Abhishek Kumar

When computing meant understanding 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗲. Seema Ambastha reflects on her first experience with computers — a time when technology was limited, but curiosity wasn’t. From programming in 𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗡 and 𝗖𝗢𝗕𝗢𝗟 to troubleshooting hardware issues, her journey is a reminder of how foundational experiences shape future leaders in technology. It’s fascinating to see 𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗳𝗮𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 — and the people who built it from the ground up. Watch the Trailer Now - https://lnkd.in/dpr6v835 #Podcast #Leadership #WomenInTech #TechJourney #Programming #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #IndiaTech #Engineering #TechLeadership #larsenandtoubro #AI

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Amazon has launched two Think Big AI Skills vans, mobile learning labs that will bring AI and cloud computing education to government school students in Delhi/NCR and Haryana. Reinforcing its commitment to India's skill development vision and expanding equitable access to AI education, Amazon flagged off two AI Skills vans as part of its Think Big initiative. These vans are mobile learning labs designed to bring foundational cloud computing and AI education directly to government school students and communities with limited access to emerging technology resources. Learn more about the announcement here - https://bit.ly/3N12C2b #AmazonIndia #InsideAmazonIndia #Innovation #ArtificialIntelligence

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Announced during the International Women’s Day celebrations at Amazon’s ElevateHER event, the MoU aims to onboard hundreds of AWWA women entrepreneurs onto Amazon.in by 2029 through the Amazon Saheli initiative. The goal is simple but powerful. Enable women from military families to build sustainable businesses through e-commerce. Participants will receive structured training in online selling. This includes inventory management and customer experience delivery. Amazon will also provide logistics access and product visibility through the Saheli storefront. According to Sunita Dwivedi, President AWWA: “We are excited to work with Amazon and help our members turn their entrepreneurial aspirations into sustainable, scalable businesses. Through this MoU, we aim to create new opportunities for women from Army families. We hope this collaboration will enable them to pursue entrepreneurship with greater confidence and connect with customers across the country.” Deepti Varma, Vice President, PXT, Amazon Stores India, Japan and Emerging Markets, added: “We are honoured to partner with AWWA to support women from military families in pursuing entrepreneurship opportunities. At Amazon, we are committed to providing access to markets and the support needed to build sustainable businesses online.” For CX leaders, this partnership highlights an important shift. Customer experience increasingly depends on ecosystem enablement, not just technology. Key Insights CX leaders should note: Platforms shape opportunity. Digital marketplaces remove geographic barriers for entrepreneurs. Seller experience drives customer experience. Empowered sellers create better product variety and service quality. Purpose strengthens platforms. Social impact initiatives build deeper trust with customers and communities. Marketplace diversity improves discovery. Unique products enhance the customer journey. For organizations building digital ecosystems, a few lessons stand out: • Invest in seller or partner enablement programs. • Combine training with logistics and analytics tools. • Highlight authentic entrepreneur stories within the customer journey. • Build platforms that support inclusion alongside growth. https://lnkd.in/gFG3C5ix #CustomerExperience #CXStrategy #DigitalTransformation #WomenEntrepreneurs #EcommerceIndia #PlatformEconomy #MarketplaceStrategy #InclusiveGrowth #CXLeadership #BusinessTransformation

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I am not an IITian, I wasn’t sure what to expect when stepping into the IIT Bay Area Leadership Conference today(https://iitbayconf.org). Instead, I found myself deeply inspired and grateful for the chance to be among such brilliant minds. Most of them are the leaders in AI, healthcare, and venture capital who are truly shaping the future. Listening to the visionaries like Vinod Khosla and Bipul Sinha (Rubrik) and hearing their perspectives was not just an opportunity to learn, but also a moment of reflection for me. It was humbling to be around people who are not just talking about innovation, but living it, leveraging AI to transform how we live, work, and connect. A few personal takeaways: - Building AI agents is everyone job, including companies outside tech, is making this leap. - AI in the digital space feels almost routine now, but hearing about the promises and challenges of physical AI reminded me that real world impact is complex and still unfolding. - Watching Walmart’s aggressive push with AI, and realizing how everyday businesses are transforming, made me reflect on my own journey and aspirations to be part of this wave. In the end, it wasn’t just about knowledge or networking; it was a reminder of how important it is to surround you with big thinkers and embrace the change.

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Product sense is often treated as something mystical that some PMs simply “have.” A useful framing from https://lnkd.in/gTZWZkcD by Shreyas Doshi is that product sense can be decomposed into practices like cognitive empathy, motivation theory, creative execution, and product taste. One way to think about it: you’re training your own internal LLM. The signals you train on ultimately determine the quality of decisions you make. Highly recommend.

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India's listing rush for startups is firing up - and is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. This new wave of IPOs has new investors excited, but many are concerned that, with the sheer influx of IPOs debuting on the market, that it could be a case of quantity over quality. Read the full deep dive on BBC here: https://okt.to/gs8Hbo

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The Persuasive Power of Nondidactic Moral Art in India: How Refusal to Instruct Becomes Ethical Argument This book argues that one of the most persuasive forms of moral art in India is art that refuses to instruct—that refuses moralizing, sermonizing, or direct ethical prescriptions— and instead enacts moral persuasion through ambiguity, dissonance, affective experience, and ethical complexity. Grounded in interdisciplinary theory spanning aesthetics, moral philosophy, postcolonial studies, and cultural sociology, close readings of cinema, literature, theatre, visual art, and new media across modern and contemporary India demonstrate how non-didactic strategies produce deeper ethical engagement and public moral imagination than overtly instructive works. Through microhistories, audience reception studies, archival research, and textual and visual analysis, the book maps mechanisms including perspectival multiplicity, narrative indeterminacy, affective contradiction, and formal rupture, situating them within historical contexts: colonial schooling of moral didacticism, anticolonial moral pedagogy, Nehruvian nation-building narratives, and contemporary globalized publics. The book advances a theoretical framework—the "refusal model" of moral persuasion— and offers methodological tools for measuring persuasiveness beyond explicit ministrations: longitudinal reception analysis, policy traces, intertextual contagion, and civic repertoires. Case studies encompass selected films across Indian and regional cinemas, canonical and marginal literary texts including novels, short fiction, and poetry, performance pieces from street theatre to contemporary stage, visual art installations, and viral digital interventions. The research interrogates normative claims about what moral art should do, proposing instead what art does: creates ethical attention, cultivates shared ambiguities, and enables ethical negotiation.  https://lnkd.in/dYvwWCzD

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About a month ago, I had the opportunity to speak at Redis Delhi, alongside some eminent industry leaders — Suman Guha (Tata CLiQ / Tata Digital), Murali Mohan Chakravarthy (Entain), and Rhythm Goyal (Monotype) My session ran for ~25 minutes and focused on how Redis has evolved far beyond its original role as an in-memory cache, and how teams are using it today to solve modern, large-scale problems. We discussed: - Vector search and its role in modern search systems - Bloom filters for efficiently checking user existence at scale (probability at scale!) - Sorted Sets as a practical primitive for rate limiting - Why in-memory systems like Redis became popular for agentic workflows instead of disk storage, aka GPU runtime costs What stood out the most was the audience—an enthusiastic, well-curated mix of experienced engineers and young, fast-growing talent. The questions and discussions made it a genuinely engaging session. It’s always a pleasure learning and collaborating with Jatin Gupta, Omkar Konnur, Justine Hermoso, and Rakhilaa Rajasheker. Thanks to the Redis Delhi team for having me and everyone who joined 🙌

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"AI agents aren't employees—they're specialized tools with rapidly evolving capabilities." My pet dog khushi is a very gentle Indie dog and she (like any other dog) makes you feel she understand everything including the emotions that fellow humans can not. But when my kids play with her and they get agggresive and uncontrollable. sometimes she leaves a scratch in their hand. The dialog I always repeat, "Do not forget that she is an animal". The same way when we use AI extensively, treat it like a companion at some points it can take you in a completely wrong direction. Thats where I remind myself and anybody complains that AI can put you in trouble, "Do not forget its still a machine". This mindset shift is the foundation of effective AI-age management. In my latest article, I break down why treating AI as team members (rather than understanding them as distinct tools) leads to disappointment and misaligned expectations. The managers thriving in this transition are those who can orchestrate human creativity AND AI capability—not those trying to replace one with the other. Full insights here in the comment. Have you experienced this mindset shift in your own management practice? #Leadership #AITransformation #TechManagement

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Hiring strategy of Indian AI startups in US goes for toss. Shared thoughts on Economic Times Today. Startup founders hire early employees on either O-1 (individuals of extraordinary skills) or H-1B, said Atal Agarwal, founder of San Francisco-based OpenSphere and LegalBridge. “Clearly, they won’t be able to absorb the new cost,” he said. “Remote work might become more prominent among startups now through open platforms. They are unlikely to outsource work to other providers because that's very inefficient and does not align with startup culture.” Article link: https://lnkd.in/gUkhd-MK CC: OpenSphere, LegalBridge #immigration #h1b #america

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This Women’s Day, I joined The Indian Impact Podcast to talk about Slayrobe - and the ethos behind it. At its core, my work is about engineering confidence for women through technology, leadership, and thoughtful systems. But unlike most conversations around fashion, where uncomfortable truths often get buried beneath trends, we spoke about the deeper questions shaping how women experience fashion - and how much agency they actually have within it. We touched upon: 1. The emotional cost of looking good 2. The narrative around body positivity 3. Postpartum and what sparked the idea for Slayrobe 4. The styling algorithm 5. Millennials vs Gen Z 6. Styling principles in action 7. Greenwashing and the sustainability conversation 8. Ethics, morality, and customer centricity (and the lack of it) in fashion Interestingly, Vestiaire Collective recently published research around the psychology of the “nothing to wear” moment - highlighting how emotional triggers and lack of clarity drive much of fashion consumption. It’s a conversation Slayrobe has been carrying since its public launch last year. Because the real problem in fashion isn’t access to clothes. It’s the absence of clarity around what truly works for you. When that clarity is missing, fashion becomes noise. When it exists, fashion becomes a source of agency. It's encouraging to see the industry slowly turning its attention to this quieter space. And fortunately, we caught it early! Thanks Gaurav Lakhwani for creating a platform where Indians across borders can share ideas and have conversations that go beyond the surface.

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Embracing Discomfort: 8 Career Lessons from Google CEO Sundar Pichai 1. Be your own toughest critic – Self-awareness and honest feedback fuel growth. 2. Seek out people who intimidate you – Learn from those who challenge your capabilities. 3. Lean into discomfort – Stretching yourself often reveals strengths you didn’t know you had. 4. Let passion guide your decisions – Following what excites you leads to more fulfillment. 5. Build mission-oriented teams – Success stems from shared purpose and collective drive. 6. Trust before you criticize – A foundation of trust empowers collaboration and resilience. 7. Let recognition come naturally – Focus on impact, and acknowledgment will follow. 8. Remember: wealth is only part of the story – Purpose, growth, and impact matter too . It’s a powerful reminder that real growth starts at the edge of comfort & underscores the importance of humility and reflective leadership, even at scale.

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We come across different #execution styles. One where mountains of work is moved/done in months, but there are others where even to get started takes months. What's the difference? - Org/dept #alignment - when everyone's aligned in the same direction vs. when they're not - #Focus - knowing what not to do is as important as knowing what to do - Well-defined roles and #responsibilities - no ambiguity on who does what, who decides what - Motivated/dedicated #teams - people who believe in the mission move faster - Clear #strategy/aspiration but grounded in realities (the budget, the team, the time, the org structure, what one can influence/change, etc.) The fastest teams don't necessarily have more resources, they just eliminate the friction.

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From biryanis to cell phones and more, how do you serve millions of customers in real time? That’s the question India’s Swiggy is asking themselves each and every day. Using Microsoft Fabric, Swiggy's turning billions of data points from demand spikes to changes in weather into action in seconds. And they're using these AI-driven insights to help optimize operations, improve delivery times, and enhance customer experiences at scale. Ultimately, transforming food delivering across India. Here’s how data, AI and real-time insight come together to deliver efficiency, speed and customer delight one order at a time! https://lnkd.in/gxH5jNgD

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Reflecting on the journey as a co-founder of Embibe - India's leading AI-driven EdTech platform - and following its meteoric trajectory over the years, fills me with immense pride and gratitude. Kudos to Aditi Avasthi Surri and the Embibe team for building something that truly epitomizes "technology for human flourishing". Back when we started building Embibe, AI wasn't the industry buzzword it is today. We were driven by a simple yet powerful vision: democratizing quality education through intelligent technology that could adapt to every student's unique learning journey. While others were focused on digitizing traditional teaching methods, Embibe took a fundamentally different approach by building AI systems that could: ⭐ Analyze individual learning patterns and knowledge gaps ⭐ Provide personalized study paths for millions of students ⭐ Predict performance outcomes and recommend targeted improvements ⭐ Make quality education accessible regardless of geographic or economic barriers What started as an ambitious idea has now impacted millions of students across India, helping them achieve their academic dreams through truly personalized learning experiences. The best part? Embibe was solving real problems with AI when it was still considered "niche technology." Today, as AI transforms every industry, I'm proud of how Embibe has pioneered this space by applying it meaningfully to education - not for the sake of technology, but for genuine human impact. To every entrepreneur building with purpose: sometimes being early to the game means standing alone for a while. But when you're solving real problems for real people, the market eventually catches up to your vision. Here's to the power of education, the potential of AI, and the incredible team that made Embibe a reality.

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🚀 From Synergy to Strategy: Raccha Banda Reflections on AI, Upskilling & the Future of Indian IT Key insights from iFocus WhatsApp Community Last night’s Raccha Banda session was more than just a casual chat—it was a powerful convergence of minds exploring the future of tech, talent, and transformation. 🌟 Post-Mythri Varadhi Event, the mood was electric. In one word, participants described it as: Synergy. Exceptional. Powerful. Awakened. Inspiring. Celebrations ran late, but the energy carried into this session, where reflections turned into actionable insights. 🧭 Political Signals & Strategic Leverage A rare moment of political sincerity emerged. Leaders interest in Tekshetra skill development efforts. This prompted a strategic question: How can we influence leadership to support grassroots tech initiatives? Ideas included: - Promoting efficient developer practices. - Encouraging open-source contributions. - Hosting regular domain and personality development sessions. 🤖 Agentic AI & the Developer Shift The conversation pivoted to the evolving role of developers in the age of Gen AI: - AI is reducing manual coding—some companies now measure how little code humans write. - Prompt engineering and Agentic AI are reshaping workflows. - Traditional programming still matters, especially in legacy systems. Agentic AI Use Cases: - Intelligent query clarification. - Multi-source data integration. - Modular agent orchestration using LangGraph, LangChain, CrewAI. 💼 Rethinking the Indian IT Business Model We proposed a bold shift from hourly billing to value-driven delivery: > “If Agents + Humans deliver in half the time, we should invoice not just for effort—but for the business value saved.” This sparked a candid discussion on: - The limitations of low-cost outsourcing. - Moonlighting trends and developer burnout. - The need for strategic pricing and outcome-based models. 🧘 Work-Life Balance & Community Engagement As the session wrapped, the group emphasized the importance of limiting work hours and staying relevant through continuous learning. The chat was praised as a living archive—“our own suswartham.” 💬 Final Thought > “Came with Energy. Went with Synergy” This session was a reminder: transformation begins with conversation. Let’s keep the momentum going. 🔁 Would love to hear your thoughts—how is your team adapting to Agentic AI and value-based delivery models? AI #AgenticAI #IndianIT #TechLeadership #Upskilling #LangGraph #CrewAI #PromptEngineering #BusinessModelInnovation #iFocusCommunity #RachaBanda iFocus Mission #Tekshetra

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