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Software Engineer with professional experience building high-quality and scalable…
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Karan Acharekar shared thisKaran Acharekar shared this"Dropp is unique as a #micropayment option that facilitates payments in both government-issued currencies such as U.S. dollars and Hedera’s native, energy-efficient cryptocurrency #HBAR, which is used to power decentralized applications and protect the network from malicious actors." https://lnkd.in/dSbePXvvMicropayment Platform Dropp Debuts, Putting Pay-As-You-Go… | HederaMicropayment Platform Dropp Debuts, Putting Pay-As-You-Go… | Hedera
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Karan Acharekar shared thisKaran Acharekar shared thisThe dashboards of future connected cars have the potential to become a hub for micro-purchases, including paying for a parking meter, electric vehicle charging, and streaming music. But with your car becoming a data center on wheels you could even receive instant credits for sharing your data. Dropp a micropayment platform #HelloFuture #micropayments #electricvehicle #connectedvehicles #paymentsolutions https://lnkd.in/eK4kaHeP
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Karan Acharekar shared thisKaran Acharekar shared thisKudos to RocketDocs & OpenCrowd's engineering team in reducing health insurers response time by 90% amid the COVID-19 pandemic #coronavirus https://lnkd.in/eh6yZZhTop Health Insurer Reduces COVID-19 Information Response Time by 90% for its 40 Million MembersTop Health Insurer Reduces COVID-19 Information Response Time by 90% for its 40 Million Members
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Karan Acharekar shared thisKaran Acharekar shared thisWe are excited to announce that the following updates are now live on DragonGlass. Give them a try and let us know what you think! 1. In addition to querying Hedera Hashgraph data using DragonGlass RESTful #APIs, users and developers can now get real-time data using our Subscription Service. We now support following types of subscriptions: a. Subscribe to all Transactions based on Payer account, Sender account, Receiver account, and Contract ID b. Subscribe to #SmartContract emitted events based on event signature with the ability to upload a smart contract ABI for live subscription c. Subscribe to HCS_TOPICs to receive messages published to an HCS topic (currently only on Testnet) 2. For early adopters of the Hedera Consensus Service (HCS), there is a new DragonGlass HCS API on Testnet to fetch messages on an HCS topic 3. Users can now self-register their own #Dapps on DragonGlass; registered Dapps will be listed in a new and improved Catalog page 4. Developers using token contracts developed on Hedera can now verify their transfers and receipts in native token currency in the new and improved transaction detail page for Fungible Token Transfer calls https://bit.ly/3aOZTRw
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Karan Acharekar shared thisKaran Acharekar shared thisWe are excited to announce that DragonGlass now provides #dapp developers with REST-based APIs for all Transactions, Accounts, and Smart Contract Information generated in Hedera Hashgraph. Subscribe to the free trial here https://bit.ly/2Q0v98j Let us know what you think!
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Karan Acharekar shared thisKaran Acharekar shared thisExplore Distributed Ledgers with DragonGlass! We have launched DragonGlass, a search and data API service that provides live and historical data across #distributedledgers. DragonGlass is live now with real-time access to Hedera Hashgraph Open Access. Users can explore account details, transactions, #smartcontracts, and more, while developers can utilize DragonGlass APIs to build #dapps https://bit.ly/2mpe6zV
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Karan Acharekar shared thisKaran Acharekar shared thisExcited to join our good friend and partner, Hedera Hashgraph CEO Mance Harmon, in launching the OpenCrowd Hedera Hashgraph Solutions practice at Blockchain Revolution Global #BRG2019
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Karan Acharekar shared thisKaran Acharekar shared thisOpenCrowd CEO Sushil Prabhu was recently quoted by TechTarget discussing how blockchain can help address the limits of AI. We are proud to be included in such a fascinating article among other industry leaders https://bit.ly/2JNsEVf #blockchain #aiBlockchain and AI combined solve problems inherent in eachBlockchain and AI combined solve problems inherent in each
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Karan Acharekar shared thisKaran Acharekar shared thisWE'RE HIRING a Lead DevOps Engineer!! Come join the OpenCrowd Team- click the link below. https://lnkd.in/d2MkpiJ #devops #engineers #hiring #jointheteam #blockchain #blockchaindevelopers
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Karan Acharekar liked thisKaran Acharekar liked thisA few weeks ago, I decided to step away from my corporate job at Amazon. I did not stop being ambitious, I just want to direct my ambition more intentionally. 2026 is a rare window where I have the means and opportunity to step back from the default path and build my own. So, over the next 12 months, I am going to focus on building: -Building more meaningful memories with my loved ones -Building better health -Building deeper expertise in AI/ML -Building and validating some startup ideas I’ve wanted to pursue for years. This decision was heavily influenced by Jeff Bezos’s regret minimization framework and the realization that this is ultimately a two-way door. I'll be sharing more soon.
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Karan Acharekar liked thisKaran Acharekar liked thisDropp just wrapped up Nacha's Smarter Faster Payments Conference in San Diego, and the industry signal was unmistakable: Pay by Bank is emerging as a genuine alternative to cards for everyday purchases, and the conversation has moved from curiosity to deployment. At our booth, we ran live demos of Dropp Pay by Bank (RTP) and stablecoin payments across unattended PAX terminals, C-Stores, and Fuel store POS terminals, as well as digital micropayments/pay-per-use payments. The conversations were sharper than ever. Not whether to adopt, but how to deploy. POS integration, RFP for everyday acceptance, stablecoins in merchant settlement, and a recurring theme: white-label payments infrastructure. That's a capability we're built for. A special thank you to the team at Truist, J. Christopher Ward, Michael Senuta, Adam Rigby, Randall Willbanks, MBA, CTP, and Peter Kaihani, CTP, CRCR. Truist collaboration is foundational to how we're bringing real-time rails into live merchant environments. To the teams from The Clearing House (Elena Casal, Pat Antonacci Antonacchi, Rusiru Gunasena), Green Dot (Frank Yan), and U.S. Bank (Mike Thomas and Evan Doering), thank you for visiting the booth and engaging so openly. We also had some excellent conversations with Zac Denault, Harish Kumar Nagarajan, and Marcos Fadul Torres at Digistore24; Laura Listwan at City National Bank; Kathryn Carter at Atlantic Union Bank; and Toby Thomas, CCUE at Corporate One Federal Credit Union. Grateful for the engagement and the thoughtful questions. Pay by Bank. Stablecoins. Instant settlement. White-label infrastructure. The rails are ready, and so are we. Dropp. A Pay by Bank and Stablecoin platform built on RTP and Hedera DLT. #Dropp #PayByBank #InstantPayments #Stablecoins #WhiteLabelPayments #RTP #Hedera
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Karan Acharekar liked thisProud of this milestone for Dropp. It is especially meaningful to see our work recognized by Truist in this case study on real-time payments and instant settlement. What makes this important to me is not just the recognition itself, but what it represents: collaboration between established financial institutions and emerging innovators to advance payments. I’m grateful to the Truist team for the collaboration and proud of the Dropp team for what they have built. We also continue to work together on the next phase of real-time payments, making this recognition even more meaningful. Thanks to Michael Senuta, Mark Tizzard, Randall Willbanks, MBA, CTP. from Truist.Karan Acharekar liked thisA Top 10 U.S. Bank Just Published a Case Study on Dropp: Truist has featured Dropp and our work together around real-time payments and instant settlement. For a company focused on rethinking payment infrastructure for everyday commerce, that is a meaningful milestone. We see it as validation of what the Dropp team has built and, in the spirit of collaboration, a reflection of what is possible when established financial institutions and emerging innovators work together. Read case study: https://lnkd.in/exuYZ7Aq Dropp is building the rails for the next era of commerce: • Lower Cost: Built for micro to small-value transactions • Instant Settlement: Real-time liquidity through RTP® and stablecoins • Future-Ready: From in-store and digital purchases to machine-to-machine and agentic AI transactions We are proud of this milestone and grateful for the opportunity to work with Truist on innovations we believe are increasingly important to the future of commerce. A special thank you to Michael Senuta and David Gehlke from Truist for their collaboration and for helping make this case study possible. Visit Dropp at www.dropp.cc
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Karan Acharekar liked thisKaran Acharekar liked thisAs an NRI, my financial life has always been split across two countries 🇺🇸🇮🇳. My career is here in the US, but a piece of my heart and my portfolio never really left India. I'm a long-term believer in India's growth story and invest in Indian equities through Zerodha. Beyond sentiment, it's also sound investing. In today's world, putting all your eggs in one country's basket, even the US, is a risk. Geographic diversification across two of the world's largest economies isn't a nice-to-have, it's a strategy. On any given day I'm tracking stocks across Fidelity and Robinhood in the US, SGOV for short-term cash, a mix of bank accounts and CDs for reserves, and a DEMAT account on Zerodha with Indian equities. Two countries, multiple brokerages, two currencies and no single place showing my full net worth. Tracking this isn't as simple as opening one app. Tools like Monarch Money are great for US accounts but have no concept of Indian brokerages. Zerodha simply doesn't exist there. So I did what many NRIs do: created a manual Zerodha account in Monarch and updated it daily. That fed into a Google Sheet to piece everything together. The keyword: daily. Some weeks I kept up. Others, I didn't. With two little ones at home, updating spreadsheets every morning wasn't always a priority. The data was often stale, and the system relied entirely on my discipline. So I built ⚙️ portfolio-sync, a GitHub Actions pipeline that automates everything each morning. It pulls live Zerodha holdings, syncs positions into Google Sheets, and updates Monarch automatically. It also pulls US account balances into the sheet. New positions appear, closed ones disappear, and changes are tracked. Before my first coffee ☕, I get an email with a clear snapshot of net worth, liquidity, and daily changes. The best automation is the kind you forget you built, because it just works. Sharing the GitHub repo in the comments for anyone curious or building something similar.
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Karan Acharekar liked thisKaran Acharekar liked thisCelebrating 20 Years of OpenCrowd! This month marks 20 years of OpenCrowd. Founded in March 2005 in Union Square, Manhattan, OpenCrowd began with a simple belief: small, highly capable, tightly collaborative teams can build remarkable products quickly. Twenty years later, that belief still sits at the heart of the company. Over the years, OpenCrowd has had the privilege of helping hundreds of clients turn emerging technologies into real-world products. In many cases, the company was early: open-source technologies, social media frameworks for business, AWS-based startup platforms, iOS and Android products, Elasticsearch and real-time business intelligence, blockchain, and later AI. Time and again, OpenCrowd had the opportunity to build in spaces that would only later become mainstream. That journey included working with major institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, and IBM, as well as bold startups building ahead of their time, including CollegeFanz, PatentFreedom, Allied Security Trust (ast.com), Govini.com, Gallerist, Hedera.com, DiamondStandard.co, DragonGlass.me, TrackingFootball.com, Securrency, and most recently, the Instant Payments platform Dropp.cc. None of this would have been possible without the extraordinary people who helped build OpenCrowd along the way. We are deeply grateful to Brad Buck, Shawn Traynor, Sushil Prabhu, Nadir Jaffer, Bob Howe, Rajiv Sohal, Sunil B., Breda Keating, Hemanth Setty, Samson P., Hua Li, PhD, Anurag Misra, @Aditya, Yatendra Khandelwal, Rajesuwer P Singaravelu, Ashu Mahajan, Vishal Mundhra, and so many others who helped shape the company over the years. We are also deeply thankful to the client sponsors and champions who trusted OpenCrowd and made so much of this work possible, including Ron Holland, Suan Foo, Lucia Ahneman, Bill Rasmussen, Lynn Daniels, Cormac Kinney, Dan Doney, John Hensel, Patrick F. Campos, Mance Harmon, Leemon Baird, Michael Spellacy, Mark Branstad, Avinash Vaz and many others. As OpenCrowd celebrates its first 20 years, we are proud of what has been built, grateful to everyone who has been part of the journey, and excited to see the spirit behind this work continue through new ventures and ideas, including Dropp. Thank you to everyone who helped make OpenCrowd what it is. Here’s to the next chapter.
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Karan Acharekar liked thisIts been a great journey! So many great clients looking to create disruptive products! So many great people to help deliver them! I deeply appreciate all the help and opportunity afford to OpenCrowd over the years.Karan Acharekar liked thisCelebrating 20 Years of OpenCrowd! This month marks 20 years of OpenCrowd. Founded in March 2005 in Union Square, Manhattan, OpenCrowd began with a simple belief: small, highly capable, tightly collaborative teams can build remarkable products quickly. Twenty years later, that belief still sits at the heart of the company. Over the years, OpenCrowd has had the privilege of helping hundreds of clients turn emerging technologies into real-world products. In many cases, the company was early: open-source technologies, social media frameworks for business, AWS-based startup platforms, iOS and Android products, Elasticsearch and real-time business intelligence, blockchain, and later AI. Time and again, OpenCrowd had the opportunity to build in spaces that would only later become mainstream. That journey included working with major institutions such as Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan, and IBM, as well as bold startups building ahead of their time, including CollegeFanz, PatentFreedom, Allied Security Trust (ast.com), Govini.com, Gallerist, Hedera.com, DiamondStandard.co, DragonGlass.me, TrackingFootball.com, Securrency, and most recently, the Instant Payments platform Dropp.cc. None of this would have been possible without the extraordinary people who helped build OpenCrowd along the way. We are deeply grateful to Brad Buck, Shawn Traynor, Sushil Prabhu, Nadir Jaffer, Bob Howe, Rajiv Sohal, Sunil B., Breda Keating, Hemanth Setty, Samson P., Hua Li, PhD, Anurag Misra, @Aditya, Yatendra Khandelwal, Rajesuwer P Singaravelu, Ashu Mahajan, Vishal Mundhra, and so many others who helped shape the company over the years. We are also deeply thankful to the client sponsors and champions who trusted OpenCrowd and made so much of this work possible, including Ron Holland, Suan Foo, Lucia Ahneman, Bill Rasmussen, Lynn Daniels, Cormac Kinney, Dan Doney, John Hensel, Patrick F. Campos, Mance Harmon, Leemon Baird, Michael Spellacy, Mark Branstad, Avinash Vaz and many others. As OpenCrowd celebrates its first 20 years, we are proud of what has been built, grateful to everyone who has been part of the journey, and excited to see the spirit behind this work continue through new ventures and ideas, including Dropp. Thank you to everyone who helped make OpenCrowd what it is. Here’s to the next chapter.
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Karan Acharekar liked thisKaran Acharekar liked thisIn 2014, I talked myself out of applying to Carnegie Mellon University. In 2026, CMU Silicon Valley called me — not to enroll, but to teach. 🎓 Last month, I guest lectured at CMU Silicon Valley campus on identifying early customers and driving engagement. Things I learned the hard way across OpenTable, Uber, Attentive, and TikTok: → "Make something people want" sounds simple. It isn't. → Your first customers won't come to you. Go find them. Sit with them. → Do things that don't scale — that's a strategy, not a weakness. → Build the RIGHT thing before building the thing right. Thank you Professor Cynthia Kuo and CMU Silicon Valley for having me. Thank you Henry Tang for being a strong supporter. Some moments you don't forget. This was one of them. 🙏 #ProductManagement #Entrepreneurship #CMU
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Karan Acharekar liked thisKaran Acharekar liked thisFor those who have followed me for a while, you know I started at ByteDance focusing on new grad roles for our eCommerce and Search teams. Over the past six months, I’ve expanded to support the entire Applied Machine Learning org—from new grads to tech leads and managers, across Enterprise, ML Systems, Engine, and Frontend teams. The job market feels shaky right now with layoffs and reorgs, so I’ve been connecting with engineers and research scientists at big techs who might be feeling uncertain about their current roles. At ByteDance, you can work on visible, scalable projects with huge impact. If you’re currently working on large language models (LLM) and excited for more challenging work, we’d love to have you! 📩 Even if you’re just exploring options (new grads to tech lead roles), feel free to connect or DM me. I’d love to share more! 🚀 Here are a few roles (all experienced hires) you could take a look at: 1. Research Scientist / Engineer – Recommendation Systems: https://lnkd.in/dkhhC34x 2. Researcher – Large Language Models (Applied ML, Enterprise) : https://lnkd.in/dms4yA7T 3. Research Scientist – Machine Learning Systems: https://lnkd.in/d35wY983 4. Software Engineer, Inference: https://lnkd.in/dPS62qF4
Experience & Education
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TikTok
View Karan’s full experience
See their title, tenure and more.
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Licenses & Certifications
Volunteer Experience
Publications
Courses
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Advanced Data Structures
COP5536
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Analysis of Algorithm
COT5405
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Bioinformatics
CAP5510
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Computer & Network Security
CNT5410
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Data Structures and Algorithms
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Data Warehousing, Mining and BI
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Database Management Systems
COP 5725
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Database Technologies
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Distributed Operating Systems
COP5616
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Information and Network Security
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Internet Programming
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Middleware and Enterprise Integration Technologies
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Pattern Recognition
EEL6825
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Programming Language Principles
COP5556
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Software Engineering
CEN5035
Projects
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Aries - Kitchen Assistant : SwampHacks 2017
- Aries is a hybrid application which uses AI with Computer Vision to automate kitchen shopping.
- It makes use of Optical Character Recognition, Image Recognition and Barcode-scanning along with 2 IoT devices to generate a dynamic shopping list.
- Integrated Amazon's shopping API to allow auto order of shopping at the end of the week
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Telephony Threat Analysis
- Present
TTA is a research project in which we developed a crawling infrastructure to collect data of malicious uses of telephone from publicly available websites and FCC Robocalling database. Further we generated insights into the nature of telephone maliciousness using the data collected.
Investigate uses of phone numbers in phishing, spam etc.Other creators -
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Heartistic : HackNYU 2016
See project- Heartistic is an i0S application that makes use of Apple's Healthkit API to kepp track of your heartrate
- Uses daily pulse rate and step count to suggest improvement and track progress
- Also includes SOS feature which goes live if heart rate goes too slow or too fast
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Quick Books Availability
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Developed a multifunctional platform for alumni and students to exchange books and other engineering material amongst each other.
Developed an efficient search engine for books as well as users.
Created a forum for students to ask queries and share ideas with other students and faculty.
Developed a Geo-locate functionality to locate the nearest book store from where students can avail a required book.Other creators -
Honors & Awards
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Achievement Award Scholarships
University of Florida
Granted Achievement Award scholarship for outstanding performance during professional career and academics.
Languages
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English
Full professional proficiency
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Hindi
Full professional proficiency
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Marathi
Native or bilingual proficiency
Organizations
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Student Council - Shah and Anchor Kutchhi Engineering College
Sports Co-ordinator
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Arshad Siddieque
Silicon Valley was built on Indian talent 🇮🇳, and now it’s our turn to create that ecosystem here. Talent alone isn’t enough — India needs stronger R&D funding, better AI infrastructure, and the courage to innovate beyond just copying models. If we get the intent right, “Silicon Valley Bharat” won’t just be a dream — it can be our reality. 🚀
1 Comment -
Abdirahman Jama
Do not over-rely on LLMs to write your code. Seriously. Relying too much on instant answers is the quickest way to forget how to think critically and solve problems on your own. Write the code yourself. Use LLMs to help review, debug or look up unfamiliar APIs. Not as a crutch for every task. Read the docs. Read books. Build things. Break things. Master the fundamentals, there are no real shortcuts. Happy coding 👨💻 #softwareengineering #learning #coding #llm
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