Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Panel: "Business Opportunities in Emerging Markets"


Vivek Pahwa,
Founder - Accentium Web Pvt Ltd


Vivek Pahwa, CEO, Accentium Web Pvt Ltd Group Company for Secondshaadi.com and gaadi.com recently won the Asia’s Best Young Entrepreneurs 2008 Award by Business Week. Competing with 25 other nominees, Pahwa was one of the only 2 Indians who made it to the final round and the first Indian to win the award.

Pahwa started his entrepreneurial journey by creating India’s first social networking web portal Desimartini.com, which he later sold to HT media, in November 2007. He then created Secondshaadi.com - a matchmaking site for divorced people, which is now India’s No.1 matrimonial website for remarriages. He launched the third website this year - Gaadi.com, which focusses on new and used car sales. Within just five months of its existence Gaadi.com is the No. 2 automobile Web site in India, wherein people can buy and sell used cars and has already sparked the interest of car makers.

Pahwa is an alumnus of Indian School of Business, Hyderabad


Anand Shah,
Co-Founder and Executive Director - Indicorps

Anand Shah is Co-Founder and Executive Director of Indicorps in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. After graduating from Harvard College in 1999, Shah helped start the Media and Technology Charter High school in Boston. In 2001, he helped found Indicorps, where he currently manages programmes and overall strategy from Ahmedabad. Indicorps is an effort to promote and legitimise civic participation in India's development by engaging young Indians from around the world in grassroots development projects across India. In the process, Indicorps aims to nurture the leadership potential of each participant. Indicorps, through its operating philosophy, aims to show that it is the commitment and time of India's most talented minds, not just financial resources that will drive effective development. Shah also serves as CEO of the Piramal Foundation, an innovative private foundation dedicated to developing the social infrastructure to enable India's youth to actively participate in national progress. In addition, he is a member of the tt30, the Club of Rome's young think tank; was selected as a Reinhard Mohn Fellow; and serves on the board of KaosPilot International, a European school of creative business design and social innovation.