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YourStory is all set to host the 16th edition of India’s pre-eminent technology and innovation summit, TechSparks 2025, in Bengaluru. For 15 years, TechSparks has been the hotbed of bold ideas and transformative innovation, setting the stage for crucial industry narratives and partnerships. This year the highly anticipated event arrives with a riveting theme, one that will shape the future of the country: India 2030: Powered by AI. The focus will be on the monumental opportunities of artificial intelligence and deep technology, positioning India not merely as a participant but as a leader on the world stage. India’s ascent in the technology sphere is unparalleled, driven by its large developer base and a growing talent pool dedicated to AI. This vibrant ecosystem is further empowered by the nation’s robust digital public infrastructure, encompassing platforms such as UPI, Aadhaar, and ONDC, which together enable scalable AI solutions that address both local and global needs. Over three days, TechSparks 2025 promises extraordinary depth and scale, with over 1,000 sessions and 2,300 speakers. It also aims to facilitate more than 2 million connections. The sessions will dive deep into how startups are crafting AI solutions for Bharat while scaling them globally. They will also explore how major enterprises are integrating intelligence to transform operations and address pivotal challenges, such as ethical frameworks for GenAI and regional natural language processing. The agenda at TechSparks is packed with high-calibre discussions, fireside chats, and the much-awaited launch of Tech30, the definitive list celebrating promising AI startups shaping India’s future. This is what we have in store for you! Day 1: Thursday, November 6 The opening day is dedicated to setting the stage for India’s global AI ambitions and charting the course for AI-ready businesses. Proceedings commence with a welcome address by YourStory Founder and CEO Sharadha Sharma, followed by the launch of Tech30, spotlighting the most impactful AI ventures of the country. Attendees can expect to hear from Mukesh Bansal, Founder & CEO, Nurix AI, on bringing a global mindset to India’s AI ecosystem, and understand the journey from bootstrapping to bell-ringing with Meghna Agarwal and Rishi Das of IndiQube. As enterprises chase the AI-native ideal, top technology leaders explore how to connect data, models, and decisions at scale. This panel, featuring Balaji Thiagarajan (CTO & Product Officer, Flipkart), Madhusudhan Rao (CTO, Swiggy), Kshitij Khandelwal (Founder & CTO, Pixxel), and Vijayant Rai (Managing Director - India, Snowflake), focuses on data cloud architectures, governance, and real-time intelligence crucial for the next generation of AI-first organisations. There’s more on enterprise transformation. Paranth Thiruvengadam and Shamik Sharma of Atlassian discuss their playbook for innovation, including bold bets on AI and the product Rovo. Further infrastructure insights are provided by Vasanthi Ramesh of NetApp India on leveraging hybrid cloud AI data management for lean startups. The evening features Arzan Singpurwalla of Meta India who will discuss how platforms like WhatsApp are powering conversational commerce, alongside Manu Jain (CEO, G42 India) who will detail G42’s sovereign AI pitch and the ‘NANDA’ model trained on English/Hindi tokens. Concluding the proceedings on the Main Stage is Rajan Anandan, MD, Peak XV & Surge, who will decode the secrets to scaling India’s next 1,000 resilient startups. Meanwhile, the Focus Stage offers masterclasses in practicality, featuring Mohit Saxena (Co-founder & CTO, Inmobi) on building efficient, pragmatic AI systems, and Sanjay Mohan (Group CTO, MakeMyTrip) on scaling vertical AI for India’s multilingual audience. Other key speakers include Adithyan RK (Co-founder & CEO, Hyring Inc), Aviral Bhatnagar (Managing Partner, AJVC), and Pushit Maity (CEO, Technosport), who will tackle everything from pre-seed capital gaps to the ethics of AI in recruitment and the business case for geospatial AI. Day 2: Friday, November 7 On Day 2, we enter the world of finance with crucial conversations on VC strategy and deeptech backing. The Main Stage will see Vani Kola, MD, Kalaari Capital, providing the VC’s compass on navigating capital efficiency and reinvention in India’s AI decade. Fintech gets a detailed examination as Gautam Aggarwal (President, India & South Asia, Mastercard) discusses how AI is fundamentally changing the game for financial inclusion across Bharat. Next up, Akis Evangelidis (Co-founder & India President, Nothing), Priya Narasimhan (CBO, Indus Appstore), Rajendran Dandapani (Director of Technology, Zoho Corp.), and Umesh Bude (CTO, Pocket Entertainment) reveal how AI, India Stack, and design-for-diversity innovation are powering globally competitive digital products. Arzan Singpurwalla (Meta India) and Praveen Sridhar (Director Partnerships, AWS) weigh in on the collaboration driving massive digital scale. Later in the evening, Scott Albin (General Manager, Groq APAC, Groq) will discuss ultra-fast inference with Narendra Yadav of Paytm in a dialogue about real-time AI powering India’s fintech future. The day concludes with a deep dive into quick commerce efficiency with Kaivalya Vohra (Co-founder, Zepto) and Nikhil Mittal (CTO, Zepto) throwing light on the algorithms powering instant fulfilment and profitable dark store operations. Other notable speakers on Day 2 include Bharat Goenka, Nupur Goenka, and Tejas Goenka of Tally Solutions, Devika Mittal of Ava Labs, and Kiyoko Hashiba of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Over to the Focus Stage where Nandita Sinha (CEO, Myntra) discusses building the world’s most intelligent fashion platform, while Ananth Shroff (Founder & CEO, DPDzero) addresses the empathetic use of AI in debt collection. Vishal Gupta (CEO, PhonePe Insurance), Satyajit Kanekar (Co-founder, 86400), Sankara Srinivasan Aiyyathurai (Founder, Koot.business), and actor and co-founder Kunal Kapoor also share their expertise on insurance, payments, enterprise tech buying, and authentic storytelling. Day 3: Saturday, November 8 The final day focuses on the advanced mechanics of building an independent intelligence economy for India, emphasising scalable infrastructure, robust governance, and the transition of GenAI from experimental phases to high-impact production. Proceedings on the Main Stage kick off with insights on the creative transformation of storytelling, as Rohan Nayak (Co-founder & CEO, Pocket Entertainment) talks about building the world’s AI story empire. And then enterprise leaders take over. Thiru S Vengadam (AI Service Transformation Leader, EY GDS) talks about how to deliver measurable ROI from GenAI architectures, while Ish Babbar (Co-founder & CTO, InsuranceDekho) shares his thought on leveraging AI for inclusive insurance across Bharat. A little later, Jonathan Ross (Founder & CEO, Groq) discusses India’s critical moment in AI infrastructure and the need for ultra-low-latency systems. Then we have the panel on Aatmanirbhar AI, as we explore the strategic necessity of building a sovereign intelligence economy powered by India’s own datasets and languages. This panel features Hemant Mohapatra (Partner, Lightspeed India), Madhur Makkar (Principal, RTP Global), Nakul Kundra, (Co-founder, Devnagri AI), and Vivek Raghavan (Co-founder, Sarvam AI). Governance and ethics are dissected by Kavita Viswanath (SVP Engineering & India Country Lead, Toast) as she addresses the urgent need for sustainable AI governance. This is followed by Vishwanath Ramarao (Co-founder & CPTO, Acko) showcasing Acko’s AI-first stack, which is revolutionising claims and fraud prevention. Other speakers include Sagar Kumar (VP Engineering, PayU) and Soumyajit Ghosh (COO, BalanceheroIndia) on cloud-native AI agility. Closing the day we have Ananth Narayanan (BRND.ME, formerly Mensa Brands) who reveals the roadmap for building digital-first companies driven by data and engineered for international scale. On the Focus Stage, the discussion centres around future challenges, including the energy cost of intelligence and the regulatory tightrope walk between data-driven deeptech and privacy rights, guided by Shivaarti Bajaj (Founder & Managing Partner, RSD Bajaj Global). For technical expertise, we have Ganesh Ramakrishnan (PI - BharatGen, IIT Bombay) on sovereign, frugally scalable multilingual AI for Bharat. There’s also a masterclass by Jigar Halani (NVIDIA) on deploying scalable GenAI solutions. The Focus Stage also features Aditya Soni (Founder & CEO, CheQ) showcasing India's first conversational AI credit card expert. Finally we get to the human element in automation. This is addressed by Rajesh Ramachandran (Global Chief Digital Officer, ABB), who advocates for a human-centred AI that allows strategic human oversight in autonomous industries. Don’t miss it! Whether you are a founder, an investor, an enterprise leader, or a policymaker, TechSparks 2025 is where you need to be! It provides access to not only the resources, strategies and foundational models that are redefining industries but also the talent and partnerships needed to ride the wave of the future. (Edited by Swetha Kannan)
