Meet the Nextnet team Assembling world-class computer scientists, bioinformatics experts, software engineers, and industry veterans from some of the best institutions in the world.
Steven Banerjee Co-founder and CEO Steven is the founder of Nextnet, where he set out to build the most reliable and trusted AI infrastructure and applications for knowledge workers in deep technology sectors. Before launching Nextnet, he founded and led Mekonos, a venture-backed biotechnology company in Silicon Valley. Under his leadership, Mekonos pioneered novel platforms in cell engineering and gene editing. Steven holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Canterbury and conducted advanced research as a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. His work has been featured in media outlets across the U.S., Europe, New Zealand, Japan, and China. He also serves as an advisor and board member to several high-potential technology startups in Silicon Valley. Jason Collins Co-founder and Head of Product & Growth Jason leads product and user growth at Nextnet while building the foundation for customer success and community engagement. Prior to joining, he generated revenue streams at both large firms and high-growth startups, such as Broadcom (CA) and Sendbird. An enthusiast of productivity and communication hacks, he founded switchedOn, a B2B SaaS, in 2015. His career started in the dot-com days in San Francisco and later throughout Asia. Jason graduated from Duke University with a degree in Biomedical Engineering and Pre-Medicine and wishes every month was March madness. Malik Alimoekhamedov Co-founder and Head of Engineering Cloud computing specialist and software development enthusiast with a master’s degree in computer science, and a substantial experience building cutting-edge tech at early-stage companies. Ex-CTO and technical advisor for previous investors. Derek Park, PhD Co-founder and Head of Data & Science Dr. Derek Park is a computational biologist with a prior research focus on mathematical, computational, and machine learning methods for improving cancer chemotherapy. His scholarly work has been featured on the cover of Cancer Research and has also been published in PLoS Computational Biology and other journals. He has worked in various areas in medicine, biotech, and the defense sector. He is also a published photographer and artist and plays the piano. Derek earned his D.Phil. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Oxford, funded through a Marshall Scholarship, and his Bachelor of Science in Biology from Yale University. Valeriya Kalkina, PhD Head of Brand Marketing Valeriya leads Nextnet’s brand marketing efforts, while creating verbal and visual strategies to get the company’s message out to the world. Originally trained as an art historian, she conducted research on media memory and network cultures as she examined digital data from an artistic perspective in her doctoral dissertation. She presented her scholarly work at major international conferences across Europe, USA, and New Zealand. She earned her MA from Lund University and PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of Canterbury. Valeriya is also an avid artist who loves to draw still lifes in her free time. Oleh Tymoshenko Product Designer Olexii Medvediev Software Engineer Roman Broshnitskiy Software Engineer Olga Bagrii Software Engineer Desny van Hoorn Channel Manager, Europe Gebro Kilic Business Development Executive, Europe Refael Shamir Growth Specialist Ardy Esmaeili Head of Finance Mital Gondha Makadia General Counsel 
