vishal sikka

Speaking of artificial intelligence, it is quite important to mention machine learning too, because both of these go hand in hand. Today, most of the huge software companies use the concept of ML and AI to build their software and products. In a nutshell, artificial intelligence is becoming the building block for the new tomorrow, with its past rooted to the core of science. It is kind of mandatory to learn about ML and AI for most of the programmers today. Because it opens a window of vast opportunities for one’s career as well as a scientific development.

A lot of companies have started adopting the concept of AI and ML to enhance their products and the approach of development. And, one of the most recent start-ups based on AI has been launched in this very year by Dr Vishal Sikka, Ex CEO of Infosys. After leaving Infosys in 2017, Dr Sikka decided to start his own business, and hence, launched it on 12th September 2019. With a sky-limit scope in the area of AI, Dr Sikka’s main motive is to harness its power and make every industry adopt this concept and implement it in every product.

Early life and education

Born into a Punjabi family in Madhya Pradesh, India, Vishal Sikka’s father was an officer in the Indian Railway and his mother was a teacher. At the age of six, the family moved to Vadodara, Gujarat from Shajapur, Madhya Pradesh. Since his father was an engineer and his mother a teacher, academics turned out to be his strength and engineering his love.

He went to Kendriya Vidyalaya, Rajkot and completed his schooling from Rosary High School. Following his father’s foot trails, Sikka pursued his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Though he was admitted to one of the renowned colleges in India, Vishal Sikka wasn’t satisfied with it. He left the college immediately after he got admission to Syracuse University, New York. He pursued a B.S degree in Computer Science and later, went to Stanford University to complete his PhD.

Early Career

After completing his PhD, he started working with Xerox’s research lab, and after working there for some time, he realized his dream, i.e., launching a start-up. He founded iBrain, his first start-up which was acquired by PatternRX, and his second start-up was Bodha.com, which was acquired by Peregrine Systems. At this time, Sikka joined Peregrine as the Vice-President for Platform Technologies. His main area of work was application development and technical designing.

One of the advantages in Vishal Sikka’s career was the time when he just started accelerating in his professional world. He came very close to Hasso Plattner, founder of SAP. This helped him a lot in landing a job in SAP. He joined SAP in 2002 as the head of strategic innovative projects. Eventually, he was promoted to Senior Vice President and ultimately, to the position of first-ever CTO in April 2007. After working for more than a decade in SAP, Sikka finally resigned from the company on 4th May 2014.

Once you reach a certain point in a career, you don’t have to turn back twice to question your decisions. And, this happened to Sikka the moment he joined SAP. Sikka decided to leave SAP for some personal reasons, and undoubtedly, a person of his calibre was on-demand in the tech market.

Soon after he left SAP, Vishal Sikka joined Infosys on 12th June 2014. The ex-CEO of SAP was named the new CEO and Managing Director of the second-largest IT industry of India. He was declared as the whole-time director of the board of Infosys on 14th June 2014. After serving in this company for three long years, Sikka stepped down from his position and set off his course towards establishing his own start-up.

Vianai Systems

In 12th September 2019, Sikka finally launched his own AI-based start-up Vianai systems with the dream that AI and ML have the full potential to change every industry. Sikka’s start-up received a seed funding of $50 million which is going to increase with rocket-speed shortly.