Ignite Dreams Founding Team:
Karthik Kittu is the an Innovation Catalyst, Social Entrepreneur and Public Policy Professional with a proven track record in building startup ecosystems, driving transformative initiatives, and fostering strategic collaborations.
His expertise spans the development of incubation and acceleration ecosystems/programs, managing public, university, and consular relations, policy advocacy and promoting entrepreneurship.
He served on Karnataka’s High Power Committee for Regional Ecosystem for Technical Excellence Committee to elevate district-level institutions into centres of excellence, co-authoring national compendiums on startup incentives, incubation, and procurement for and spearheading the National Incubator Capacity Development Program for DPIIT, which positioned India’s top 25 incubators for success, co-leading the Incubator/Accelerator Pavilion at Startup Mahakumbh, contributing to global startup policy through the help preparation of the Startup 20 Communique for G20, establishing TIDE 2.0 at IIIT Bangalore setting up of the IIIT Dharwad Research Park, conceptualising regional programs like Kalyana Karnataka Startup Yatra for Beyond Bengaluru initiative.
While he was Director at Culkey Foundation he led Research & Development, Partnerships and Community Relations, co-built & led the Namma Smaraka Program an initiative by the Department of Archaeology, Museums, and Heritage in Karnataka under the ‘Adopt a Monument’ scheme to highlight Karnataka’s rich cultural and historical heritage & Co-authored the concept paper for Reimagining Tourism, Art and Culture through Decentralized Digital Infrastructure for OneTAC a digital, decentralised foundational grid for Tourism, Art & Culture powered by open, trust-based tools that help local providers to showcase their offerings.
His entrepreneurial journey includes founding and scaling a startup, which provided him with hands-on experience in business growth, complemented by strategic roles at KPMG, Dimension Data, and Infosys, where he blended innovation with business strategy.
Karthik has represented India at the Commonwealth Asia Alliance of Young Entrepreneurs in Brunei, represented India on a CII Start-up Mission to the United States as a White House invitee & to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office National Cyber Bureau
During his 24+ Years at Rotaract, Rotary International’s youth wing, as District Rotaract Representative Founder President of South Asia & as a former member of Rotary International Rotaract and Interact Committee for over two decades, he played a pivotal role in expanding the organisation from 8 members in 2010 to 130,000+ across 8 countries and 40+ Rotary districts and has helped ignite, empower and enrich 8L+ Lives. His motto is: ‘If the odds are against us; we are stronger’