Upendra Shardanand is a veteran entrepreneur who has built multiple startups and incubators across a wide range of domains.

Upendra co-founded Firefly Network in 1994, an MIT Media-Lab spinoff, which built the web's first recommendation engine, social network, and single sign-on (acq. by Microsoft).

In 2000, Upendra co-founded The Accelerator Group, an angel fund / incubator that developed and funded 15 early-stage businesses including Blogger, Openwave, and Insight First.

Upendra also co-founded Daylife, a news aggregator and publishing platform, that served 100+ publishers clients across 6 continents (acquired by Squarespace).

In a past life, Upendra served as Director of Technology at Time Warner, coordinating strategy across it’s various divisions, and was CEO-in-residence at Samsung Next.

More recently, as a consultant for Meta, developed an internal new product group, and worked on strategy, business planning and corporate development for AR/VR.

Outside of Alpha Edison, Upendra is an advisor for the Stimson Center, a leading foreign affairs think tank promoting international security and shared prosperity through applied research and global engagement.

Upendra is a graduate of the MIT Media Lab.