Nikhil Kumar

Nikhil Kumar lives in New York City but still has a Texas Driver’s License. He enjoys most things in life, but loud chewing noises drive him insane. He likes to learn how to create in the mediums he consumes- whether food, music, movies, sports or, eventually, clothing, video games…the list goes on. Nikhil is a graduate of NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program at the Tisch School of the Arts. While he enjoyed exploring many technical and conceptual domains at ITP, he spent more of his time with the emerging field of biodesign. He now leads ecosystem products at Solana Foundation, exploring another new frontier — web3. You can stop there! But if you really want to know more about his background… Prior to ITP, Nikhil was a strategist at Palantir Technologies. True to form, the role had him wear many hats— client engagement, UX research, data modeling, enterprise strategy, team management, executive presentations— in different industries — health care, humanitarian aid, auto manufacturing. He’s not sure whether that last sentence was grammatically correct, but just read it as if it were spoken and it *should* make sense. Prior to Palantir, Nikhil was a high school teacher at KIPP Houston High School, a strategist at a food startup in India (Pico India), a partnerships manager at Coursera and a chef at Pondicheri Cafe. Nikhil is a big Houston Rockets fan and thinks “To Pimp a Butterfly” is the best album of all time, although he will concede that “best” is extremely subjective.