Board of Directors
Harshad Abhyankar
Harshad is born and brought up in Mumbai and did his Electronics Engineering from IIT Bombay. He started his career in Electronics but soon switched to the IT industry and worked in Mumbai, Canada, USA and Pune for about 18 years.
After settling in Pune in 2000, he came across an NGO “Save Pune Traffic Movement (SPTM)”, whose members pledge to follow traffic rules unconditionally. In 2008 he wanted to spend more time for SPTM, which eventually led to a career switch for him.
Under his leadership as a Director of SPTM, the NGO has been instrumental in forming a Road Safety Committee in PMC under Hon Mayor’s chairmanship. Likewise, the ‘Pedestrians’ Day’ for Pune, observed on 11th December as announced in 2021 by the then Mayor Shri Muralidhar Mohol, is Harshad’s brainchild.
Dr Nikhil Phadke
Nikhil holds a PhD in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. He has over twenty years of experience in the areas Molecular Diagnostics and Genomic Testing. He has a deep interest in combining cross disciplinary technical, scientific, engineering and medical expertise with socially responsible entrepreneurship and grass root activism to positively impact lives, especially in underserved regions. He founded GenePath Diagnostics, with a view to bringing state-of-the-art in vitro diagnostic tests to the Indian medical community and to develop novel high quality affordable molecular diagnostic tests and platforms for the developing world.
At GenePath Diagnostics, Nikhil leads a highly multidisciplinary team of clinicians, scientists, counsellors, bioinformaticians and engineers to develop and offer clinical grade molecular diagnostic and genomic tests. He has over fifty publications in international peer-reviewed journals and granted and active patent applications in the US and in India.
Nikhil is also the co-founder of I-SHARE Foundation, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to innovate solutions for healthcare access, research and education; and a managing partner at Phadke Hospital in Pune.
Nitin Khamamkar
Nitin has an MBA in Finance, and has a vast experience of 30 years in large corporates like Tech Mahindra, Synechron Technologies, Global Telesystems & Blow Plast Ltd.
Photography is his hobby for the last 10 yrs. Nitin specializes in Sports Photography, and is a sought after photographer for major Marathons like Tata Mumbai Marathon, Pune International Marathon and Satara Marathon, which he has covered multiple times. He travels around Maharashtra to cover various Marathons as well as other sports events.
Rajendra Sidhaye
Rajendra had a glorious academic career – he is a merit rank holder in SSC as well as HSSC, and won the Gold medal in B.E. (from College of Engineering, Pune) and M.Tech from IIT Bombay.
He had 2 phases of professional life. In the first phase of 25 years, he designed and led teams to develop IT products and services for domestic as well as global clientele. Leading technical and project teams for a national messaging network and deployment of the Internet backbone were the highlights of this phase. In the second phase (since 2011) he has been playing the role of management consultant & coach to empower SMEs and start-up owners to reach their goals faster. He provides mentoring for start-up owners and MSME entrepreneurs to help them establish long-term strategic foundation for the business.
Rajendra loves Bollywood & Marathi melodies: He sings them as well as plays them on flute. He also enjoys reading, trekking, short cycling excursions on weekends, and is an avid Yoga follower. He expresses his feelings in poetry from time to time. In fact, one of his poems acted as a seed for him to start SPTM as a citizen movement to transform the road traffic of Pune!
Sujata Tilak
Sujata is a thought leader and recognized expert in IIoT and Industry 4.0. An Instrumentation & Control engineer from College of Engineering, Pune; Sujata has more than 30 years of experience. She worked with Alfa Laval and KPIT before founding Ascent Intellimation. Under her leadership, AIPL has conceptualized and developed an innovative Internet of Things platform, PlantConnect and various products based on this platform.
As an evangelist of her chosen field, Sujata’s focus is to help organizations recognize and embrace diverse ways in which technology and data can be beneficially used to become efficient and competitive.
Sujata is an executive board member of International Society of Automation (ISA). She is founder and first director of ISA Smart Manufacturing and IIoT Division and past DVP of ISA Asia Pacific District. She actively contributes to CII and MCCIA as part of various committees.