Aakrit Vaish has been India’s AI sherpa for the past decade and currently runs Activate, the country's first homegrown venture capital firm purpose-built for AI companies. Previously, he built one of India's first AI company's Haptik, which was acquired by Reliance Jio in Asia's largest AI M&A at the time. He then spent a year as a full-time Advisor to the Government of India on the National AI Mission, where he helped architect the sovereign LLM policy. He has been the country’s leading AI angel investor, with 100+ startup investments and is also Co-Chair of the Tech Entrepreneurs Association of Mumbai (TEAM), a non-profit he co-founded to advance the tech ecosystem in the city. In 2023, Aakrit was named as a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader in 2023.