Startup World Cup
Nepal Regional 2022

Biggest Startup competition in Nepal

Chairperson, Natiional Assembly

Rt. Hon. Ganesh Prasad Timilsina

Chief Secretary

Mr. Shanker Das Bairagi

Mr. Shanker Das Bairagi assumed the responsibility of the 25th Chief Secretary of the Government of Nepal on 1st October, 2020. Mr. Bairagi had been in the position of the Foreign Secretary since October 2015 and even prior to that, he had been the Acting/Officiating Foreign Secretary since February 2014, making it his seven years of service in that important position. He possesses over three decades of experience working as a civil servant. Mr. Bairagi was Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Nepal to the United Nations Office, World Trade Organization and other International Organizations in Geneva as well as international organizations based in Vienna and Rome from February 2012 to November 2013. During the same period, he served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Nepal to the Swiss Confederation with concurrent accreditation to the Republic of Italy. As Nepal’s Ambassador to WTO, Mr. Bairagi was entrusted with the responsibility of the Coordinator of the Consultative Group of the Least Developed Countries in 2013 and successfully steered the Group during the crucial negotiations on the outcome of WTO’s Ninth Ministerial Conference (known as Bali Package). He also led the LDC Group in Geneva during the 13th UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD XIII) held in Doha in 2012. During his tenure as Ambassador/Permanent Representative, Mr. Bairagi led the Nepali delegations to the UN Human Rights Council, World Health Assembly, Annual Assemblies of the World Intellectual Property Organization, and Executive Committee of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Governor, NRB

Maha Prasad Adhikari

Maha Prasad Adhikari is the Governor at Nepal Rastriya Bank. He has also served as the Chief Executive Officer at Inverstment Board Nepal. Mr. Adhikari has a strong backgroung in Finance and Investment with more than 30 years of experience in the particular field.

Secretary, Ministry of ICT

Dr. Baikuntha Aryal

Secretary, National Planning Commission

Mr. Kewal Bhandari

Secretary, Industry

Arjun Prasad Pokharel

Vice president, NYC

Mr. Surendra Basnet

Partner, Pegasus Tech Ventures

Bill Reichert is a Partner at Pegasus Tech Ventures, focusing on deep technology investments, including AI, quantum computing, next-generation chips, materials science, and medical technology. He is also Chief Evangelist of Startup World Cup, the largest and richest venture capital competition on the planet, with over $1.5 million in cash prizes, including a $1 million grand prize.

Joseph Silvanus

Managing Director, Dolma Consulting, Nepal

Joseph heads Dolma Consulting, the advisory arm of Dolma Group, and Dolma Himalayan Energy, the renewables energy platform. He uses his deep insights and experience in Nepal to support the growth of Banking & Financial Institutions, Small and Medium enterprises, and Corporates in their tryst to become efficient and access capital markets. His wide canvas of engagements spans from driving investment into start-ups, creating blended finance structures, PPP opportunities, financing river conservation programs and deepening capital markets. His newly opened NBFC in India will provide a prosperity platform for various credit and payment eco-systems. Joseph is a career banker having worked 27 years with ANZ Grindlays and thereafter with Standard Chartered Bank across various geographies. For the last eight years he was CEO Standard Chartered Bank in Nepal with additional governance responsibility of Afghanistan and Bhutan. He has deep working knowledge of financial markets in emerging markets, driving sovereign engagement around ratings advisory, public policy guidance and development of capital markets. He played a pivotal role working with Multilateral/ Bilateral agencies, Development Finance and socially responsible Investors, for directing specific program based support towards entities in ASEAN and South Asia. Joseph is recognized for his passion in creating funding vehicles for the microfinance sector and raising all-round stakeholder engagement & awareness for BOTP economics. His earlier stint as Country Head for Afghanistan, perhaps best portrays his values and commitment towards supporting development aid & reconstruction efforts. He practices transformational leadership, involving changing of mindset's, amply demonstrated in resurgence of the bank's franchise in Nepal. A TEDx speaker, he regularly shares best practise with regulators & Nepali entrepreneurship on risk management principles and corporate governance techniques. A proponent of free trade & investment as an engine of growth, he propagates best practice in International Trade & Investment flows through policy advocacy.

Dr. Shambhu Pokharel

Chairman, World Trade Group Nepal

Dr. Shambhu Pokharel is Nepalese media entrepreneur, chairman of world trade group Nepal and founder of Business TV Nepal. He has appeared as speaker in international programs. He has given speech about "Asia as Modern Power Center" in Russia, & about "Future of Shopaholic" in Thailand. He has been awarded "Kalam Ke Sipahi (Soldier of Pen)"by All India Newspaper Association for his contributions to media sector. He has received Most Ambitious CEO Award presented by CEO Club Network at UAE & Global Strategic Leader Award at Malaysia. He is also a renown international motivational speaker and manages several enterprises including the Business Television.

Lokraj Sharma

Chairman. Social Entrepreneurship Council, NRN(Denmark)

Mr. Lok Raj Sharma is an intelligent, hard-worker and innovative person. He is originally from Jumla, Nepal and working as an entrepreneur in several organizations since few years. He has excellent performance in his educational and social sector. He got the number one excellent student record in International Business Academy from 2008-2012 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has Masters Degree in International Business Management from University of UK, Diploma in leadership from Denmark and Diploma in Civil Engineering from IOE, Nepal. Currently he is working as a board of director in Reewire International ApS which is a fintech company running in 16 country beside that he is operating the International Trading IVS, Itoffer.dk and Woolliving.com in Denmark. In Nepal he is working as a Managing director of Nepal Payment Solution Pvt. Ltd. Which is in a mission of becoming service and payment hub in Nepal. Board of director in Builder 360 Nepal, a construction and real estate company, board of director in Nepal investment fund Ltd, Founder and board of director of Nrn lagubitta bittiye santha ltd.(D grade Bank). Chairperson in Lower Mid Rawa Khola Hydro Pvt. Ltd. He is leading and representing Nepalese entrepreneur in Scandinavia and Asian region. He is working as a convenor for social entrepreneurship development sub Committee in the global organization NRNA. He is a Founder president of Ropni Youth Club, Nepal.

Ganesh Shah

Former Environment Minister

Ganesh Shah is a Nepalese politician and ex-Minister for Environment, Science and Technology. He is also one of the senior most leader of the Communist Party of Nepal and until recently was the General Secretary of the party Communist Party of Nepal.

Ekanath Khatiwada

Mr Ekanath Khatiwada is an International practitioner on Start up and private sector development perticularly in Africa and Asia.,currently he serves as a BODs for pokhara WASH Industries, MUNAA Krishi Limited, Africa Ventures . These are the newly start ups in Nepal by Nepali Diasporas.He is also a BOD for NRNA Foundation

Co-Founder at Nepal Entrepreneurs’ Hub

Hempal Shrestha

Mr. Hempal Shrestha is an Interdisciplinary Consulting Researcher with over 18 years of experience in Nepal, South Asia, Central Asia, Europe, and America. Hempal specializes in IT strategy, Knowledge Management, and Intellectual Property. His undertakings primarily emphasized fusing the business process digitization (automation) or business process re-engineering (digitalization) with the business goals and compliance requirements. He has comprehensively consulted on extensive issues related to ICTs, technology and development, education and training, capacity development and change management, knowledge management and knowledge sharing, legal and policy compliances for multiple IT products, services, software, and solutions. Hempal graduated with double degrees in Science (BSc.) and Law (LLB) and holds his Masters in Computer Applications (MCA).

Corporate Account Orchestration at Microsoft

Deependra Bajracharya

Deependra Raj Bajracharya, Account Executive at Microsoft. representing Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, and Myanmar has been serving to the ICT market of Nepal since 1994. He has started his IT carrier with Local publishing business at a town called Chitwan. He has worked as a Communication Director for Global Net P. Ltd., Chitwan which was business partner for Mercantile Groups, Kathmandu on Internet Service provider (ISP) as a Point of presence (POP). He has been in relation with Microsoft as “Partner Account Manager” and as” General Manager” since 2007 through its appointed strategic partner as Market Development Partner (MDP Nepal, later known as Microsoft Innovation Center Nepal-MIC Nepal) in Nepal till the year June 2011. Microsoft since 2011, to enhance its customer experience, to look after government affairs and to promote the sales of Microsoft products and service, is to have a direct presence in Nepal in the leadership of Deependra. The journey continued until August 2020 on various roles in Microsoft such as, “Partner Development Manager” for Nepal until 2016 and then territory expanded to the countries of Bhutan and Laos as “Business Development Manager “ until August 2020. At present Mr. Deependra Raj Bajracharya, represents Microsoft worldwide inside Sales team in capacity of “Account Executive” for the territory of Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

Former Ambassador to Japan.

Dr. Bishnu Hari Nepal

Former Ambassador of Nepal to Japan,
Visiting Professor, and Theorist and Practitioner of International Relations, Peace, Conflict Security and Development Studies;
Expert Member of Foreign Policy Draft Sub-committee, Nepal Parliament-2068VS,
ED, CeDiD-Center for Diplomatic Dialogue, Nepal

Founder/Director, Exseed Space

Mahesh Murthy

Mahesh Murthy has helped launch Amazon.com, a few dozen startups, a few hundred brands and now, a few satellites.
Mahesh has worked on the management, investor and ad agency sides of businesses.
As a marketer, Mahesh has:
- worked on Amazon, Yahoo, Pepsi, Nike, Microsoft, Unilever across the US, China, Europe and India
- helped launch MTV in India and then ran its rival Channel V.
- founded marketing and ad firm Pinstorm.
- written ads and directed commercials that have won loads of advertising and marketing awards
As an investor, Mahesh has:
- run 3 venture funds and is now on his 4th.
- his funds have had investors (LPs) like Google, Motorola and pension funds from Denmark, Netherlands and the UK
- his investees include Red Bus, CarWale, Doolally, Career Launcher, Chumbak, Voonik, SabKa Dentist and Satellize (earlier Exseed Space)
- his funds won India's "Best VC of the Year". Twice.
Mahesh is on Twitter at @MaheshMurthy

Karma Bhutia

Startup Ecosystem expert

Karma Bhutia - is an Entrepreneur, Speaker, Mentor, StartUp Enthusiast with interest in Data Science, (ML, AI) & Robotics. He is Mentor at Sikkim Manipal University Technology Business Incubator and Faster Capital a venture capital fund based in Dubai. Karma is also a Founder of iShippo, Demi, NiKo.ai and co-founder of Gotem.io a crypto assetstartup based in Taiwan. He co-founded SourceN – a successful software consulting firm; which was acquired by HolidayIQ & Qwikcilver. Karma has patents to his name & was featured by Forbes in 2016. He is a recipient of “NICT” award for innovation & outstanding contribution in Information Technology. He is an eNorthEast awardee for eGovernance & citizen service delivery, mBillionth-2015 awardee for Mobile Governance and Manthan-2015 awardee.

Avelo Roy

MD, Kolkata Ventures (Kolkata)

Avelo Roy is a serial Tech Entrepreneur, Investor & TV Host, who started his first startup at the age of 19 around his patent pending technology while still studying as a computer engineer at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He built it to a multi-million dollar valuation by the age of 22.  He has built 8 Businesses in the US & India with multi-million dollars worth of products and services ranging from consumer electronics, artificial Intelligence systems, healthcare process automation, food science, wireless communications, wearable technology and graphical password applications. As the great great grandson of Sarojini Naidu (Poet, Politician and first female governor of India), Avelo continues the legacy forward by tirelessly serving the Indian youth through entrepreneurship education using lean startup methodology and principles of Bhagavad Gita. His efforts through Kolkata Ventures in the past 5 years have resulted in 500+ revenue generating startups responsible for around 4700 new jobs created in 10 states of East India. Avelo’s management style is derived from the principles of Bhagavad Gita. He is an influential youth icon with a monthly reach of 400,000 youths over social media. Featured on: 50+ US & Indian media including CNN Money, ABC7, Chicago Tribune, Economic Times, Times of India, Entrepreneur Magazine, Etc.

Managing director for Dolma Impact Fund I & II

Bidhyabaridhi Sigdel is managing director for Dolma Impact Fund I & II, Dolma is the first international private equity fund dedicated to invest in Nepal. Dolma has a portfolio of 9 companies in Nepal with the fund size of USD 77 million across two funds. Dolma is a DFI funded endeavor and is recently announced its initial close on second fund of USD 40 million. Bidhya, a Chartered Accountant, has been in professional finance and accounting in both India and Nepal for more than 15 years, including latest six years in the Nepal banking sector before Dolma. He joined Dolma before first close in 2014. Bidhya has worked with multinational accounting firms in India and Nepal before. Bidhya holds an MBA from Kathmandu University School of Management. He has also completed Accelerated Development Program on Leadership from London Business School. Bidhya is a certified corporate director from Institute of Directors, India. He represents as a non-executive director at various portfolio companies for Dolma Impact Fund. Bidhya was also a member of the board of Rastriya Banijya Bank Ltd, a government owned commercial bank. He is a council member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nepal, the regulator for accounting practice, reporting and education in Nepal. Bidhya has also received number of trainings in private equity, governance and compliance. He has also delivered a number of lectures in various platforms on private equity, business valuation organized by ICAN, ACAN and other such organisations.

Nirajan Kandel

Deputy CEO, Reliance Life Insurance Limited

Mr. Nirajan Kandel has been in the Financial Services Industry for about 14 years. Before joining Reliance Life Insurance as Deputy CEO, he has been in banking for 12 years. Mr. Nirajan joined reliance life from its inception day. He has spent 8 years at Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Limited. During his career at Standard Chartered, he has worked in different capacities from Business Planning Manager to Branch Manager. When he left the bank, he was part of the Wealth Management unit and he has been instrumental in leveraging wealth management unit of Standard Chartered Bank Nepal. While working as Branch Manager, he was given additional responsibility to drive digital channel for the entire country as “Country Digital Champion”. He was also one of the high performers at SCB. Mr. Nirajan has worked at Citizens Bank International Limited and Siddhartha Bank Limited before joining SCB. He has headed Remittance unit of the bank, worked in Corporate Banking as Relationship Manager and also led one of the branches as a Branch Manager. His initial banking career started from Siddhartha Bank in 2006. Mr. Nirajan has published numerous articles on banking, wealth management, leadership, and SME funding. He is also one of the trainers at the National Banking Institute (NBI). He holds a professional qualification, ACCA and Master’s in Business.

Prahlad Giri

Deputy Director at Nepal Rastra Bank