DSSE | People
The DSSE team comprises Institute faculty, Adjunct faculty, project managers and mentors. Institute faculty are drawn from academia and industry – the first full-time faculty at DSSE were Professors of Practice, and they happen to be the first-ever recruited at IITB in 2021. Starting 2023, DSSE is hiring core research faculty with the intent of adding research programs to its existing teaching and practice programs. Adjunct faculty have been key to DSSE’s growth; they teach practice-oriented and experiential courses, since they come from entrepreneurship and industry backgrounds. DSSE’s project managers co-ordinate the academic and non-academic programs and are always available to students for mentoring. The Post-Graduate Committee includes inter-disciplinary faculty members who review and approve various activities of the School. Mentors are drawn from the alumni community to coach and support course project teams as well as pre-incubation teams.
Institute Faculty
Institute faculty from different departments are associated with DSSE courses, programs, administration and outreach activities. The first two Professors of Practice were recruited by IIT Bombay for Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship and came with 25-30 years of industry experience.
Devdip Purkayastha
Devdip Purkayastha is a full time Professor-of-Practice at IIT Bombay, DSSE. He is closely involved with the start-up ecosystem, both in technology and social sectors. He teaches technology entrepreneurship courses, mentors start-up teams and advises investors. He has served as President of Enactus India.
Anuradha Narasimhan
Sankalp Pratap
Lina Sonne Vyas
Lina Sonne Vyas is Associate Professor at the Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship at IIT Bombay, teaching and researching on innovation and entrepreneurship for societal good.
Adjunct Faculty
Adjunct faculty are experienced industry professionals and entrepreneurs who enrich the entrepreneurship courses and mentoring programs using real-life examples and case studies. IIT Bombay has also enhanced the faculty pool at DSSE by Honorary Professors of Practice who are involved with courses, programs and provided strategic inputs to DSSE.
Raj Jaswa
Raj Jaswa is an accomplished technology entrepreneur. He became the CEO of Dyyno in 2009. During 2003-2008, he volunteered full-time for TiE Silicon Valley, first serving as Director and then as President; he continues to serve on its Global Board of Trustees.
Rajkumar Hirwani
Raj Hirwani has 40+ years of experience in Research, Technology and IP Management. He was Head of IP Directorate in CSIR and Director of CSIR’s Unit for R&D of Information Products. He was a member of World Bank Consultancy Team for Strengthening of R &D Institutions in China and Indonesia as well as on the panel of UNCTAD. He has won many national awards and honours.
Vinay Dabholkar
Vinay is a consultant, teacher and author working in three areas: innovation stamina, design thinking, and mindfulness. He is a co-author of the book “8 steps to innovation: going from jugaad to excellence” (2013) and author of the book “Mindfulness: connecting with the real you” (2019). Since 2006, he has helped several organizations and executives in their innovation journey.
Umakant Jayaram
Umakant Jayaram is an adjunct professor at the Desai Sethi School of Entrepreneurship. He is currently serving as Director Public Interest at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
Milind Kopikare
Milind Kopikare is a technology executive who has helped build products from zero to a multi-million dollar business for many Silicon Valley companies including Qualtrics, Google, McKinsey and Marvell Semiconductors. He teaches Product Innovation and Entrepreneurship as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Utah Eccles School of Management and at IIT Bombay.
Ramesh Mangaleswaran
Ramesh Mangaleswaran is a senior partner emeritus with McKinsey & Company, based in Chennai. In his almost 30 year career with the firm, he was a founding partner of McKinsey’s locations in Chennai & Bangalore, co-led the firm's Industrials Practice in India and Asia; and also its Social Responsibility activities in Asia.
Rizwan Koita
Anand Deshpande
Rajesh Gopinathan
Rajesh Gopinathan is a business leader with over 25 years’ experience in the global technology industry. He is currently working at IIT Bombay on strengthening the interface between academia, corporates, and the startup ecosystem to enable programmatic translation of academic research to real world solutions. In his prior role he was CEO & MD of one of the world’s largest technology
Post-Graduate Committee
The Post-Graduate Committee of DSSE serves as the policy and oversight committee for the School. Best practices are drawn from different departments and centres at IITB and the committee members approve the various activities of the school.
Prof. Santosh Gharpure, Chemistry DeptKnow More
Prof. Ravindra Gudi, Chemical EnggKnow More
Prof. Parag Bhargava, MEMS DeptKnow More
Prof. Leena Vachhani, Systems & Control EnggKnow More
Prof Nishant Sharma, IDCKnow More
Prof Varun Bhalerao, Physics DeptKnow More
Project Managers
DSSE project managers support the faculty in courses and mentoring programs, as well as in administration and outreach activities. They are always available to students for mentoring and for support.
Shakti Tripathy
Shakti Tripathy handles system administration and interfacing with the student bodies (E-Cell, Tinkering Lab, STAB). He also coordinates partner events such as E-Summit and TechConnect. He has a bachelor’s in Civil Engineering and master’s from The Energy and Resources Institute School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi (2010).
Deepa Namagiri
Deepa Namagiri coordinates the entrepreneurship courses offered by DSSE. She completed her MBA in Marketing and Human Recourses from Andhra University, India. In the past, she has worked in ICICI Bank, India, Clark Atlanta University, USA and Texas Higher Education Board, USA.
Alka Chavan
Alka Chavan is assistant project manager at the POC Lab of DSSE, where student teams develop proof-of-concept and prototypes based on their startup ideas. She is responsible for monitoring the micro-grants provided to these students, as well as purchase and documentation of equipment and consumables for Lab.
Shweta Mane
Shweta Mane handles accounts at DSSE, including purchases, students’ micro-grants, expense monitoring and vendor management, as well as logistics support for various events organized by the School. She has a bachelor degree in arts and diploma in computer management.
Mentors
Several senior professionals from industry, many of them alumni of IIT Bombay, are associated with DSSE as mentors for aspiring entrepreneurs and venture teams pursuing their entrepreneurial ventures. These mentors serve two diverse roles – entrepreneur mentors provide their own experiences to young venture teams and subject matter experts provide mentoring in functional areas like technology, finance, business planning, Go to Market etc