TechSparks 2026: Priyank Kharge, Krishna Byre Gowda, Sameer Nigam, Pramod Varma, and more to take the stage
Join India's leading policymakers, entrepreneurs, investors, and technology leaders as they unpack 'The New Tech Order' and what it means for India's next phase of innovation at YourStory's flagship TechSparks summit this October.
Technology is redrawing the map of power, access, and opportunity, fast. AI is lowering barriers, compressing timelines and opening up the field — so the question isn't just who gets access to technology anymore; it's who can move fastest, build best, and solve real problems.
That’s the backdrop for TechSparks 2026, YourStory’s flagship startup-tech summit, which returns to Bengaluru from October 13-15 with a theme that captures this moment: The New Tech Order.
This year's summit is built around a simple idea: the future isn't just being discussed; it's being built in real time. TechSparks brings together the people shaping that future to exchange ideas, form partnerships, test assumptions, and turn conversation into action.
The conversations at TechSparks 2026 will bring together leaders from government, technology, startups, venture capital, enterprise, and deeptech, with different perspectives on how India's next phase of innovation will take shape.
Priyank Kharge, Minister for Home, IT, BT & E-Governance, Government of Karnataka, will bring a policymaker's perspective to conversations around technology, innovation, and the role of government in enabling the next generation of businesses and digital infrastructure. Karnataka has built itself into a major hub for emerging technologies, and the state is looking to strengthen its deeptech and AI ecosystem further.
Krishna Byre Gowda, Minister for Greater Bengaluru Development, Government of Karnataka, will speak on the future of Bengaluru and the role of cities in supporting innovation, growth, and the ecosystems that make them possible. He has also spoken about using technology and citizen participation to address some of Bengaluru's urban challenges.
Pramod Varma, Co-founder and Chief Architect of Networks for Humanity, brings experience building technology and digital public infrastructure at population scale. He will speak about how large technology systems can be designed to create wider access and address real-world challenges.
Sameer Nigam, Founder and CEO of PhonePe, joins the lineup from the heart of India's digital economy. PhonePe’s growth alongside the country's digital payments ecosystem gives him a perspective on building consumer technology for scale and the opportunities and challenges that come with serving millions of users.
Auksė Žirgulė, VP of Product leading the Builder department at Hostinger, will bring a bootstrapped operator's perspective to conversations around AI-first product building and what it takes to make technology genuinely usable for non-technical founders. Hostinger has grown into a $320 million revenue, AI-first platform without ever raising venture funding, and its AI Agent now handles 90% of customer support interactions — a model Žirgulė is looking to extend as India becomes one of the company's fastest-growing markets.
Ravi Garg, Director – Enterprise Sales, AI & Business Messaging – APAC at Meta, brings an enterprise perspective to the growing adoption of AI and business messaging. As companies explore new ways to use AI across customer engagement and business operations, enterprise adoption will be an important part of the conversation.
Anjali Bansal, Founder of Avaana Capital, represents the investment side of India’s innovation ecosystem. Her perspective comes at a time when capital is increasingly looking beyond conventional technology businesses towards sectors where technology, climate, sustainability, and large-scale economic shifts intersect.
Ashutosh Sharma, Head – Investments & M&A, India at Prosus, brings a perspective spanning investment, acquisitions, and the evolving technology landscape. His participation comes as Indian startups navigate a changing funding environment while looking to build businesses with greater scale, resilience, and long-term value.
Michael Cronin, Vice President, Sales, Asia-Pacific, Japan & India at Couchbase, brings an enterprise technology lens to TechSparks 2026, as businesses increasingly look at how to build, deploy, and scale applications in an AI-driven technology environment.
The lineup also features Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Institute Professor at IIT Madras and Chairman of IIIT Hyderabad and ITEL Foundation; Mukund Jha, Founder and CEO of Emergent; Dr Nagendra Nagaraja, Founder, CEO and Chairman of QpiAI; Srinath Ravichandran, Co-founder and CEO of AgniKul; Anand Jain, Co-founder and CMO of CleverTap; Rahul Chari, Founder and CPTO of PhonePe; Priyanka Agarwal Chopra, Managing Partner and CEO of IIMA Ventures; and Nicolas Sauvage, President of TDK Ventures.
With a diverse lineup of policymakers, founders, investors, technologists, and builders, TechSparks 2026 will bring the people shaping India's technology future into one room to debate what comes next — and, more importantly, help build it.
The New Tech Order is taking shape now. Be part of the conversations defining it.
For more information and to register for TechSparks 2026, click here.