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Technology & Transformation
Leading product and engineering across India, the UK, and the US. Building AI-first teams that don't trade craft for speed.
Technologist · Student of Vedanta
Sreekandh
Balakrishnan
Global Technology Director at Travelopia, and India Director for Enchanting Travels, the group's home brand. My work, in one line: be a catalyst for business transformation. I've tried it many times — sometimes it lands, sometimes it half-lands, sometimes it doesn't. I keep going.
I treat life and work as one long experiment — a dreamer correcting the dream as he implements it. Off the clock: Sanskrit, Jyotish, and the older question of what it means to build with intent. Some days the two halves talk to each other. Some days they argue. I write about both.
What I do
Three roles, one practice
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Trustee & Advisor
Trustee at Equal Experts. Advisor at GoSports.in, a foundation in service of athletes. Quiet roles, long horizons.
03
Writing at the seam
Essays where dharma meets delivery — on Substack and LinkedIn. Compressed, paradox-tolerant, occasionally Sanskrit.
Pranams
Made by many hands
A partial list — the full one would be a book. So I started writing it down: every hand that shaped me, from a Kerala village in 1980 to now. Brothers and teachers, Nair Uncle and Sri Sri, a startup that folded, the Laxminarayan brothers, Sripriya, the children, and — when Venky speaks — Venky.
I did not make myself. Pranams to all — known and unknown, this lifetime and the ones before. Just grateful I get to experience this life. Gratitude always.
Closer in
Two kids, a partner, a place
Two children — Krish (2015) and Neeraja (2019) — who have shaped me more than any book or framework has. My partner Sripriya runs Aevam, a yoga studio.
We made the slow move to Auroville — the experimental bioregion near coastal Tamil Nadu. Slower life, deeper roots. (The full story is in the essays.)
Currents
What's on my mind
The shift from buying AI tools to rebuilding how we work. Digital coworkers as a serious organisational claim, not a slogan.
Co-authoring on the human side of AI adoption — the part of the change curve no roadmap captures.
A small podcast — unhurried conversations with people I find interesting. Kanika Kohli, Anil Grovor, more coming.
Building Kaalapurusha — a modern Jyotish toolchain in Python on the Swiss Ephemeris. Sidereal positions, dasha timelines, classical yogas.
Building quietly for others — pages, tools, small digital things for people in my world. A new thread I'm enjoying.
And the daily practice itself: yoga, mantra, the steady work of paying attention.
Swabhāva · Swadharma · Swatanthratha One's own nature · One's own duty · One's own freedom
Recently
In the open
Building
Astrology 101 Companion
A learning companion for the foundations of Vedic astrology. Built with Vikram Devatha; lives on its own subdomain.
atvcompanion.in →Building · v0 beta
Living in Auroville
A calm reading layer over Auroville–Pondicherry community announcements. Spun off onto its own domain in May 2026.
livinginauroville.in →Writing · story 01
From outside the fence
How we came to Auroville — Sripriya's pull, the banyan tree, our daughter's health, and a slow yes. With a comic strip and a small word-gate.
/bhavas →Watch · the shelf
Conversations on camera
A small podcast Sree hosts. The occasional interview. One TED talk he's still making peace with. All in one place.
/watch →Signals
Voices worth carrying
Pieces from senior leaders I've never met but whose thinking I find worth carrying. No commentary — just the signal.
/signals →From my network
Builders I'm rooting for
People from my network who are back at the frontier — making things from scratch. First up: Ishaan Vyas on AI-powered user research.
/builders →Live · closes 23 May
Dr. Shankaran's Monsoon Drive
26 years of quietly handing school bags and umbrellas to children in remote Palakkad villages. ₹1,200 sponsors one child for the year ahead.
/monsoon-drive →Read · Featured
What firms can learn from Travelopia's big AI experiment
In Raconteur — on the human side of the AI rebuild and what it actually takes to redesign work.
raconteur.net →Trail
Release notes
A short log of what's been shipped on this site. Mostly for me; you're welcome to read along.
/release →I believe
Two minds, equal weight
The scientific mind tests what can be measured.
The Vedic heart sits with what cannot.
I hold them as equal instruments — and refuse to choose between them.
A note
On showing up
For a long time, I hated social media.
Then came Orkut — do you even remember it? It barely exists now.
I've created and deleted my Instagram account ten times. Installed and uninstalled the app a hundred. Eventually I gave up and now use Instagram on the web — or borrow my partner's phone when I want to scroll a reel.
LinkedIn was the one I needed for work, so I lived there. Around 2010 I had a thousand-plus contacts and no real connection with most of them, so I deleted the account and started over. The rule since: only add people I've actually met in person and can recall by name. Dozens of unactioned requests sit in my inbox, waiting for the day we cross paths in real life and I remember the name. It's the only way I've found to keep LinkedIn honest.
And then — slowly, over the last year — my build mojo came back. The new-age agents made it possible to ship things I'd been carrying around in my head for a decade. The dreamer finally caught up with the doer. I'm alive again.
Studying astrology this last year showed me something I'd been side-stepping for years: I gain energy when I'm visible. Not the performative kind — the steady kind, where what shows up outside is in alignment with what's already moving inside. So this whole site, this whole trail, is in some part an experiment in showing up. Hope it continues.
Wish me luck.
Find me
Where the conversation continues
A heads-up — I'm slow to reply. But I read everything that comes in.
Also building
atvcompanion.in
A year-end gift to my Jyotish learning. Dedicated to the masters — known and unknown — who shaped the way I see the sky.
livinginauroville.in
beta
Drowning in WhatsApp floods to find events that mattered. Solved it for myself — now sharing it with the bioregion.
sripriya.me
A dream my partner had but never had time to build. Finally, love made time. Start with her colours page.
chrisandsree.blog
We always wanted to write a book. This is where that starts. With Chris — from our Travelopia years.
consciousleadershipcircle.in
A place for senior leaders to pause, reflect, and lead differently. With Sunil Rawlani — my ISB coach.
Genesis of the logo
Top left — the latest. Bottom right — where it began.
We are both students of tantra — we understand yantras. We wanted the logo to hold the Shiva and the Shakti: the energy that goes inward, the energy that goes outward. In the material world — energy and matter. In the spiritual — Shiva and Shakti as we know them.
The upward triangle. The downward triangle. Together they form the Shatkona — the six-pointed star, the yantra of this union. And around it, the lotus.
In life we develop multiple skills. Each skill we associate with different Devi Devatas — their blessings, their flow. In the tantric parampara there are 64 yoginis who bestow us with various different skills. That is the lotus around the star.
There is a lot of symbology here that resonates with our inner world. This was an expression of what we thought our inner world is today — and we tried to bring it out. It went through many iterations. This is where it has arrived.
As said by Sripriya Bhairavi
As heard by Sree Bhairav
As heard by Sree Bhairav