They're doing fantastic work in water conservation

Ganesh Shankar has long been passionate about sustainability. After an MS in electronics at IISc, Bengaluru, he briefly worked in GE, and Selco, a for-profit social enterprise providing solar energy solutions for the poor. He then did projects and consulting in sustainable technologies, and later founded a company that used drone-based thermal imaging to identify faults in solar PV systems. That venture was acquired by a US company.
➤ Alongside that venture, Ganesh also founded a company to build a water intelligence platform. He had seen how Bengaluru had transformed from having natural water resources to becoming dependent on water tankers. He knew water management had become critical, and his idea was to use data analytics to help industries monitor, manage, and optimise water use. He called the venture FluxGen.
➤ While building these firms, Ganesh also pursued another passion – teaching. He served as adjunct faculty at IISc, teaching a course on IoT and data science for cleantech and agritech. It was here that he met Emanuel Deepak, who was an engineer at L&T. Ganesh was impressed by Deepak’s drive and systems thinking, and convinced him to join FluxGen. Deepak’s contributions over time became so significant that he was elevated as co-founder of FluxGen.
➤ “With industrial water consumption rising and climate risks becoming more severe, water is no longer just an operational issue— it’s a strategic one,” Ganesh says. FluxGen’s tech stack includes wireless IoT sensors, cloud-based analytics, and AquaGPT – an AI engine that offers predictive insights, regulatory guidance, and real-time alerts. The platform seamlessly integrates with existing SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems and geospatial tools.
➤ The FluxGen platform, he says, has enabled a mining facility to reduce water withdrawal from 1 cusec to 0.5 cusec, while cutting overall plant water consumption by 26%.
➤ FluxGen works with over 100 customers, including Tata Group, Microsoft, Aditya Birla Group, Care Hospitals, and Mahindra Group. Ganesh’s operations are now expanding into the Middle East and Africa. FluxGen was among those showcased by the Microsoft Entrepreneurship for Positive Impact initiative in Paris last year.