Malhar Patil is the Co-Founder and COO of Flam, a San Francisco- and Bengaluru-based AI-native mixed reality platform that lets brands deliver immersive, app-less 3D experiences via QR codes and links — powering campaigns for Google, Samsung, Emirates, and even Kamala Harris's US presidential run. A BITS Pilani chemical engineering graduate and Forbes Asia 30 Under 30 honoree (2022), Malhar pivoted from consulting (Oracle) and sports-wellness management (Stepathlon) to build one of India's most globally ambitious adtech startups, raising $22M in total funding including a $14M Series A led by RTP Global in May 2025.
Prukalpa Sankar is the co-founder and co-CEO of Atlan, a $750M-valued platform building the context layer for data and AI - used by Mastercard, JP Morgan, Zoom, Dropbox, and General Motors. Before Atlan, she co-founded SocialCops, which built India's National Data Platform and the UN's SDG tracker operating across 50+ countries. A TED Speaker, Forbes 30 Under 30, and Fortune 40 Under 40 honoree, Prukalpa has raised over $206M and turned a midnight brainstorm about broken streetlights into one of the fastest-growing data governance companies on the planet.
Simone Giertz is a Swedish-born inventor, YouTuber, and product designer best known as the 'Queen of Shitty Robots' - a self-styled title earned by building hilariously dysfunctional machines that helped her (and millions of viewers) overcome perfectionism. She parlayed viral robot comedy into a serious design career, founding Yetch Studio in 2022, whose products include the Every Day Calendar (sold at MoMA) and the Laundry Chair - a swivel-rail accent chair for 'half-dirty' clothes that raised nearly $1 million on Kickstarter in 2026.
Eric Berridge is a 23-year Salesforce ecosystem veteran and CEO of Coastal, a premier Salesforce consultancy he joined in 2020 and took the helm of in September 2023. He previously co-founded Bluewolf in 2000 - one of the first Salesforce-focused consulting firms - and built it to a major acquisition by IBM in 2016. A TED speaker, two-time author, and MFA-holder in creative writing who never studied computer science, Berridge argues that the humanities are tech's most underrated competitive advantage. Under his leadership, Coastal was acquired by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for $700 million in January 2026, the largest professional services acquisition in Salesforce ecosystem history.
Barmak Heshmat is an optical physicist and entrepreneur who founded Brelyon, a San Mateo-based startup creating Ultra Reality displays that generate immersive panoramic virtual screens without any headset. A former MIT Media Lab research scientist and onetime head of optics at Meta's AR division, Heshmat ranked in the top 1% of Iran's national university entrance exam, earned a PhD in optoelectronics from the University of Victoria, filed 8 patents, published 20 journal papers, and now leads a company backed by Lockheed Martin Ventures, LG Technology Ventures, and Corning after raising $18.8M total - solving the fundamental problem of why no one wants to wear a computer on their face.
Mar Hershenson is a Spanish-American venture capitalist, electrical engineer, and serial entrepreneur who co-founded Pear VC (originally Pejman Mar Ventures) in 2013 with no prior VC experience - learning the trade from Amazon-purchased books. A Stanford PhD who holds 14 patents and founded three startups (two acquired), she has grown Pear VC to over $800M AUM with a portfolio that includes DoorDash, Guardant Health, Gusto, and Dropbox. A perennial Forbes Midas List honoree (#29 in 2021), she also teaches Stanford's Lean Launchpad course, champions women in VC through All Raise and her Female Founder Circles initiative, and is known for her conviction that great founders are made, not born.
Matt Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, is a British science writer, journalist, and hereditary peer whose books - from Genome to The Rational Optimist to How Innovation Works - have sold nearly two million copies in 31 languages. A zoologist by training (Oxford DPhil on pheasant mating systems), he argues that human progress is driven by the bottom-up exchange of ideas rather than top-down planning. Co-founder of the Rational Optimist Society newsletter, he writes a weekly column for The Times and is known for being simultaneously Britain's most prominent optimist about civilization and the chairman who presided over Northern Rock's catastrophic 2007 bank run.
Alex Steffen is a climate futurist, author, and strategist who coined the terms 'bright green environmentalism' and 'predatory delay.' He co-founded Worldchanging.com, wrote the internationally bestselling 'Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century,' and now runs The Snap Forward - a Substack newsletter with 24,000+ followers helping readers navigate the era of planetary discontinuity. Featured in Rolling Stone's '25 People Shaping the Future,' he advises institutions, investors, and individuals on climate strategy and teaches Personal Climate Strategy workshops.