iNDICA News Bureau
The Tamil Nadu Foundation (TNF) celebrated its 50th anniversary with a two-day event. As in previous years, the TNF event was preceded by an entrepreneurial event, EMERGE 2024. The TNF 50th Anniversary event took place on May 25th and 26th, 2024. The EMERGE 2024 conference took place on May 24th at the Crowne Plaza, Rosemont, Illinois.
The TNF event was hosted by Chicago-based Veera Venugopal and Siva Moopanar, and the EMERGE event was hosted by Arun Kumar and Sriram Krishnan of ATEA Dallas.
The morning keynote was delivered by Chandar Pattabhiram, former CMO of Coupa. He spoke on the theme of “The Power of Positioning and Storytelling.” He shared his marketing experience at Marketo and Coupa and explained his points very effectively.
Supply chain expert Dr. Sanjeevi Venugopal hosted a Fireside Chat where he spoke about the power of AI and supply chain innovation. In the US, logistics costs account for 8% of GDP and in India it accounts for 12%. Supply chain inefficiencies result in losses of over $160 billion. AI can definitely help minimize this loss and improve efficiency, said Dr. Venugopal.
Another speaker, Ezilarasan Natarajan, spoke about how the cloud has enabled the democratization of entrepreneurship. He noted that cloud providers were underfunded until 2018. Ten years ago, there were no companies valued at $1 trillion. Today, more than seven companies are valued at over $1 trillion. The speaker predicted that number will balloon in ten years’ time.
Janaki Kowtha, along with Ganesh Radhakrishnan and Siva Nadarajah, discussed the power of GenAI and the future of healthcare. Using large-scale language models for biology and chemistry, formulating a new drug has been reduced to 40 days, a task that previously took over six months. The use of AI and technology is making healthcare much more efficient. For example, hospitals are using AR/VR to help doctors learn about new machines and sensors, thereby increasing ROI.
Anand Muralidharan spoke on the power of strategic thinking and scaling startups. He said that strategy is the “what” and “where” of a company. Muralidharan also emphasized that companies need to look at their differentiators to stand out in the market.
Author Soundarya Balasubramaniam spoke about the power of dreams and liberating the entrepreneurial spirit. Her books, Admitted and Unshackled, are about the college admissions process and the visa process, respectively, and both were born from her own experiences.
Soundarya said she is working on her third book, a fictional story about how two people can dramatically change each other’s lives. Her third book was also born out of her own experience meeting Rajesh Sethi, a Silicon Valley author, mentor and entrepreneur. “Passion is not the cause of things. It is the effect of things,” she said.
Two pitch events were held at EMERGE 2024. The first was Thinkubator, which was attended by high school students.
Naveen ManikandanA high school senior in Morrisville, North Carolina, launched Parkware, an app that allows neighborhood residents to use unused driveway parking spaces for events.
Adutiya KartikThe 8th grader from Frisco, Texas, launched her app, Tough Cookies, which focuses on mental health for kids in her school, and she felt specially qualified to provide pertinent information because of her first-hand experience.
Aditi Narayan and Shiv NarayanThe brothers developed “Give it a Shot,” an app that provides sports analytics.
Parkware won the Best Idea award.
Five companies participated in PitchFest.
Dr. Kumar Vadivelu, Dentispeak. As a dentist himself, he understands issues like insurance underutilization and dental staff shortages, and his platform aims to solve these problems using AI.
Edward Chavan, Peozzle. It provides an integrated platform for hiring, staffing, job search, and volunteering. His presentation focused on leveraging timesheets as a financial product. In the US alone, there are $35 billion in timesheet receivables every month.
Kiruva Perumalsamy, Rohrfi. The company offers payroll and benefits solutions. “What Visa did for expenses, Rollfi does for payroll,” Kirubha says.
Pranav Palaniappan, Silo. Silo was founded with tattoo artists in mind. Silo automates bookings, generates customizable forms, and provides SMS reminders to customers.
Prabhakaran Murugaiah, Mayu. An AI-first recruiting experience platform. He demoed an AI assistant for recruiters and candidates. There are 134 million people in salaried jobs in the US. The average cost per hire is $6,300. Maayu streamlines the recruiting process from both sides.
Maayu won the Best Startup Idea Award.
MR Rangaswami, Founder of Indiaspora, concluded his keynote speech on the power of networking and the art of giving. MR shared his story of working at Oracle and how he quit it to start Indiaspora in 2012. Indiaspora’s India Giving Day raised $5.4 million in 2024.
