Viraj Kulkarni

Exactly one year ago, I poured my heart and soul into writing the first line of code for Eloquent. Having struggled with stuttering since childhood, creating an AI-powered stuttering app was not just a leap of faith - it was a deeply personal mission. Building a startup is a wild ride. You oscillate between exhilarating highs and crushing lows, often on the same day. It can feel like being tossed around in a storm. But amidst the chaos, there is an anchor: the real stories shared by our users. These stories ground us and remind us of our purpose. Eloquent is now used by over 15,000 people in 150 countries. Here are some poignant examples: * A doctor who regained confidence to speak with her patients. * A student who returned to college after dropping out. * A son who finally had a difficult conversation with his father. * An accountant who found the courage to interview and landed a new job. * A mother and her 6-year-old son, both fighting stigma together to find their voices. When a user takes the time to send a WhatsApp message, an email, or a voice note sharing how Eloquent changed their life, it makes all the doubts melt away. These are the moments that remind us why we do what we do. As we head into the new year, we carry these stories with us with a renewed determination to continue our mission to reinvent speech therapy using AI and make it more effective, engaging and accessible! Wish you a very Happy New Year!

Enjoyed participating in the panel discussion on mental health and AI at @PunePPF. Whether we like it or not, people are already using AI for self-care. Yes, there should be regulations. But, no, tech development shouldn’t wait for policy to catch up.

India is facing a quiet mental health crisis, and technology has real potential to help at scale. But can this be done responsibly? Who sets the limits? What red lines should AI never cross? Who is accountable when things go wrong? Should technology be allowed to replace human care? What if no qualified human care if available miles in sight? I’ll be discussing these questions with Dr. Aniruddha Malpani, Dr. Ashwin Naik and Nikunja Gujar at a panel moderated by Amit Gandhi at the Pune Public Policy Festival. If you care about the future of mental healthcare in India, join us on the 9th of Jan. @malpani, @ashwinnaik, @PunePPF, @DeoSahil

Thrilled to welcome Viraj Kulkarni to #PPPF2026—Founder of Iyaso, where he translates rigorous AI research into scalable speech therapy solutions, backed by 20+ papers and a UC Berkeley background. #PPPF2026 #AIinHealthcare #Speakers2026 @VirajZero

@DeoSahil @PunePPF @nitingokhale @rugwed Keenly looking forward to this!

We are honored that General Anil Chauhan ji, Chief of Defence Staff of the Indian Armed Forces, will do a fireside chat at @PunePPF 2026 on the role of Technology in the Defence sector! All thanks to @nitingokhale ji who has also graciously agreed to moderate this. @rugwed @cIndraneel @VijayGokhale59 @SiddharthDesai @aparanjape

@SaneDhruv Ultimately, the world is made of stories, not of atoms.

Shreyans getting a lot of flak for this but he is correct in that as a founder you need to able to sell your story. It is always Numbers & Narrative

@SaneDhruv True. We need many more such stories for sure. And more such angel investors willing to back these ventures ✌️

@VirajZero Certainly not 10s of the same idea But many more stories possible is how i read - Not moonshots but decent scale businesses with potential optionality - Atomberg is a good example here Fans> Appliances > Purifier

Agree on the optimism A lot of these weren’t VC-led at the early-stage. Early checks usually came from angels, family offices, or small micro-funds. (Atomberg, Frido, California Burrito, etc.) The gap is at the true “0→1” stage — that’s still underfunded especially for 1st time founders

@malpani Very curious how this turns out. All the very best! We should all do this!

The Legal Notices I sent to the BMC demanding why action should not be taken against them for failing to remove illegal political banners have been received by the BMC office . If they fail to reply ,will drag them to Court

@growing_daniel Because Trump isn’t going to stop here and he’ll bring in that HIRE act stuff to make it difficult to offshore.

Explain to me why the h1b fee isn’t going to lead to way more offshoring

Enough of “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan”. Time to add “Jai Industrialist” to this. The single reason why we have been pissing off the world when it comes to trade deals is farmer protectionism. We subsidize, shield, and coddle farming. Not because it’s efficient or futuristic, but because it’s a massive vote bank. On the other hand, our government shields Ambani and Adani as if they are their sons, because they are.. well.. literal banks! So Ambani can keep buying cheap oil from Russia, export refined products and make money, while ordinary citizens like you and me pay exorbitant rates for Ethanol-contaminated petrol! Farmers are protected. Oligarchs are protected. But the real engine of innovation - the common entrepreneur, the ambitious industrialist, and the small business owner - is demonised, taxed to death, and red-taped into oblivion! If it comes to choosing between protecting farmers or protecting industry, we must choose protecting industry. If our government is not able to secure trade deals because they are protecting farmers, it's time to rethink. There is no upward mobility or economic progress without industrial growth. And our industries need foreign markets to prosper.

Killing H1B is terrible for India. Make no mistake about it. It is not a blessing in disguise. It is not going to bring innovation back to India. All our best engineering minds did not go to the US. Some privileged ones (like me) got the opportunity and took it. But many equally talented people who stayed back weren’t any less talented than those who went. If they could not foster innovation in the country, the returning folks aren’t going to be able to do that either! Because the problem was never the talent. India has world-class brains. The problem is the ecosystem. The rampant corruption, pathetic bureaucracy, cowardly capital, and the skewed incentives. Until those change, shutting doors abroad won’t magically open doors at home. But there’s also a bigger problem. India doesn’t have a domestic market for innovation. Suppose all these engineers who come back from the US start innovative startups in India. Whom do these startups sell to? Ghosts? The domestic market for innovation in India is negligible. We cannot accommodate a wave of innovation, because we don’t have anyone who will pay for it. Remember the line VCs and founders love to parrot “Build in India for the World”? When they say “the world”, they usually mean “USA”, because that’s where the money flows from. If that tap shuts, it kills innovation, because there’s no one left to appreciate for that innovation (and pay money for it). So what should we as a country do? I don’t know, but we need to start by recognizing the reality as it is without dressing up as a blessing. One thing that could boost innovation in this situation is government modernization through tech. Accelerate tech adoption across the breadth and depth of government administration. Big projects. Give them to startups and not just TCS and Infosys. And urgently improve ease of doing business, lower taxation burden on corporates, and remove forever red-tape compliances.

Oracle buys the future. Infosys buys back the past. That’s literally the headline of this article. And, boy, doesn’t it say it all? Oracle is throwing billions at AI, cloud infra, next-gen software. Meanwhile, Infosys is throwing ₹18,000 crore at… its own stock! Why? Because our dear Infy has no clue what to build next. And it’s easier to juice the stock than to imagine the future. This is Indian IT in a nutshell. For decades, we’ve been addicted to outsourcing and headcount billing. It’s safe. Gives great margins. And you need only low doses of conviction and boldness. But the penalty for being caught in a safe golden cage has never been higher! India has the talent. We just don’t have the ambition. How do we finally stop playing it safe and start playing to win?

Our government needs to grow a spine and stop glorifying its own paralysis as cautiousness. For months, I've watched brilliant founders sit on potentially game-changing ideas, waiting for someone in the government to give clear directions on what's allowed and what isn't. Take the crypto saga in India. While Dubai rolls out the red carpet for crypto innovation with clear guidelines, our bureaucrats are still "studying the matter." The result? Our best crypto engineers are booking one-way tickets to Dubai, Singapore, and anywhere else that offers clarity. It's not that these countries don't have regulations. They do. But they had the guts to make decisions, draw lines, and say "this is how it's going to work." Our honourable Supreme Court urged the government multiple times to formulate a “clear cut policy”. Judges lamented it was “unfortunate” that the government did not have a law to regulate digital currencies. Then they “reminded” the government again to create regulation and highlighted the “challenges that law enforcement will face in the absence of a legal definition or framework for crypto assets.” Meanwhile, what did the government do? They “sought more time to secure instructions”... But, of course, they decided to go ahead and impose heavy punitive taxes on crypto investments. Regulation or not - tax to bharna hi padega! This isn't caution. It's shameless cowardice wrapped in red tape. Every day of government indecision is a day of innovation lost. A startup killed. A potential unicorn strangled in its crib. And we wonder why there is so little innovation in India!

@TheVivekSinghal You will have instant access to 140 crore customers who will want everything for free 😬. India may have the numbers, but it really doesn’t have the spending capacity anywhere close to the US.

Dear CEOs of Indian IT companies, Please focus on creating products that can replace American software — whether it is email services, cloud storage, maps and navigation, spreadsheets, documents, ERPs, or even computer and mobile operating systems. You will instantly have access to 140 crore customers. Make this a reality in the next 5–10 years. Step out of the comfort zone of merely serving American companies; now is the time to build your own products. It is your utmost duty to contribute to making our Bharat self-reliant.

Another week, another “You’ve won an award!” email. Translation: Please pay us to print your face on a JPEG. As a founder, I get 2-3 of these every week. Always grand names: - ET Edge 40 Under 40 - India's Most Trusted Company to Watch in 2025 - Indian Business Excellence Awards 2025 - Business Elite Award 2025 - National Business Ratna Award 2025 - Entrepreneur Award 2025: India’s Top Companies of the Year - Best Company to Work For - Global Titan Company of the Year The list goes on… If an award asks for money, it’s not recognition. It’s retail. This is shameless vanity laundering. The companies selling these “awards” aren’t harmless. They prey on founders’ insecurity. They sell the illusion of credibility to anyone willing to swipe a card. They dilute what real recognition means. If you see a paid award on someone’s profile, be very suspicious. Because genuine achievements don’t come with an invoice attached.

@malpani Agree. Some doctors get irritated when patients ask questions. Now these same doctors also get irritated when patients use Google or ChatGPT to find answers themselves. A patient has an absolute right to know their diagnosis and understand what treatment they’re prescribed.

Patients are asked to suspend critical thinking. They are advised, “Ask your doctor.” The message is - Patients are too dumb to think for themselves ? Doctors are the experts and should be trusted blindly. This is dangerous advice !

@talk2anuradha Much as I’d like to drag in government policies into this, the government had nothing to do with either the venture capital boom nor the subsequent cooling off of it.

@talk2anuradha US Fed increased interest rates. Capital had a cost again. Startups could no longer raise millions on just pitch decks. Working at a startup was no longer as glamorous and nor were the salaries as they used to be. That’s when the energy faded.

2014–2017 were like the golden era of startups in India. Every Starbucks, CCD and coworking space buzzed with conversations about startups, funding & innovation. Startup founders were like celebrities. Why does it feel like that energy has faded?

What do you think is the best way to create a domestic market for innovation in the country?

I don’t see anything else that can truly foster innovation in India than government led initiated to promote AI adoption. Unfortunately, even the term government led initiative is synonymous with failure. Remember the Make in India lion?

Trump banning outsourcing, levying tariffs on software services or sending H1B holders back to India isn’t magically going to create innovation in India. Here’s why you’re getting it all wrong.