Neelesh Bhatia

Neelesh Bhatia is a serial entrepreneur and ecosystem architect working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, education, and startup innovation across Asia. With over two decades of experience building ventures and designing large-scale innovation systems, he is widely recognised for his work in transforming how universities, governments, and startup ecosystems operate and scale.

As a founder, Neelesh has built multiple ventures, including AKADASIA, which grew into Southeast Asia’s largest educator community, reshaping how teachers connect, collaborate, and upskill at scale.

Alongside his entrepreneurial journey, he has played a defining role in institutional innovation. As the Founding Director of SPiNOFF at Singapore Polytechnic, he embedded entrepreneurial thinking within academia. Later, as Director of Strategy at NUS Enterprise’s BLOCK71, he helped scale startup ecosystems across Southeast Asia and architected UniVentures, one of Vietnam’s largest virtual incubators, supporting up to 1,000 startups concurrently.

Today, Neelesh is building two AI-first platforms aimed at solving systemic gaps in innovation and education: InnovNation.ai, an AI-powered operating system for innovation ecosystems that enables universities, governments, and incubators to build, track, and scale startup pipelines from student ideation to venture creation; and thegurucool.ai, an AI-driven platform addressing ineffective teacher professional development by measuring real competency and delivering personalised upskilling pathways.

Neelesh is also an active mentor to founders and educators, with mentees achieving global recognition, including the Singapore Youth Entrepreneurship Award and the Hult Prize. A sought-after speaker and moderator, he is known for bringing a practitioner’s perspective to topics such as AI in ecosystems, startup pipeline design, university-led innovation, and the future of learning.