Dr. Tapan Parikh is an Associate Professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Tapan’s research interests include human-computer interaction (HCI), mobile computing, paper and voice UIs and information technologies for education, governance and international development. Dr. Tapan and his students have started several technology companies serving community-based organizations (CBOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governments and non-profits. He holds a Sc.B. degree in Molecular Modeling with Honors from Brown University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Washington, where his dissertation won the William Chan Memorial award. Dr. Tapan has also received the NSF CAREER award, a Sloan Fellowship, was named TR35 Humanitarian of the Year, and has won several best paper awards for his group’s work.
Saurabh has completed his B. Tech in Mechanical engineering from IIT Guwahati and has experience working in a diverse multinational & multi-cultural team environment with exposure to international best practices of large successful organizations of repute. Saurabh has 13+ years of experience in large scale business operations across diverse sectors like fintech (Paytm), data science (Sigmoid Analytics), e-commerce (Amazon), Metro Trains (Alstom), FMCG (P&G) and Upstream Oil & Gas (L&T). Key skills and strengths include end to end business ownership, setting up processes and operations from scratch, large multi-level distributed team management, strategy development and execution, cross functional team collaboration, internal & external stakeholder management, workload planning and performance management, cost control, schedule acceleration, vendor management and on-ground execution. His areas of interest include general management business operations, systems/processes design & implementation, program/project management, data analytics, loss-identification & elimination and overall business growth.
Kapil is originally from Junagadh. He finished his Master’s degree in Information and Technology from DA-IICT Gandhinagar. He started his career with Awaaz De as an intern and has worked on various internal projects. He contributes significantly towards new projects and internal analytic systems. Self confessed social media addict, he is our in house photographer. With his never say no attitude and a smiling face he has become a significant member of the team in a very short span.
Vicky completed his B.Com from Gujarat University and is a Chartered Accountant from The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. Vicky has worked in the F&A domain for more than 10 years. He started his career with AdvanceTrack Outsourcing followed by GTC Oilfield Services Private Limited, Educational Initiatives an EdTech based start-up and Ahmedabad University. Vicky has been a part of the team closing a Merger Deal for Educational Initiatives. Vicky has worked on Audits, compliances, Budgeting, Business Models, etc. He has a keen interest in data analytics and visuals. Apart from his professional story, he is a Resilient Pacer and a Netflix Lover.
Dr. Neil Patel is co-founder and CEO of Awaaz.De. Born and raised in California, Dr. Neil holds bachelor’s degrees in Computer Science and Business from UC Berkeley, and a PhD in Computer Science from Stanford University. He completed his dissertation on a mobile voice-based social platform for small farmers in India to access and share agricultural advice. The system was a success, and organizations across India (agriculture, health, education, women’s empowerment, labor, microfinance) asked him to help apply the same technology to their own information dissemination and communication needs. Working with his advisor, UC Berkeley Professor Tapan Parikh, led Dr. Neil to the founding of Awaaz.De.
