Generative AI is rewriting the rules. From how we code to how we create, from business workflows to entire industries- this wave isn’t just another tech trend, it’s a full-blown shift in how we think, build, and innovate. And behind this revolution are a handful of pioneers– founders who’ve not only kept up with the pace, but defined it.
Each of them brings a unique blend of technical brilliance, bold vision, and hard-earned real-world insight. From India’s first multilingual foundation models to cutting-edge agent ecosystems and global AI education platforms, their work is shaping the future of AI in ways that truly matter.
And these very minds building this future- the founders, the visionaries, the ones pushing boundaries before they even hit mainstream- will be at the DataHack Summit 2025. They’ll be walking the halls, answering your questions, and sharing the kind of behind-the-scenes wisdom that doesn’t show up in blog posts or research papers; sharing, discussing, brainstorming. You’ll hear their raw, unfiltered takes during sessions, sure- but then you’ll grab a coffee, turn, and suddenly you’re deep in conversation with someone who just rewired how LLMs interact with memory or scaled a startup solving real-world AI alignment problems.
This kind of proximity is rare. You’re not just attending a summit- you’re entering a room full of trailblazers who are open to questions, eager to exchange ideas, and just as curious about your journey as you are about theirs.
It’s these moments: 1:1 chats, spontaneous brainstorms, impromptu meetups- that spark the real growth. You’ll leave with not just notes, but new perspectives, stronger connections, and maybe even your next mentor, collaborator, or cofounder.
So if you’ve ever wanted to really understand where AI is headed- not just in theory, but in the messy, brilliant details- DataHack Summit 2025 is where you need to be.
Here’s a list of founders you should absolutely look forward to meeting at the DataHack Summit 2025.
Table of contents
Joshua Starmer, PhD
He is the founder and CEO of StatQuest with Josh Starmer, a wildly popular YouTube channel where he breaks down statistics, machine learning, and AI with clarity and charm. Most recently, he launched a free course with DeepLearning.AI on attention mechanisms in Transformers, packed with PyTorch code examples, marking another milestone in his mission to “make BAM happen” for learners. He also wrapped up his new book StatQuest Illustrated Guide to Neural Networks and AI, complete with hands-on tutorials in PyTorch due for release in January.
Before building his online teaching empire, Joshua earned his PhD from North Carolina State University and sharpened his skills in biostatistics and clinical studies alongside his father, a veteran in those fields. He then pivoted to full-time content creation: explaining PCA, neural networks, and more through easy-to-follow videos and public workshops like the one at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. With a PhD under his belt and years of teaching experience, Joshua continues to empower learners worldwide with his signature friendly tone and the trademark “BAM!” And not to forget, he always has his ukulele with him.
Luis Serrano
He is the Founder and Chief Education Officer of Serrano Academy in Toronto and is the author of Grokking Machine Learning. He actively creates content for his popular YouTube channel, Coursera courses (like “Calculus for Machine Learning & Data Science”), and a new book on ML, helping learners worldwide navigate complex topics with clear explanations. His youtube channel consists of simple analogies and visuals that cement foundational ML concepts for those who want to level up from beginner to pro.
Before diving into quantum AI, Luis held tech and education roles at Apple (as lead AI educator) and Udacity (head of AI/Data Science content). A trained mathematician and competitive IMO participant for Colombia, he earned his BSc and MSc at the University of Waterloo, completed a PhD in Mathematics at the University of Michigan, and did an NSERC postdoc at Université de Québec à Montréal. His deep love for math and clear teaching style shine through in everything he creates and every project he takes on.
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Miguel Otero Pedrido
He began his journey with deep dives into quantum field theory and the geometry of spacetime during his undergrad and master’s studies. After shifting from theoretical physics to data science, he built full-stack machine learning systems, often focusing on e-commerce personalisation for fashion retailers. Today, he’s the founder of The Neural Maze, where he creates courses and content on LLMOps, agents, end-to-end AI pipelines, and his YouTube channel has over 7,000 subscribers.
He shares hands-on, production-ready tutorials that go beyond hype, collaborating with peers like Paul Iusztin to launch courses on building real AI agent systems. Miguel regularly posts about “climbing into AI” step-by-step, recommending foundational books and routines that shaped his journey. His content resonates with the followers, who often credit him for helping land AI roles, calling his style “less hype, more real AI”. From quantum theory to AI engineering, Miguel mixes strong academic roots with practical, hands-on teaching and continues to build for real-world impact.
Find more details on his DHS session and workshop here.
Qingyun Wu
She is the founder and CEO of AG2, a multi-agent collaboration platform that recently became generally available on Google’s Agent Engine after being highlighted at Google Cloud Next 2025. Before launching AG2 (formerly called AutoGen), she co-created one of the first multi-agent frameworks and taught a popular DeepLearning.AI Coursera course: AI Agentic Design Patterns with AutoGen. She has presented on multi‑agent collaboration at major AI summits, showing how agents can brainstorm, monitor each other, and work together in real systems.
Qingyun holds a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Virginia and has a strong academic background in AI and engineering. She’s been active in open-source circles, helping grow the AutoGen/AG2 community. She is an assistant professor at Penn State University and also serves as an instructor at DeepLearning.AI, bringing a thoughtful, research-driven approach to every design and release. With her mix of academic rigor and product focus, Qingyun Wu is shaping what practical, real-world multi-agent AI looks like.
Checkout her session and workshop details here.
Pratyush Kumar
He is the co-founder of Sarvam AI, a deep‑tech startup building India-first generative AI systems. His team recently launched Sarvam-M, a 24‑billion-parameter model fine-tuned for reasoning, coding, and ten Indian languages, which has drawn attention for potentially matching or outperforming open-source rivals. Sarvam also released Samvaad, an enterprise-ready conversational AI platform supporting 11 Indian languages, optimized for cost and low latency. The company secured nearly $54 million in funding, including a $41 million Series A in under two years, and was chosen by the Government of India under the IndiaAI Mission to build sovereign LLMs.
Pratyush is a PhD graduate in Computer Engineering from ETH Zurich and holds dual B.Tech and M.Tech degrees in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay. His research career spans IBM Research, Microsoft Research, and a faculty member at IIT Madras, where he also co‑founded AI4Bharat and PadhAI to boost accessible AI education. He frequently speaks at top industry forums like NASSCOM and AccelAI, where he shares insights on scaling GenAI responsibly for India’s diverse population.
Krishna Kumar Tiwari
He is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Whilter.AI, a Bengaluru‑based startup that empowers brands with AI-powered personalized video and graphic content at scale. Before Whilter, he founded Formulate AI, and serves as a Mentor of Change at NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission. He’s also the brains behind ML AI Community, a 40‑under‑40 recognized data-science group, and sits on the advisory board of the AI Forum. With over 16 years of experience, Krishna has led AI efforts in companies like Jio, InMobi, Samsung R&D, and Oracle.
Krishna earned his M.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Guwahati. Through the ML AI Community, he mentors aspiring data scientists and holds a Geoffrey Hinton Fellowship for his contributions to the field. His passion lies in bridging research and real-world impact, whether scaling AI in telecom and e-commerce, mentoring government innovation, or empowering India’s next-gen AI professionals.
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Kunal Jain
He is the founder & CEO of Analytics Vidhya, which is India’s largest community for analytics and data science professionals. He built the platform from scratch, turning it into a go-to destination for related articles, hackathons, and learning resources for over 5 million registered users. Under his leadership, Analytics Vidhya also runs popular training programs and competitions that help thousands of students and early-career data scientists grow.
Before starting Analytics Vidhya, Kunal earned his Integrated B.Tech and M.Tech from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) where he gained strong foundations in engineering and tech. Over the years, he’s shaped the data science landscape in India by mentoring learners, sharing his insights at conferences, and working closely with educators and industry partners. His goal has always been to make data science education accessible and community-driven.
Mohsin Hasan Khan
He is the co-founder of NeuralHQ.ai, a London-based startup focused on building practical AI agents that can reason, use tools, and execute workflows efficiently. He’s a Kaggle Grandmaster and has topped the Analytics Vidhya leaderboard, demonstrating strong performance in machine learning competitions. At events like DataHack Summit, Mohsin shares live demos and insights into building agent-based systems, drawing on his experience in both research and hands-on ML engineering.
Mohsin earned his B.Tech from IIT Kanpur, where he gained foundational skills in computer science and machine learning. Before co-founding NeuralHQ.ai, he gained experience working on complex ML systems, and he’s now building a growing open-source agent framework, publishing code on GitHub and engaging with the AI community in London and globally. His journey reflects a blend of competitive data science, practical ML engineering, and entrepreneurial innovation, all aimed at making intelligent agents accessible and efficient.
Vijay Gabale
He is the co‑founder & Chief Product Officer at Infilect, where he leads the development of InfiViz, an advanced image-recognition platform used by retailers like Unilever, Kraft Heinz, and Procter & Gamble. Announced at DataHack Summit 2025 and featured in Vijay’s recent LinkedIn post, InfiViz now integrates generative and agentic AI for “next-best-actions,” real-time shelf fixes, and automatic order generation, helping field teams act fast and accurately.
He earned his PhD from IIT Bombay, where he specialized in wireless platforms and AI systems and holds experience in research through presentations like keynote at the Heidelberg Laureate Forum in Germany. Vijay also completed an internship at IBM Research, which gave him early exposure to industry-level challenges. Outside of Infilect, he’s actively shaping the AI and data-science community, regularly sharing his knowledge at industry events and mentoring upcoming professionals.
Conclusion
These founders aren’t just building tools and companies- they’re building the future of AI. Their insights can spark new ideas, clarify tough concepts, and show you what it really takes to innovate in this space. And the best part? You don’t need to chase them across podcasts or social media- you can interact with all of them in one place: DataHack Summit 2025.
Whether you’re hoping to ask questions, get career advice, or just hear what’s coming next in GenAI, this is your moment. From hands-on workshops to live demos, the summit offers a rare chance to learn directly from the people who are shaping the next wave of AI breakthroughs. Don’t miss it. These are the conversations that could change how you think and build with AI.
See you at the DataHack Summit 2025!
With a career spanning 5 years, Swati has worked with top institutions to curate content for them.
A software engineer, data science enthusiast, and a stickler for grammar who always jumps at every chance to explore food, life, and mysterious theories. A Potterhead with a passion for Psychology, she is always up for learning new theories on life. She finds herself amused with books, podcasts, and vlogs that add value to life.
