Ajaii Mahajan
Entrepreneur. Author. Mentor. Seeker.
Four decades of building, learning, creating and occasionally starting all over again.
| WHAT I'M EXPLORING TODAY |
Three active strands of work. Different in form, connected by the same instinct to understand, build and make things useful.
Founder Capability Development
My current focus. FCD asks a question entrepreneurship education often misses: beyond tools, frameworks and venture mechanics, what capabilities must the individual develop to judge, create, influence, organise, adapt, sustain and lead?
The work now spans the Seven Founder Capabilities, StartupBox, academic and open certification programmes, institutional adoption, faculty enablement, books and thought papers.
Wellness
Wellness remains an independent strand of my work. It grew from a simple observation: achievement in one area of life can coexist with depletion, imbalance or neglect elsewhere.
Through the Eight Dimensions of Wellness, Wellness Compass, learning tools, assessments and Wellness Seekers Academy, I continue to explore wellbeing as something integrated, practical and deeply personal.
CREX
CREX Media & Events has been my entrepreneurial home since 2005. It has housed ventures, events, publishing, learning initiatives, wellness work and a long series of experiments in building something from an idea.
It is also the practical counterpoint to my writing and frameworks: a place where ideas meet budgets, people, execution, uncertainty and the everyday realities of entrepreneurship.
| ABOUT ME |
Four decades. Many worlds. Still learning.
My journey so far...
I began in the technology space in 1987, moving through sales, IT training, software, smart cards, large public systems and consulting. Along the way I worked with organisations including Maegabyte, Crompton Greaves, Smart Chip, Microsoft, the World Bank, GIZ and IDEMIA.
In 2005 I founded CREX Media & Events. Entrepreneurship opened another set of questions: about building, execution, uncertainty, people and why some ideas become real while others do not.
Over time, two deeper areas of work emerged. Wellness, through the Eight Dimensions and Wellness Seekers Academy; and more recently, Founder Capability Development, exploring the human capabilities behind entrepreneurship, careers and leadership.
The common thread has probably been curiosity. I keep learning, building, questioning and occasionally starting all over again.
Four Decades of Diverse Experience
Technology, identity, transport, defence, health, banking, social-sector systems, entrepreneurship, learning and wellness.
Systems, Projects & Execution
From early software and smart-card systems to complex state and nationwide programmes involving multiple stakeholders and operating environments.
Wellness
Independent work around the Eight Dimensions of Wellness, assessment tools, learning programmes and Wellness Seekers Academy.
Founder Capability Development
My current focus: developing the discipline, frameworks, learning systems and institutional pathways behind FCD.
| MY EXPERIENCE |
Over nearly four decades, I have worked across very different sectors and problem environments. Technology was the starting point, but the work quickly expanded into identity, transport, defence, health, banking, social-sector systems, entrepreneurship, wellness and learning.
Much of this work involved large, multi-stakeholder programmes where technology was only one part of the challenge. Execution, people, institutions, field realities and adoption mattered just as much.
The sectors changed. The recurring lesson did not: ideas become meaningful only when they can survive the complexity of the real world.
TRANSPORT SECTOR
- Driving Licence Automation - Gujarat, Goa, etc.
- Transport Department Automation - Madhya Pradesh, Sikkim, Jharkhand, etc.
- Excess Fare Train Ticketing - Mumbai
DEFENCE SECTOR
- Defence Canteens Automation Project (4000+ outlets) - All India
- Dockyard Security, Time Management Automation - Vizag
- Defence Clubs Automation - Various
HEALTH SECTOR
- The Wellness Blueprint - Corporate Wellness
- Bhopal Memorial Hospital & Research Centre - MP
- RSBY (Hospital Transaction Management) - All India
- (Medic) Multi Discipline Healthcare System for Doctors
- E C H S - Design
BANKING & MICROFINANCE
- Microfinance Platform - Private Bank
- Electonic Purse Solution - Private Deployments
- BankworkS for Banking Workshops - Private Portal
SOCIAL SECTOR
- Social Safety Net - Delhi
- PDS (Smart Card based Ration Cards) - Kerala
- Social Security Disbursement - Goa
- Women's Dairy Cooperative Management - Rajasthan
ID & OTHERS
- Opium Farmers Crop management - Rajasthan, MP, & UP
- Fishermen's ID - Gujarat
- Borewell Sanitation - AP
- Artizensworld - Rural Art Promotion
| KEY MILESTONES |
A few markers from a journey that has kept changing direction.
- Architected and deployed 40+ state and nationwide technology programmes across multiple domains.
- Conceptualised and implemented smart-card retail automation across 4,000+ defence canteen locations.
- Led pioneering biometric identity and transport programmes including the Gujarat biometric driving licence.
- As World Bank technology consultant to the Delhi Government, architected a welfare-delivery convergence framework.
- Contributed to national smart-card technology work including MNIC and SCOSTA.
- Served on the international jury for the Sesame Awards, CARTES Paris.
- Founded CREX Media & Events in 2005 and continued building across entrepreneurship, learning and people-centred initiatives.
- Developed the Eight Dimensions of Wellness work, Wellness Compass and Wellness Seekers Academy.
- Created the Parallel Ventures Startup Framework, followed by StartupBox and a growing body of founder-learning work.
- Developed Founder Capability Development as a discipline focused on the individual behind entrepreneurship, careers and leadership.
| AND SOME THINGS I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT |
Experience has a habit of turning into questions. Some of those questions became frameworks, books, learning systems, courses and thought papers.
Founder & Human Capability
Years of working with entrepreneurs gradually shifted my attention from the mechanics of building ventures to the individual doing the building. That journey moved through the Parallel Ventures Startup Framework, into StartupBox, and eventually into Founder Capability Development.
The work now spans learning systems, academic courses, institutional programmes, Companion Books and thought papers.
Selected work: FCD · Startup Framework · StartupBox · CCL · The Founder’s Companion · AI Across the Founder Journey
Wellness & Human Flourishing
Wellness began as a separate inquiry: why achievement in one part of life so often coexists with imbalance elsewhere. That led to work around the Eight Dimensions of Wellness, measurement tools, dashboards and learning programmes.
Wellness Seekers Academy, anchored in CREX, continues this stream through courses, tools and practical exploration of holistic wellbeing.
Selected work: Eight Dimensions · Wellness Compass · WSA · Udemy courses · Wellness tools
Becoming & Inner Exploration
Some questions sit beneath work, achievement and capability altogether. Unmesa and Becoming belong to that quieter exploration of self, meaning, possibility and the nature of what we keep becoming.
This is not a finished body of work. Perhaps that is precisely the point. It remains an inquiry rather than a conclusion.
On my desk: Unmesa · Becoming · Notes and reflections in progress
| THROUGH OTHER EYES |
Discover what my clients and associates have to say about their experiences. Read firsthand accounts of how associating with me has made a significant impact. These testimonials highlight the journey, transformation, and successes achieved through our collaboration.
Sandeep Sudarshan
CTO - Telecom, Capgemini UK
Ajay is a charismatic leader and excellent team player. He has a great understanding of business when I worked with him in smart chip . He drove many large transformational projects with clients. A polite person and always a pleasure to work with him.
Neel P Chhetri
Social Entrepreneur and An Educationist
Ajay is a technocrat with a heart of gold. I admire his ability to make business a friendly venture. It was pleasure knowing & working with him. I wish him success in his new ventures.
Holger Roessner
CEO at AdvanIDe Holdings Pte Ltd
I have worked with Ajay on various smart card related projects in India and beyond. Ajay has been a competent business partner and it has been a pleasure to work with and learn from him.
Gopal Mishra
IT Service Owner - Cummins India
I started my professional career under the able guidance of Ajay Sir and he was one of the most wonderful, intellectual and caring person I have met in my professional journey. He is a thorough professional with a profound domain knowledge blended with some great people management skills.
Sandeep Thakur
Sr. EMV Consultant at IRIS Corporation Berhad
Ajay - is the person who gives inpiration to others, I have near about 7 years association and i found him with full of energy, always target oriented and got a chance to learn so many things which are helping me in my future.
Sunil Srivastava
Chief Business Officer - Visit
Ajay is an absolute hands on professional and hence is one of the main reasons for his success on any project driven through execution excellence. He carries a multi dimensional exposure to operations / sales etc. I have always admired his relationship building & networking skills.
Manpreet Singh Kahlon
Leading End to End Project Management Team - IDEMIA
Ajay believes in empowering other for there core area. Fantastic Leader, always leads by example. Would pass on all the appreciation to team and would take all the problems on himself. Great motivator and achiever.
Sushant Jain
Manager IT (GIS) - ONEOK
Ajay Mahajan is one of the best professionals in this field that I have worked with. He is very innovative, hard working and an excellent Team player with great Management skills. He is a definite asset for any team or company he works for.
Madhavan Narayanan
Senior Editor, Writer, Mentor, Consultant, Commentator
I have known Ajay in precisely the way he used to describe himself once:"The Creative Technologist." With a capacity to cheerfully juggle changes in both professional and personal spheres and a capacity to organise things in an unruffled manner.
| ON MY DESK |
What I am building, writing and thinking about right now.
Building
Founder Capability Development
Shaping FCD as a coherent discipline and translating it into institutional pathways, StartupBox, faculty enablement, assessments, capstones and adoption frameworks.
Current question: how do we make capability development rigorous enough for academia without losing the messiness of real entrepreneurial life?
Writing
Books, thought papers and working notes
The current body of work stretches from FCD and StartupBox to the Companion Books, institutional thought papers and the quieter writing that sits around Becoming and Unmesa.
I write partly to communicate, and partly because writing forces an idea to become clearer than it was in my head.
Thinking About
Becoming
What happens when achievement, identity and purpose stop lining up neatly? How do we keep evolving without becoming trapped by the roles, labels and successes that once defined us?
No finished framework here. Just a question I keep returning to.
| SOME OF THE WORK ALONG THE WAY |
| PERHAPS THAT'S THE POINT |
We spend so much of life becoming something.
Perhaps the more interesting question is whether we ever stop to notice who we are becoming.
I’m still looking for my own answer.
| COME IN. LET'S TALK. |
Have an idea, a question, something you are exploring, or simply a thought you would like to continue?
Some of the most interesting things I have worked on began with a conversation. If something here made you curious, made you disagree, or simply made you think, I would be glad to hear from you.
Location
New Delhi | Gurgaon
Call / WhatsApp Me
+91 96548 89815
Email Me
ajm@ajaymahajan.info