Technology
Nasscom names Fractal’s Srikanth Velamakanni as chairman
The AI veteran takes the helm of India’s premier tech industry body as artificial intelligence rewrites the rules of the game
NOIDA: India’s technology industry has a new ringmaster. Nasscom, the apex body for a sector worth $250bn, has handed the chairperson’s gavel to Srikanth Velamakanni, co-founder and group chief executive of Fractal Analytics, a man who has spent decades teaching machines to think so that enterprises do not have to.
Velamakanni succeeds Sindhu Gangadharan, managing director of SAP Labs India, who exits after completing her term in April 2026. He is no stranger to Nasscom’s inner workings, having served on its executive council for over six years and occupied the vice chairperson’s seat before his elevation. Alongside the transition, Kishor Patil, co-founder, chief executive and managing director of KPIT Technologies, has been elected as the new vice chairperson.
The appointment follows Nasscom’s standard governance cycle, which rotates the chairperson and vice chairperson roles among senior industry leaders. But the timing is anything but routine.
Velamakanni’s credentials for the role are formidable. An alumnus of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, he co-founded Fractal at a time when artificial intelligence and analytics were barely part of the mainstream business conversation in India, and has since built it into a global AI and decision sciences company serving enterprise clients across retail, financial services, healthcare and technology. Fractal recently listed on the BSE and NSE after raising Rs 2,834 crore through an IPO, giving India’s AI story a rather satisfying stock-market subplot. His career before Fractal was equally rooted in analytics and consulting, with a particular focus on data science-led business models within India’s IT services ecosystem.
At Nasscom, he has long been a fixture in discussions on emerging technologies, digital transformation and innovation-led growth, contributing to the body’s governance and policy advisory structures. He has also been a voice in India’s AI policy circles and national security discussions, useful credentials at a moment when sovereign AI has become something of a geopolitical obsession.
The agenda he inherits is punishing: accelerate AI-led services transformation, build India into a global hub for agentic and multi-agent AI systems, deepen semiconductor and AI infrastructure capabilities, and somehow produce a workforce that can keep pace with all of the above.
Velamakanni struck a characteristically measured note. “AI progress is unlocking unprecedented opportunities for enterprises, large and small, to reimagine their businesses,” he said, with the quiet confidence of a man who has been making precisely this argument since before it was fashionable.
Nasscom president Rajesh Nambiar described him as a rare combination of entrepreneurial drive and AI depth. Gangadharan, for her part, was gracious in departure. “I am confident that Srikanth will take this agenda to its next stage of impact,” she said.
The baton has passed to a man who helped write the playbook on AI in India. The pressure, as ever in tech, is entirely on.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
