I was born on April 19,1996, at The LakeSide Hospital in Bangalore. My parents, Mr Sasi Kumar and Mrs Sheeja Sasi Kumar who are from Kerala, were working for a plant tissue culture firm.
I spent my first two years in Bangalore, and then my parents got a promotion and a transfer to Kolkata. I started my schooling there.
I joined Lawrence Day school, which was close to our residence, and was there for two years (pre-KG & LKG). Later, my parents moved me into a better school Sri Mahaveer Institution of Education & Research school (Jain School) , where I completed my lower primary schooling (UKG). Then my parents made a decision to start their own company; they also wanted me to have my primary education in Bangalore.
Lake MontFort School was run by brothers of St.Gabriel. It was a new school in the city, but the institute was already popular worldwide as it was trying to spread all over the globe.
I pursued primary, high school as well as secondary school education there. It was there I started my first venture, which made and developed computer software. I also started an education BLOG to help students with projects and assignments along with two of my classmates (Nihas & Suhas) in ninth grade. We called ourselves EDU team and we gained much repute within school as well as in Bangalore by participating and winning at science fests, quizzes, etc.
I finished my tenth grade with 92% (9.6 CGPA) and focused on IIT-JEE (the entrance Exam to get into Indian Institute of Technology). Unfortunately, when I gave my exam, a new algorithm was introduced. 60% board and 40% JEE marks were considered for ranking, which i couldn’t crack.
Fortunately, I cleared the regional entrance exam and got into one of the finest and oldest government aided engineering college of Bangalore, which figures in the list of top 25 private colleges in the country.
So here I am now, studying and practising Computer Science & Engineering at Sir_M._Visvesvaraya_Institute_of_Technology.
In a remarkable turn of events after not clearing IIT-JEE, I read a lot about inspirational stories to come out of my depression. And the startup entrepreneurs’ failure-to-success stories boosted me a lot. So, I got associated with YourStory in Bangalore and attended Apps Friday event at their office.
I got connected with some of their contributors and through them with some investors and then Harshul Srivastava, the Co-Founder of The Asian Entrepreneur from Harvard (via Favebook stalking). He looked at my profile (unofficial CV) and on August 31, 2014, I was hired as an Intern to promote and market The Asian Entrepreneur .
By November, I got into the company as a permanent member handling Content and Interviews. By the end of the 2014, I was promoted as Owner of Social Media, completely handling Twitter and LinkedIn and later Facebook as well.
In January, I had an opportunity to join The Asian Entrepreneur Conference on Skype and meet the other Co-Founders from Harvard. It was a great experience discussing about expansion and development strategy of the company. We had talks about cartoons,1990s and technology.
It was my first time interacting with some great personalities in an unofficial manner. And all of them said: “Congratulation! Welcome aboard Akhil! ”
I started recruiting contributors and, thankfully, the team did respect my decisions. I get to learn much from interviewing entrepreneurs and learn from their experiences. In this way, I also get to connect with big shots from different firms worldwide.
On April 8, 2015, I received a pre-birthday gift: equity shares of the company and that’s how I earned my first share and became a stakeholder at 18.
After couple of months, Board decided to promote me .On 29th of June, I was promoted as the Chief Marketing Officer of Asian Entrepreneur.
Still, it’s a Long way to go.
Incredible Chutiya ! 