s in Technology, Anna University, India.

Mr. P V Narayan is a Postgraduate in Physical Chemistry from Mumbai University and has also completed his paint diploma from UDCT Mumbai.

He is a TRIZ Level 3 Practitioner certified by MATRIZ (International TRIZ Association). He started his career with Asian paints way back in 1999, where he was associated with Manufacturing, Processing & Packaging of the paint. He then migrated to a Consulting company, where he was exposed to the concept of TRIZ, through Six Sigma.

Mr Narayan has been associated with the TRIZ family since 2008. He is at present responsible for evangelizing & spreading the concept of TRIZ amongst Indian Industries & Educational institutions.

Mr Narayan has been invited & involved in conducting awareness sessions of TRIZ at leading corporates & educational institutions in India.

Past experience in brief: Teaching 22 yrs, Industry 2 yrs, TRIZ Level-3 (appeared), MATRIZ, US, PhD in Hybrid Nontraditional Manufacturing, Black Belt, Six Sigma.

He has been delivering and organizing several training programs at national and international levels at SMEs, MNCs, and Engg & Mgt Institutes. He has developed 3 innovative machines and mechanisms, filed 2 patents, published 12 Research papers and received grants for conducting 3 Seminars, 3 Research projects and modernization of a Laboratory from the University & AICTE. He is the recipient of the 2nd Prize at the Teacher Level, in the Maharashtra State Inter-University Research Convention-2016. He has been invited as a judge for many national level technical competitions and for delivering lectures at several national and international conferences. He has been conducting sessions on a wide variety of topics viz. Entrepreneurship development, Systematic innovation through TRIZ, Employability enhancement, Artificial intelligence, Expert systems, Industrial engineering and management, zero defect and Creative leadership. He has know-how in simulation software viz. Flexsim and V-CNC, Expert system development shell-Vidwan.

Sonia Manchanda is Founding Partner at Spread, a global practise with a stellar reputation in Brand and Experience Design, building expertise in design-led media and technology, creating virtual immersive experiences. She has set up the Design Barn, India’s first independent facility to bridge the design + innovation gap. She is a graduate of the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. She has been building creative organisations of repute and leading transdisciplinary project teams on massive transformational projects for governments and industries nationally and globally. Her intent is to spread design as a way to sense the shifts, to respond with creativity, optimism and imagination.

Member of the India Design Council is on the CII Design Council and is a Governing Council Member of Forge, an incubator in Coimbatore. She is also a trustee at Nrityagram, the only ‘dance village’ in the world.

Sonia’s Open Innovation and Design Strategy Project Dream: it was a movement across India, Brazil and China to shift the focus of design from needs to dreams, awarded a global gamechanger by Metropolis Magazine, the USA in 2013. The Dream: in Project has been featured in Bruce Nussbaum’s book Creative Intelligence. Sonia has been invited to showcase The Dream: in Project at Curitiba, Brazil, at Designing for Billions at Parsons New York, at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven and at several other prestigious forums. She/her work is featured in the books: Do better with less (Navi Radjou), Creative Intelligence (Bruce Nussbaum); Change Ahead - Carola Verschoor; It happened in India (Kishore Biyani).

Co-Founder, Sparkademy: Prof Dr Stefano Brusoni has been a Professor of Technology and Innovation Management at the D-MTEC, ETH Zurich since 2011. He also serves as Program Chair of the Behavioral Strategy IG of the Strategic Management Society. Holding a PhD in Science and Technology Policy Studies from the University of Sussex, his research focuses on the process through which firms introduce radical innovations -encompassing technological and organizational changes- and learn about new technologies and scientific disciplines.

“Ask fifty people to describe Friedman and you’ll get fifty different answers … all true. He is a paradox. Student-Teacher. Quiet-Demanding. But all will agree on his passion and dedication to sharing the magic of creativity and innovation in everything he does.”

Jim Friedman is a Cincinnati native and resident Wordsmith/Dreambuilder who may be best known for creating television shows and movies. He is a serial creative entrepreneur. In addition to his broadcasting ventures, he has created national marketing campaigns; been granted multiple patents; written books; written, recorded and performed music; and danced the hokey pokey at age three on the Uncle Al Show.

Since 2008 he has taught Creativity and Entrepreneurship at Miami University and is a frequent speaker on topics of creativity and personal branding. Friedman’s consulting and coaching work centers on connecting creative/innovative thinking to entrepreneurship for companies and individuals across the country.

Friedman grew up in Wyoming, Ohio (Go Cowboys). He graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.S. in Design (Go Bearcats). He holds a doctorate in communication (Ph.D.) which he earned from the Union Institute and a doctorate in Creativity (Cr.D.) which he made up himself. He has won 65 Emmy Awards, has been inducted into three Halls of Fame and is recognized for his creativity and effectiveness in the classroom.

Besides wordsmithing, Friedman enjoys asking questions, finding second right answers, silencing his voice of judgment, taking risks and failing often and well.

Francisco is an Economist and MBA graduate – a continuous and passionate learner who studied at prestigious universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Chicago Booth, Singularity, Kellogg, and MIT.

A serial entrepreneur from a young age, Francisco gathered over ten years of experience in global corporate business before he devoted his life entirely to entrepreneurship and innovation, co-founding and partnering in more than 50 companies. In 2017, Francisco was featured in Forbes as the ‘Startup Hacker’.

In 2016, Francisco founded Scalabl, a global company specializing in business management, innovation, and training – a leader in disruptive entrepreneurship. Francisco leads a digital nomad’s life and travels the world providing business training and consulting services to entrepreneurs and corporate clients, while he fosters the growth of the Scalabl Community, a horizontal network of founders, owners, and business professionals in 50+ countries and in almost every industry.

He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of ASAEDE, Asociación Argentina Española de Emprendedores, and of the Business Board of the Innovation and Change Management Institute – Switzerland.