Mahesh Murthy | |
|---|---|
 Mahesh Murthy in February 2015 | |
| Born | 11 September 1965 |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Alma mater | Osmania University |
| Occupations | |
| Notable work | Columns in WSJ , [1] Business Today [2] |
Mahesh Murthy (born 11 September 1965) is an Indian marketer, entrepreneur, and investor. [1] He is the founder of the digital agency Pinstorm. [3]
Mahesh Murthy was born and raised in a Tamil Brahmin family. His father served in the Indian Army and retired as a colonel. [4] Murthty was accepted into Osmania University to study chemical engineering, from where he dropped out at the age of 17. [5] [6]
After leaving college, he worked as a vacuum cleaner salesman for Eureka Forbes and subsequently founded his first company, a cleaning service called Vaclean. [1] [5]
He worked for the advertising agency FCB (then FCB/Ulka) and Grey Advertising (then Trikaya Grey) in India, where he won multiple advertising awards for his work on HCL, Network and other clients. [1] [7]
He then moved to Ogilvy & Mather, Hong Kong as a creative head for clients across Asia. [1] [8] While at Hong Kong, in 1993, he wrote and directed a set of six films for MTV with Shashanka Ghosh, [9] for which they won the New Directors Showcase award at the Cannes Lions. [10]
He then moved to CKS Partners in Portland as Creative Director and General Manager, [11] where he worked on the first graphical UI for Yahoo!, and later led the work on the web design as well as advertising for Amazon.com's "Earth's Biggest Bookstore" campaign. [1] [12]
He then went moved from advertising to e-commerce, as vice president of marketing for iCat, [1] [13] the Seattle-based publisher of e-commerce software that was acquired by Intel. [14]
Murthy then was hired from the US and returned to India to run the rival to MTV, an Indian music television channel called Channel V. [1] [5] He acted as the General Manager for India and also helped create and launch its community youth site, vIndia.com. [1] [15]
In 2000, Murthy founded an angel fund, Passionfund, which funded companies such as Compassbox, Tulleeho, WebDunia, Geodesic and EBSDirect. [1] [16]
Murthy wrote columns for Business Today and BusinessWorld . [17] He also wrote columns in the Wall Street Journal . [1] Mahesh was an entrepreneur-in-residence at global business school INSEAD, where he taught entrepreneurship.
In 2004, he founded the digital marketing firm Pinstorm. [1] [18] [19] Pinstorm is headquartered in Bombay, India, with offices in Amsterdam, Netherlands and Kathmandu, Nepal. [18] Pinstorm was among the world's first advertising firms to implement pay-for-performance advertising. [18]
In 2006, he co-founded the early-stage venture capital fund Seedfund which funded and advised companies including RedBus, CarWale, SabKaDentist, Chumbak and Sportskeeda. [1] [20] [21] Seedfund was awarded "India's best VC fund" at the Venture Intelligence awards for its first fund in 2009 and also for its second fund in 2013. [20]
He was chosen as a "LinkedIn Power Profile" for India in 2012. [22] He was also chosen as a "Top Writer" by Quora in 2014.
In 2014, his firm Pinstorm did work for the Aam Aadmi Party. [23] [24] Subsequently, there was a sudden spate of sexual harassment allegations against him, filed before the National Commission of Women, an organisation managed by the ruling party in India. Mahesh denied all allegations. [25] The Mumbai Police registered a case against him, which was subsequently quashed by the Mumbai High Court. [26]
Mahesh also opposed the Facebook Free Basics plan in India for free browsing offered to poor people only on sites approved by Facebook, which he termed "digital colonization". [27] [28] He helped drive a strong ground-up movement that eventually led to India's telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) outlawing it and Facebook dropping its plans – not just in India, but elsewhere as well. [29] [30]
Mahesh has recently announced his investments in the new space ecosystem. In 2017, he invested in Exseed Space, later renamed Satellize, a company that created history by launching India's first-ever private satellite to space, on board SpaceX. [31] Exseed Space has since launched on ISRO's PSLV as well and was chosen by ISRO as one of the companies chosen to assemble, integrate and test its large, 2,000 kilogram and greater satellites. [32] Exseed Space has been part of the team that helped a consortium build GSAT-30, GSAT-31 and RISAT 1A, which launched in 2021. [32]
India's telecommunication network is the second largest in the world by number of telephone users with over 1.20 billion subscribers as of August 2024. It has one of the lowest call tariffs in the world enabled by multiple large-scale telecom operators and the ensuant hyper-competition between them. India has the world's second largest Internet user-base with over 949.21 million broadband internet subscribers as of August 2024.
The Indian National Satellite System or INSAT, is a series of multipurpose geostationary satellites launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to satisfy telecommunications, broadcasting, meteorology, and search and rescue operations. Commissioned in 1983, INSAT is the largest domestic communication system in the Indo-Pacific Region. It is a joint venture of the Department of Space, Department of Telecommunications, India Meteorological Department, All India Radio and Doordarshan. The overall coordination and management of INSAT system rests with the Secretary-level INSAT Coordination Committee.
Indian Space Research Organisation is India's national space agency. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), overseen by the Prime Minister of India, with the Chairman of ISRO also serving as the chief executive of the DoS. It is primarily responsible for space-based operations, space exploration, international space cooperation and the development of related technologies. The agency maintains a constellation of imaging, communication and remote sensing satellites. It operates the GAGAN and IRNSS satellite navigation systems. It has sent three missions to the Moon and one mission to Mars.
Stephen T. Jurvetson is an American billionaire businessman and venture capitalist. Formerly a partner of the firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), he was an early investor in Hotmail, Memphis Meats, Mythic and Nervana Systems. He is currently a board member of SpaceX among others. He later co-founded the firm Future Ventures with Maryanna Saenko, who worked with him at DFJ.
Mylswamy Annadurai is an Indian scientist working as vice president for Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology, Chairman, Board of Governors, National Design and Research Forum. He is often dubbed as the "Moon Man of India".
Antrix Corporation Limited is an Indian state-owned Aerospace company, headquartered in Bangalore, India, under the administrative control of the Department of Space. It was incorporated in September 1992, as a commercial and marketing arm of ISRO by prompting, commercially delivering and marketing products and services emanating from ISRO. It provides major technical consultancy services and transfers technologies to industry.
The Launch Vehicle Mark-3 or LVM3 is a three-stage medium-lift launch vehicle developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Primarily designed to launch communication satellites into geostationary orbit, it is also due to launch crewed missions under the Indian Human Spaceflight Programme. LVM3 has a higher payload capacity than its predecessor, GSLV.
Tata Play is an Indian subscription-based satellite television (DTH) service provider using MPEG-4 digital compression technology, transmitting using INSAT-4A GSAT-10 and GSAT-24 satellites. Incorporated in 2005, it currently offers 630+ channels, 543 SD channels and 91 HD channels and services, along with many other value added services. Tata Play is the largest DTH service provider in India. As of March 2023, according to TRAI Tata Play serves 21.3 million subscribers which is 32.65% of total DTH users in India.
Hakuto (ハクト) or formerly White Label Space (ホワイトレーベルスペース) was a team formed in early 2008 by a group of experienced space professionals inspired by the challenge of the Google Lunar X PRIZE to develop a robotic Moon exploration mission.
Direct-to-Home (DTH) television is a method of receiving satellite television by means of signals transmitted from direct-broadcast satellites. The Government of India (GoI) permitted the reception and distribution of satellite television signals in November 2000. The first DTH service in the country was launched by Dish TV on 2 October 2003. DD Free Dish, the first free DTH service in India, was launched by public broadcaster Prasar Bharati in December 2004.
Internet.org is a partnership between social networking services company Meta Platforms and six companies that plans to bring affordable access to selected Internet services to less developed countries by increasing efficiency, and facilitating the development of new business models around the provision of Internet access. The app delivering these services was renamed Free Basics in September 2015. As of April 2018, 100 million people were using internet.org.
Vipul Goyal is an Indian stand-up comedian and actor. He is counted among the top comedy performers in India and also plays the main protagonist in the web-series Humorously Yours. The show is produced by The Viral Fever and depicts a semi-autobiographical account of his life interspersed with standup clips. Vipul is the only Indian comedian with a dedicated show of his own, with more than 70 million views on his online videos across various platforms. The show revolves around his struggles of becoming a comedian and season 2 depicts the life after his success. He is often called the Indian Seinfeld as he does some observational comedy.
Mechanisms for establishing rules ensuring net neutrality in India, are at present mainly enforced by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). At present, there are no specific legislation regarding Net Neutrality in India.
Nikhil Pahwa is an Indian journalist, digital rights activist, and founder of MediaNama, a mobile and digital news portal. He has been a key commentator on stories and debates around Indian digital media companies, censorship and Internet and mobile regulation in India.
Mars Lander Mission (MLM) or Mangalyaan-2, is a proposed second mission to Mars by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
Dhruva Space Private Limited is an Indian private aerospace manufacturer headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana. Founded in 2012 by Sanjay Srikanth Nekkanti, the company is engaged in the development of small satellites in the commercial, governmental and academic markets. It provides full-stack space-engineering solutions across launch, space and ground segments – namely, the building, launching and operation of satellites.
ISRO Satellite Integration and Testing Establishment (ISITE) is an integrated satellite testing facility established under the aegis of ISRO Satellite Center by Indian Space Research Organisation in 2006. Started with an area of 1000 sq ft. at the time when the Aryabhatta satellite was launched, the testing facility is spread over 100-acre and can integrate and test six satellites of the INSAT class at different stages simultaneously: 2 communications, 2 remote sensing and 2 foreign satellites. The investment on the facility is so far about Rs 220 crore and ISRO plans to make a further investment of Rs 100 crore. The facility has also carried out vibration and acoustic tests of Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft.
Skyroot Aerospace Private Limited is an Indian private aerospace manufacturer and commercial launch service provider headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana. The company was founded by former engineers and scientists from ISRO. It aims to develop and launch its own series of small-lift launch vehicles especially crafted for the small satellite market.
Satellize is the first private Indian company to have a satellite in space. In December 2018, their first satellite was launched into space via SpaceX. They launched their second satellite, AISAT for a customer, AMSAT India on board the fourth stage of the PSLV-C45.