Winner. Business Leader of the Year 2022

Vivek Adarsh

Position: Founder and CEO
Company: AviAI Inc.
City: Goleta, California
Country: USA
Economic/Business Sector: Technology/Software

Dr. Adarsh is an internationally recognized scientist with a proven track in the domain of AI/ML. By solving critical pain points for the industry, he not only is disrupting the industry but also impacting millions of passengers every single year who complain of horrific air travel experiences. While Dr. Adarsh could have chosen any industry given his deep technical background, he chose this vertical due to his own passion for aviation coupled with the drive to change what the future of air travel will look like in 20 years.

Dr. Vivek Adarsh earned his Ph.D. and Master's in Computer Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara. There he worked on advanced AI systems for high-speed networks. It was during his Ph.D. that he invented the self-healing AI network, which is the core technology that drives AviAI's product.

He leads product development and business development at AviAI Inc. He is credited with onboarding two of the largest airlines in the world as customers - a rare feat by a travel tech CEO.

He assembled a world-class team of data scientists and aviation executives as advisors at AviAI, which is an incredible achievement within a year of operations at AviAI.

Dr. Adarsh has contributed significantly to the scientific community, as evidenced by his numerous peer-reviewed scientific papers and patents.

In addition, he has worked with and consulted for big tech companies such as Google, HPE, and Nvidia. He has been invited to speak on the application of AI systems to various verticals by large corporations in the past.

Dr. Adarsh has served on multiple technical program committees and has reviewed scientific papers from academia and the technology industry.

Two of Dr. Adarsh's projects have been integrated into production at one of the largest tech firms in the world.

Dr. Vivek Adarsh, as the Founder and CEO of AviAI Inc., is revolutionizing the aviation industry through data-driven and AI solutions. Airlines have used obsolete and legacy software for the last 60 years, so Dr. Adarsh is one of the first innovators to introduce data-driven decision-making in the aviation industry. This novel application of AI to solve critical pain points in aviation leads to better flight operations and significantly reduces baggage mishandling for passengers.

Dr. Vivek Adarsh has been integral in the continued traction and success of AviAI Inc. Here are some of his recent achievements:

• Dr. Adarsh single-handedly signed two of the largest airlines in the world to be customers (very rare for startups). Additionally, he led the end-to-end contract process and convinced one of the largest airlines to advance pay the company before the project's installation - a true sign of a great sales leader;

• Led AviAI to be selected by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as the face of digital transformation for the aviation industry (they selected 5 teams out of 103 participants) - this is a highly selective and coveted program by an aviation regulatory body. It is the first industry-owned travel tech program where airlines and startups converge for innovation. Due to Dr. Adarsh's efforts, AviAI is now fully sponsored by IATA, an achievement rarely achieved by aerospace startups;

• Led the company to be selected by the world's largest aerospace accelerator - Starburst. Starburst's SCALE program is one of the most important programs for AviAI since aviation/aerospace-related platforms are few across the world, and Starburst is commonly regarded as the holy grail for aviation startups;

• Dr. Adarsh's pitching effort (and 2 rounds of screening) enabled AviAI to be selected by Berkeley SkyDeck - one of the most reputed and largest accelerators in the US.