Our Team
Our Advisors
Abhi Rele
Director, Internet of Things (IoT) at Samsung
Abhi leads the product direction for Samsung’s ARTIK IoT cloud platform. Prior to joining Samsung, Abhi led product management and product marketing for all things IoT at Apigee (now part of Google Cloud). Before Apigee, Abhi worked at eBay (Magento commerce), Microsoft Tellme (voice recognition), A.T Kearney (management consulting), and Oracle (CRM and enterprise software). He holds an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, a master’s degree in computer science from Texas A&M University, and a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Mumbai.
Sergio Mello
Sergio is an Italian entrepreneur who started his first company while studying EE as an university freshman. The IT consulting enterprise he built from zero to a successful exit proved to be a better school of life and business than the actual schools he’s ever attended.
After a few years of jetting between Europe and Asia seeking business and personal challenges, he spent a year learning to integrate himself into the unique society of Korea then landed himself in the fragrant harbor of Hong Kong. There, he launched Satisfly, his second venture which combined his life-long passion for aviation with the newly emerging trend of social media.
As the recognized inventor of social seating, Satisfly helped airlines around the world to serve their customers better by understanding them better. Satisfly was later acquired by Travelstart, Africa’s largest online travel agency. As Head of Innovation, he set up a team in Taiwan to spearhead the company’s pivot into mobile through innovative consumer experiences such as Flapp, the world’s first mobile app to book a flight in only two taps. As a member of the management committee, he played a key role in preparing Travelstart to receive a significant investment from MTN and Amadeus Capital.
He now lives in San Francisco and advises several startup companies and charitable foundations. He is currently advising a croudsourced bluetooth IoT network (nodle.io) and launching a stealth project.
Thami Schweichler
Working on projects of co-creativity and social venturing since 2012, Thami Schweichler is a social entrepreneur focused on design for social innovation. After obtaining a Master’s degree at ENSCI – Les Ateliers in Paris, Thami participated in the development of Koneksie, a social enterprise aiming to improve road safety and provide entrepreneurship opportunities for motorcycle taxi drivers in Kenya. At the end of 2015, Thami co-founded Makers Unite, a social enterprise producing sustainable accessories to provide employment opportunities for newcomers with a refugee background in The Netherlands. Makers Unite has be awarded the Refugee Challenge winner from UNHCR and What Design Can Do competition, as well as winner of the prizes ABN AMRO Social Entrepreneurship and EU Innovation - Amsterdamers, Maak Je Stad.
So far Makers Unite has benefited directly more than 70 newcomers in Amsterdam providing their social inclusion program and the awareness workshops of their process have been provided to more than 600 people in 5 different countries.