Board of Directors

Founder and Principal Investigator at ARISA

Kohinoor holds a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from Bangor University, UK, and has previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Glasgow (Glasgow, UK), Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia), and University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA, USA). Through her research, she investigates the cognitive and neural mechanisms that underlie our interactions in the social world and our engagement with art.

Kohinoor is also a trained Indian classical dancer (Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi) and likes to integrate her background in the arts with her interest in neuroscience in both her research and choreographic endeavours.

She is currently the founder-director of ARISA (Advancement and Research in the Sciences and Arts) Foundation, a not-for-profit research organisation based out of Pune, India. Through ARISA, Kohinoor aims to bridge the arts and sciences to advance academic research, preserve tangible and intangible cultural heritage, promote social change, and make the sciences and arts open, equitable, and accessible to all.

Outside of the research lab, she enjoys social interactions with fictional characters in novels and underwater aesthetic experiences when scuba diving.

CTO & Co-Founder at Icertis

Monish is a cloud-technology pioneer and serial entrepreneur with a 30-year track record in the enterprise software space. As CTO and Co-founder of Icertis, Monish has overseen development of the Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) platform, the leading contract management solution in the cloud.

ICI is used by innovative companies like Airbus, Daimler, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft and Sanofi to manage 10 million contracts worth more than $1 trillion. Monish has also led Icertis’ successful deployment of cutting-edge AI and blockchain technologies, which have earned Icertis numerous industry accolades including recognition on Forbes’ prestigious AI 50 List for two years in a row.

With deep experience in distributed systems and cloud apps, Monish is the co-inventor of two patents in cloud resource management and provisioning. Monish led a string of successful ventures prior to co-founding Icertis, including the launch of BladeLogic’s India R&D. After BladeLogic was acquired by BMC Software, Monish contributed to BMC’s cloud management vision, laying the foundation for some of the early pioneering work in this area.

Monish has a BE in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s degree from Florida Atlantic University. In his spare time, Monish enjoys playing his PS4—especially Call of Duty: Warzone. His other interests are Formula 1 and reading. He is a sci-fi aficionado and loves Isaac Asimov.

COO at Darda Solutions

Col Sarang Chavan is an Indian Army veteran with over two decades of active service experience. An alumni of the prestigious ’Indian National Defence Academy’, he tenanted many important operational and administrative appointments in the army across various levels including the successful command of an Infantry Battalion. He also served as part of the UN Peacekeeping Force in a multinational and multicultural environment.

He is an avid golfer and music lover, who loves to indulge in insightful conversations across varied topics. He is currently based in Pune and is the Chief Operations Officer at Darda Solutions, Pune, India.