The Tamil Creator

Sathish Bala ( @sats.b ) is a serial entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in tech; he has sold over 50M+ and had three tech exits to date. He's current the CEO of edtech startup Schoolio ( @schooliolearning ) & founder of desiFEST ( @desifestmusic ), the largest South Asian music festival in North America. Sathish joins Ara on this week’s episode of The Tamil Creator to discuss g...

Krish O’Mara Vignarajah is a Marshall Scholar, former policy director to Michelle Obama and an immigration advocate serving as President and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service ( @lirsorg ). If her last name sounds familiar, it's because her brother Thiru Vignarajah was interviewed in EP 16! (make sure to check out that episode) She joins Ara on the latest episode of #TheTamilCrea...

Stefan ( @stefanthurairatnam ) was working for a leading financial institution for 5 years when some life altering events gave him a different perspective on life. It allowed him the chance to re-evaluate and reflect on his life; he was given a second chance. He was given an opportunity to become an ambassador for Luxury World Traveler ( @luxuryworldtraveler ) and he decided to quit his 9-5 corpor...

Sumi Shan ( @sumishan1 ) is a connector, former politico and co-founder/Chief Strategy Officer at agritech start-up Dunya Habitats ( @dunyahabitats ), which was originally started to help minimize food scarcity issues in Indigenous and refugee communities. In her professional career, Sumi has managed award-winning communication and advocacy campaigns across corporate, government, and non-profit se...

 Robert Rajeswaran (@robertrajeswaran) is a serial entrepreneur who was born in Sri Lanka, raised in London and now based out of Singapore where he co-founded Boxaroo (@boxaroo.co).  He joins Ara on this week’s episode of The Tamil Creator to discuss his intricate journey which included fleeing the civil war in Sri Lanka with his pregnant mother to get to the UK,  dealing with culture shock &...

 Ashanti Omkar (@ashantiomkar) is one of the OGs in the media space (based out of the UK), specifically in the South Asian / Tamil domain; her impressive list of accolades includes being a film critic, @BBC broadcaster, film festival creator, voiceover artist, features writer and public speaker. She joins Ara on this week’s episode of The Tamil Creator to discuss minimizing financial overhead to e...

Amarnath Amarasingam is an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an Associate Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, and an Associate Fellow at the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. His research interests are in radicalization, terrorism, diaspora politics, post-war reconstructi...

Luksimi Sivaneswaralingam (@luksimimusic) is an award-winning Kollywood singer and elementary school teacher from Toronto.  She joins Ara on this week’s episode of The Tamil Creator to discuss how Jayam Ravi (@jayamravi_official) reaching out to her on Instagram helped her music career build traction, being verified on Instagram, why she’s made it a habit to disconnect from technology more frequen...

Suresh Doss is a household name and an OG in terms of the food scene in Toronto. He's about to launch a food section for a national newspaper, has a segment called “CBC Food Guide” in CBC Radio’s Metro Morning and he has helped pioneer the street food movement in Ontario for close to 20 years.  He joins Ara on this week’s episode to discuss why he left the financial security of his IT job to...

Indira Samarasekera is the former president of the University of Alberta and a current board member of several large market cap companies in Canada. Indira joins Ara on this week’s episode to discuss co-authoring a book called Nerve , growing up in Jaffna, the future of education, what resources she uses to continuously learn, and the benefits she has experienced as a result of rediscovering her C...

Ari Sooriya is a man of many talents; he is a technologist at the University of Guelph Humber, and in the Tamil community he’s more famously known for being the host on a few online shows. He joins Ara on the latest episode of The Tamil Creator podcast to discuss relationships, his views on the 9-5 lifestyle, the question Ara is notorious for asking when he meets someone for the first time, how th...

 Shyamla Eswaran & Ragavi Ragavan from Bindi Bosses joins Ara on the latest episode of the Tamil Creator.  Bindi Bosses is a progressive South Asian performing arts company that seamlessly blends Traditional Indian Classical and Folk dances with influences from South Asian Cinema and Street dances from around the world.  We discuss a variety of topics including how they answer the question &qu...

Rick Selvarajah is a professional UK-based MMA fighter turned entrepreneur. He joins Ara to discuss how he went from wanting to lose weight to falling in love with MMA and now owning an academy (Revival MMA and Fitness). They also discuss the worst injury Rick every sustained, how fatherhood changed him, the most money he’s ever made from a fight, the notion that time is the most important commodi...

Jenushika Jeyakumaran is a recent grad and the co-founder of tech start-up Aleri, which makes trial preparation easier for lawyers.  They initially bootstrapped the company and then got additional funding with a $30K grant from the Accelerator Centre (part of the Jumpstart program), with having a goal of raising more money to accelerate their traction.  She joins Ara to discuss various topics incl...

Nelson Sivalingam is an award-winning serial entrepreneur who has created successes from high growth technology businesses to Sri Lankan street food restaurant groups.  He's currently the CEO & Co-Founder of HowNow, one of the fast-growing technology companies transforming the way organizations approach learning across the world with clients including tech unicorns like GymShark and Check...

Maya Bastian is a Tamil-Canadian filmmaker, writer and artist.   From 2008, she spent several years travelling the world as an investigative video journalist, documenting areas of conflict and post-conflict, which has culminated in an ongoing exploration of trauma as it relates to community and culture.  As a director, she has won awards and exhibited her short films internationally, which run the...

Sathish Muneeswaran is a personal trainer at Fit Squad in Toronto. He joins Ara to discuss how hardship breeds success, the importance of sleep, why he prefers J. Cole over Drake (despite being from Canada himself), and they also spend some time reminiscing on their glory days playing in the TTBA (Toronto Tamil Basketball Association). Follow Sathish - https://www.instagram.com/sathish_fitsquad/ T...

Shayna Mehta (one half of @brownsplashsisters ) is a recent graduate of Brown University (Class of 2019) where she majored in Biology and played four years of NCAA Div 1 Basketball while winning Ivy League Rookie Of the Year. She joins Ara to discuss her decision to choose medical school over a professional basketball career, balancing athletics + academics, using basketball as a vehicle for chang...

Anand Venkateswaran helped purchased the world's most expensive NFT at $69 million - Beeple's "Everydays—The First 5000 Days". He joins Ara on the latest episode to discuss the world of cryptocurrency, teaming up with N as Daily to create a content fellowship around crypotocurrency, why the Metaverse will become more important in the future (& why people are buying virtual...

Priya Ragu is a Swiss-Tamil artist making uplifting R&B that explores her independence while remaining true to her Tamil heritage. Her overnight success took years to develop and her career has exploded in the last few years with her being featured in Rolling Stone India, BBC Asian Network and Vogue. Priya is also being named as an artist to keep an eye on in 2021.  She joins Ara to discuss be...

Thusy Suntharam is a Montreal-based filmmaker and the founder of T-Factory Entertainment. He joins Ara to discuss his film “Love at First Swipe” (which has over 150,000+ YouTube views), creating stories for the Tamil Diaspora, balancing a full-time job while working on passion projects, the power of taking small but consistent steps, the impact of Rajinikanth on Tamil cinema, and much more. Follow...

Kumutha Ramanathan is an award-winning journalist and budding entrepreneur who has called Toronto, New York and London home over the last decade. She joins the podcast to discuss Ara’s Nelly impersonation in high school earning him the "Tamil Nelly" nickname, moving to places like London & New York to advance her journalism career, the disservice that first generation Tamil parents d...

Thiruvendran “Thiru” Vignarajah is a Candidate For Mayor of Baltimore while being a lawyer who is currently a litigation partner at the law firm DLA Piper in Baltimore, Maryland. Thiru joins Ara on the latest episode of The Tamil Creator to discuss immigrating to the States at the age of three, his passion for Baltimore, how working in politics helped him learn to accept the fact he can’t please e...

Thiviyaa Sehasothy, aka Art By Thiviyaa, is a Toronto artist and painter whose specialty is creating magic on canvas with custom & original work for clients.  She joins Ara to discuss various topics including her first sale, how exhibitions built her confidence, the simultaneous balance between being an artist and a small business owner, and the personal legacy she wants to leave behind. Conne...

Yanchan is a Scarborough-raised producer who blends hip-hop with Carnatic music. He joins Ara for what could be considered the Scarborough episode, to discuss how he fell in love with music and achieved his childhood dreams of performing on tour, his recently released Scarborough Beat Tape, how to make money off of music, why he doesn’t turn down opportunities anymore, and a lot more! Connect with...