An innovator, researcher, professor, and entrepreneur, Venkata Duvvuri is the Founder of Siriusmindshare labs, an AI research company, and a Director of data science at Oracle corporation. Venkata has been a director at four different companies (some of them Fortune 100) and an architect at another two, including his current role at IBM, leaving a big impact on this world.
He loves contributing not just to one organization but to society as a whole. Using Apple’s penchant for thinking differently, Venkata practices “think-different.”
Educated and trained to be an entrepreneur and a leader
Venkata is a proven leader with an extensive background in computer science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. He is pursuing a Doctorate (in the final stages) at Purdue University, and his creative juices led him to believe that well-rounded research is only complete with a product offering on Venkata’s thesis topic.
Enthusiastic entrepreneurship begins
Initially, Venkata was an Electronics Engineering student who adopted a challenging path after six years of studying the same subject. He changed Electronics Engineering to computer science, propelling him to research in this field and gain a seat in a few Fortune 100 companies. His motivation to continue in this field even after his M.B.A. (at UC Davis) is Venkata’s desire to be an all-in-one entrepreneur like many in Silicon Valley. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), Venkata wasted no time here in SV, and Venkata’s still in the same area after 24 years. Within the next few months, he’ll celebrate his Silver Jubilee there and be proud of his innovations and contributions in Silicon Valley.
Start with a mission-driven idea and concept
“The idea comes from the need to democratize AI from large enterprises to small ones. In this journey, we discovered several other use cases that helped us get there with collaborations from other SaaS (Software as a Service) enterprise products, with APIs as a service to these partners,” says Venkata.
Starting phase hurdles – Most influential for Venkata
The biggest hurdle is getting the right set of people to build on your vision, whether it be employees or advisors. Venkata’s father was a general manager at a multinational organization and an entrepreneur who helped him lose his inhibition and apathy toward entrepreneurship.
A Pivotal Moment
Venkata’s pivotal moment was the dot-com boom while he was still at Umass, which led him to believe that life has more pleasures than he could imagine. Ironically, this burst when he came to Silicon Valley, which tremendously helped him become more pragmatic. This behavior continues in his role as a part-time founder of SiriusMindShare, a research and enterprise AI product startup.
Octo: An IBM Company
Octo (a subsidiary of IBM) engages in the digital transformation of various government organizations. Unlike typical government organizations, the government emphasizes catching up with the most remarkable innovations while staying on track with accountability and process. Being part of the DTC (Digital Transformation Center) is a key focus of Venkata.
SiriusMindShare: An AI Enterprise Group
SiriusMindShare is an AI Enterprise group with cutting-edge research in its genes. The company is an ideation lab digitizing small to medium businesses.
SiriusMindShare developed contAIn Enterprise AI, an application meant for SMBs (small to medium businesses) like Law firms, CPA firms, and many more. The offering helps SMBs with email marketing with AI, leveraging generative AI solutions, allowing small businesses to reach customers without much manual intervention. Their flagship “white-glove plan“ helps to achieve this goal relatively at a lower cost.
Today’s challenge for leaders
“The pressing challenge for leaders is to build a value system in their organizations that is compatible with the need to contribute to society. For example, bottled water is not a new product, but the many innovations in this product have fulfilled the self-realization and societal needs to move up in the band nobility in life. Every employee must simultaneously move up the plane of spirituality and the corporate ladder,” expresses Venkata.
The most crucial aspects that every leader should possess
According to Venkata, a leader’s most vital characteristic is building trust with the people they interact with. As the leader climbs the leadership ladder, the interaction set of people becomes more in number and fewer in person. So, trust is the only way to make others buy into your ideas directly or indirectly.
Venkata’s responsibilities as an influential and dynamic leader
“As an entrepreneur, trial and error is the most essential endeavor. Not all visions come true immediately, but every failure contributes to learning the next successful one,” says Venkata.
“As an entrepreneur, I’m more of a generalist with efforts to raise funds, mitigate risk, shape the organization, and develop and amend the vision. My team executes the plan, and I get to review it with the few who love to see it,” he continues.
Way to Achieve Work-Life Balance, Personal Goals and Leadership
“Work-life balance comes with the advancement of technology and the gig economy. So many chores are now outsourced with so-called “tigers,” and this relieves both my family and me from mundane tasks. We focus on work and research, and our lifestyle is a blend of the old and new generations. I like to take frequent traveling trips, like our upcoming plans, to see yet another “wonder of the world” and visit Europe to see some castles,” asserts Venkata.
Future Roadmap
“In the next two years, we want to beef up our product lineup with generative AI solutions and line up adoption with several small to medium businesses. We also like to cut to the chase by serving the needs of intermediatory SaaS companies that have already penetrated this space with APIs and are seeking our help to make it AI-ready quickly,” assures Venkata.
