MAM
Leadership changes at Rediffusion Y&R and Everest
MUMBAI: In a move to strengthen its leadership, Rediffusion Y&R has elevated Kavita Kailas as the new chief strategy officer as well as promoted Prithviraj Banerjee as the strategy planning head at Everest Brand Solutions. This is in addition to his current role.
Speaking on the development Rediffusion Y&R president Dhunji S Wadia said, “For quite some time Gautam Talwar has been nurturing the idea of pursuing interests beyond advertising. And I think the time has come to allow him to follow his passions. So after a hard working stint Gautam is taking a well-deserved break before deciding what his next chapter should be. I thank him for all his help and support and wish him the very best in whatever he chooses to do.”
On Kailas’ elevation, who has been heading the strategic planning function across Delhi, Kolkata and Southern operations, Dhunji said, “She is meant for this role. Kavita has a great love of our business, our clients and our people that infuses all that she does. Unleashing her enthusiasm and her expertise will make a real difference in how we serve our clients.”
On Banerjee, he added, “Prithvi’s passion for our agency, his intellectual curiosity and integrity, along with his deep collaborative way of working will make a difference to our clients and to our agency.”
MUMBAI: Apple just folded a photonics startup into its empire because when you’re building the future of light, sometimes you need to acquire the blueprint. Apple has quietly acquired key assets from invrs.io, a small AI-focused photonics startup, and brought its founder and sole employee, Martin Schubert, on board, according to a regulatory filing submitted to the European Union in October 2025.
The filing reveals that Apple would take over certain assets from invrs.io while hiring Schubert, a research scientist with prior stints at Meta, Google, and Micron Technology, where he worked on advanced display, semiconductor, and optical technologies.
Invrs.io specialised in open-source frameworks for photonics research, the science of controlling and manipulating light, critical to cameras, sensors, LiDAR, and displays across Apple’s ecosystem. The startup’s tools used AI-guided design to accelerate optical system simulation, optimisation, and benchmarking, aiming to make complex engineering more accessible to AI researchers and hardware developers.
Apple has not disclosed specific plans for integrating the technology, but the acquisition points to deeper ambitions in hardware-level AI. Enhanced light-based modelling could refine camera performance in iPhones and iPads, boost sensor accuracy in wearables, optimise spatial computing in Vision Pro, and advance next-generation displays and LiDAR systems.
Though modest compared with Apple’s blockbuster deals, the move underscores the company’s push to embed AI not just in software but in the physical foundations of its devices. As custom silicon and on-device AI accelerate, photonics expertise at the intersection of light and intelligence could prove a key differentiator.
For a company that once revolutionised screens with Retina displays, quietly snapping up a photonics innovator feels like the next logical step ensuring the light inside Apple’s world shines brighter, sharper, and smarter than ever.
