Ashish Soni

Educator, Innovator, Entrepreneur.

Ashish is an Associate Professor of Practice at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and an Entrepreneur in Residence at the USC Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at the USC Marshall School of Business.

Most recently, Ashish was the Founding Director of the Viterbi Startup Garage and the Viterbi Students Institute for Innovation(VSi2). He launched the USC Viterbi Startup Garage, the only technology venture incubator in the country at a top engineering school in collaboration with the top venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers. Companies incubated at the Garage have raised over $14Mil in investment capital and target a wide spectrum of innovation including drones, 3d printing, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence and Enterprise Software.

He teaches courses in high tech entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial leadership and innovation. He was chosen as one of the top innovators in Southern California and was honored to be on the Socaltech Top 50 list of innovators in 2014. He was also selected to the TechWeekLA Top 100 Innovator lists in 2013 and 2014.

Mr. Soni is actively involved in the technology industry, advising startups, government agencies and Fortune 500 companies and currently is an advisor to 5 early stage technology companies. He also serves on the Los Angeles Mayor’s Council of Technology and Innovation

Mr. Soni holds an MS in Computer Science from the University of Southern California. What gets him up each morning is trying to do things that have never been done before