Team

ZARA KHANNA, FOUNDER

Zara Khanna is the Founder of Octa, the only travel chatbot that helps find cool things to do and epic places to visit for kids when travelling. Zara loves to travel and code, and thinks that the world is a happier and more fun place when kids travel and learn about each other. Zara has travelled to over 44 countries with her family and documents her travel adventures here.

Zara is also Founder of G.R.E.A.T. (Girls Resilient, Enterprising, and Amazing at Tech), a student tech club for girls who love to code in Singapore.

DR. AYESHA KHANNA, COO

Dr. Ayesha Khanna the COO of Octa. She is a strategic advisor on artificial intelligence, smart cities and fintech to leading corporations and governments. Ayesha is also co-founder of ADDO AI, a leading AI firm in Singapore, and serves on the Board of Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), the Singapore government's agency that develops its world-class technology sector. In 2018, Ayesha was named one of South East Asia's groundbreaking female entrepreneurs by Forbes magazine in 2018.

MEHROZ AHMED, LEAD SOFTWARE ENGINEER

Mehroz works as a Tech Lead at Octa. Before joining the Octa team, Mehroz worked as a software engineer and developer for four years and he has a BSCS degree from CIIT. When he’s not coding, he loves to explore new eateries, and watch movies!

JONATHAN CHEN, Machine Learning Engineer

Jonathan is a graduate of National University of Singapore (NUS) in computer science and AI Singapore's artificial intelligence program. His experience includes building machine learning models for one of the world's largest automotive companies. He is a tech- and education-enthusiast who spends most of his time tinkering with electronics and code.

ALLISON DILIEGRO, EDITOR

Allison is a freelance travel writer who travels full-time, taking out apartments and making her home in different places around the world. She is an awesome writer and oversees the content for all the fun places and events Octa recommends.

LOUISE CARY, HEAD OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Louise builds and manages relationships with all of Octa's cool partners across the travel industry. She has extensive experience working with leading global companies such as The New York Times, Warner Music, and Sky. An avid traveller, over the years she's enjoyed sandboarding in Chile, surfing in Sri Lanka, diving in Belize, trekking in South Africa, and wild camping in the Arctic Circle. Louise is based in London and holds a BSc in Psychology and Sociology from the University of Reading.

JENNIFER KWEK, MARKETING MANAGER

Jennifer Kwek is the Marketing Manager at Octa, where she assists, develops and executes marketing plans. She graduated from Adam States College with a double degree in Psychology and Film. After graduation, she lived in London for two years working in the entertainment industry before returning back to Singapore.

MADEEHA AKBAR, PROJECT MANAGER

Madeeha acts as the project manager on the Octa team, and is a certified scrum master and has experience in project management. She leads, coordinates, and communicates with the Octa team to ensure smooth flow of the processes and events.

KAROLI HINDRIKS, ADVISOR

Karoli Hindriks is the amazing Founder of Jobbatical, a platform that connects companies with people who want to live and work in different countries. She and Zara (Octa’s Founder) share the belief that people should travel, be connected and the world shouldn’t have borders. Zara feels super lucky to have Karoli as her mentor.

MORGAN HEWETT, ADVISOR

Morgan Hewett is an Advisor to Octa on business partnerships. By partnering with travel and media organizations, Morgan hopes to help as many families as possible have incredible travel experiences with Octa.

Morgan has worked on Facebook's Global Marketing Solutions team in both New York and Singapore, helping some of the world's largest consumer-facing companies launch campaigns on Facebook and Instagram. While at Facebook, Morgan also led numerous social good partnerships, such as its partnership with One Young World. Through this partnership, Morgan launched Facebook's first global initiative to support social impact entrepreneurs: The Facebook Social Entrepreneurship Award.