Vishal Basava
AI and education product builder
Full name: Vishal Naidu Basava
I build learning products people actually use. I began as a mining engineer at Tata Steel, leading 130 people underground and commissioning a continuous miner in one of India's deepest coal mines. I then ran strategy for a 6,000-person mining division, spent four years building classroom-observation and AI tools with Indian state governments at Central Square Foundation, and owned the spoken-English product and AI-for-education work at Wadhwani AI. I'm now an MBA candidate at Yale School of Management, building AI simulations on the side.
Experience
| Years | Role and organization | Result |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-2028 | MBA candidateYale School of Management | Built Abhyas Studio, voice AI simulations where school mentors rehearse coaching. |
| 2025-2026 | Senior Program Officer, EducationWadhwani AI | Owned a spoken-English practice product and led its 2.0 redesign; worked on the state expansion of an AI reading assessment (more than 9M children assessed in two states). |
| 2021-2025 | Consultant → Project Lead, EdTech & AICentral Square Foundation | Built a state's classroom-observation system (about 50,000 observations logged) and set up the AI vertical that shipped an AI teacher coach. |
| 2019-2021 | Senior Manager, StrategyTata Steel | Ran strategy for a 6,000-person mining division and led an 18-person team that brought its five mines' data into one dashboard. |
| 2016-2019 | Operations ManagerTata Steel | Led 130 people underground and commissioned a continuous miner in one of India's deepest coal mines. |
Skills
- Product management
- SQL
- Python
- Tableau / Power BI
- Figma
- Claude Code
- AI prototyping
- Financial modeling
Education
- Yale School of ManagementMBA, Class of 2028
- NIT RourkelaB.Tech, Mining Engineering · Ranked 1st in department