Mani has a distinguished academic background where he earned a Ph.D. in operations research from North Carolina State University, a M.S. in Engineering from Vanderbilt University, and a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology. Mani first began his research of Neural Networks during his doctorial studies at North Carolina State University. He founded and headed the business consulting practice of Cognizant in Europe, was Chief Scientist at Manugistics (now Blue Yonder) in USA, and was an expert consultant with McKinsey in the Chicago office. Mani supported global customers that were struggling with operational efficiency and supply chain bottlenecks. Mani led the the worldwide turn around of a business unit of a Fortune 10 company in the energy sector. In addition, Mani designed a supply chain system for a leading Japan automotive manufacture, enabling three week order-to-delivery for custom vehicles. Mani has lectured at leading global universities in the USA, China, and Europe on topics such as optimizing large scale systems. Today, Mani is passionate about creating algorithms to solve real world challenges for global industries.