Aki Wijesundara is an AI leader with a PhD in Machine Learning and extensive experience mentoring startups at Google’s AI Accelerator. With a career spanning both research and applied AI, Aki has taught 5,000+ students worldwide how to design and deploy production-ready AI systems.

He has worked across cutting-edge areas of applied AI, from LangChain and RAG pipelines to observability and large-scale deployment. As a researcher and educator, Aki bridges the gap between theory and practice, making complex systems approachable and actionable for engineers, founders, and product leaders.

Aki is also a frequent speaker and advisor to organizations adopting AI, helping them transition from experimentation to production at scale.

Career highlights

• Ex–Google AI Accelerator researcher focused on responsible AI and applied ML.
• PhD in AI & Cognitive Systems with published research across top universities.
• Former researcher with teams affiliated with MIT, University of Oxford, & King’s College London.
• Co-founder of Snapdrum — delivered AI systems for finance, education, and healthcare.
• Built and deployed AI product pipelines used by PMs, startups, and enterprise teams.
• Instructor for multiple AI builder programs, helping 500+ professionals ship AI features fast.

Manu Jayawardana is a serial entrepreneur with multiple AI startup successes. He exited Rise AI, a fintech app with over 35,000 users, to a private investor, demonstrating his ability to build and scale impactful products.

He co-founded Snapdrum, delivering enterprise AI systems and scaling paid acquisition engines that drove 5,000+ premium customers.

He is also Co-Founder & CEO of Krybe, a London-based Voice AI startup serving 1,000+ users and part of the NVIDIA Inception ecosystem. With a background in quant finance and AI engineering, he operates at the intersection of AI, distribution, and execution.

Career highlights

• Exited Founder, Rise AI — Built an AI investment copilot (35,000+ users) trained on 1,300+ financial sources; exited to a private investor.
• Co-Founder, Snapdrum — Delivered enterprise AI agents and high-ticket growth systems; scaled funnels to 5,000+ customers.
• Co-Founder & CEO, Krybe — Built a production-grade Voice AI platform serving 1,000+ users; part of NVIDIA Inception.
• Creator of the #1 ranked Investment GPT on the OpenAI Store with 30,000+ users.
• B2B SaaS Analytics CEO — Scaled revenue 10× in one year, serving 5,000+ users.
• Entrepreneur First Unlock Fellow (2024) — Selected for high-potential deep-tech founders.
• AI Systems & Growth Architect — Built and scaled 10+ ventures across AI and SaaS.