Pune: Pune–New York based start-up Ahhaa, founded by Ashwin Srisailam and co-founded by Diane Bachchus-Quddus, is among the 13 start-ups founded by women that will be showcased in front of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Advisor to US President, Ivanka Trump, at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2017 in Hyderabad next week.
Speaking exclusively to Sakal Times, Bachchus-Quddus said, “Ahhaa is an inner growth platform that brings awareness practices using the best of technology to help people dissolve any negative emotions and grow positive emotions leading towards feeling awesome. My co-founder Ashwin and I wanted inner well being to be part of people’s daily life wherever they are, thus we thought of using technology as a medium to its best to helping humanity dissolve any inner conflict or challenges. Our aim is to help humanity find clarity, inner freedom and meaning so that they can enjoy this precious life.”
She stated that they are thrilled to be part of GES 2017, as this will only help to speed up the process of taking Ahhaa to every single person. “We will also be able to work with many countries simultaneously as inner well being is such a need in every walk of life globally,” she said.
Co-founder Ashwin said, “I was walking in Los Angeles where I lived as a monk thinking how limiting and almost hopeless it was to think that only the successful or experts can help the world. I wondered whether it was really impossible for people to help each other? Here we have this very robust, mind-blowing Internet with a tremendous amount of information. I wondered how we can use it to actually have people help people.”
Bachchus-Quddus added, “We didn’t have a technology background, but we had a vision and that’s all that mattered at that moment. I thought if we have the vision, believed it and lived it, then why not just make it happen? People have been inspiring people since the beginning of time, but we wanted to create one place to get all this information.”
She said with these ideas in mind, Ahhaa was founded in 2015 in India and US. Speaking about why Pune was selected as a destination to launch India operations, Bachchus-Quddus said, “Pune is home to Ashwin so it seems like a great fit. Also, the company got accelerated by an education accelerator, which is based out of Pune. This helped us streamline our thoughts and evolve our product.”
Elaborating on the plans, she said, “Our plans for scaling up is to get the Ahhaa app in the hands of everyone where they can have access to content at any moment of time to master their emotions. Also, bringing Ahhaa spaces to every city where people daily experience awesomeness and happiness. Our content is on 45 different platforms and we will continue to use every medium to spread the content. We have a line of products coming out soon all around helping to anchor the awesomeness we wish for people to experience,” she added.
