turn2live

Nik Daftary is Turn2Live's CEO and one of the company’s original co-founders. In addition to leading the company towards its March 13, 2009 launch, he is responsible for Turn2Live’s overall business strategy, partner relationship management and online execution.

Previously, Nik served as a customer relationship management (CRM) consultant at Accenture, where he led the development of an industry-first, digital CRM feature for Fortune 50 telecom and software clients. Prior to his work with Accenture, Nik worked at Target Corporation developing buying and branding strategies and recognizing his interest in marketing consumer-facing products. Nik holds a B.S. in marketing and finance from Trinity University and a M.B.A. in marketing and entrepreneurship from The University of Texas at Austin. Nik is also an avid music lover and an electronic music DJ.

On board since October 2008, Zelal is Turn2Live’s lead natural language developer and computational linguist. She designed and developed the mood-based search capabilities of the Turn2Live search engine. Zelal holds a Ph.D. in cognitive science from the University of Edinburgh where she specialized in natural language processing and computational linguistics.

Prior to joining Turn2Live Zelal held an eight-year tenure as an artificial intelligence (AI) researcher and developer at Cycorp, where she served as lead developer on AI applications for a wide variety of domains including natural language processing, data integration, and computer network security. She is author of publications in areas ranging from computational linguistics and AI applications to computer network security and data integration problems.

Serving on the Turn2Live board of directors, Bart Bohn works with the Austin Technology Incubator as the assistant director of its Wireless and Information Technology Incubator. There, he is responsible for identifying promising early stage companies and providing them with the necessary strategic business assistance to help them achieve their growth objectives.

Bart is the executive director of the Austin Wireless Alliance, a non-profit association promoting growth of the wireless industry in central Texas, on the planning board for MobileMonday Austin, and on the advisory board of the Austin Technology Council. Before joining ATI, Bart was an engagement manager with BearingPoint consulting and advised clients on strategy, strategy development, strategy implementation and business process design. He served clients in the energy, professional services, software, banking, and utilities industries.

Bart holds a M.B.A. from The University of Texas at Austin, a B.S. in chemical engineering and a B.S. in Finance from Trinity University. Bart is also the founder of the unofficial breakfast taco marathon club.

Aakash Parekh is a member of the Turn2Live board of directors and one of the company's original co-founders. He has served on the board since the company's incorporation. Aakash is a patent attorney, licensed by the State Bar of Texas and registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. He works at an intellectual property law firm in Austin. Prior to his legal career, Aakash worked as a software engineer at FactSet Research Systems, developing investment portfolio analysis software.

Aakash holds a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law and a B.S. in computer science from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a die-hard sports fan and can frequently be seen at the football stadium or in front of a TV on fall Saturdays.

We are TwinB. A front to back, full service, user-centric, socially connected creative agency.

TwinBs partnership with Turn2Live began with its conception. Developing the full identity and the user interface of the current engine as well as the collateral and marketing pieces. TwinB also handled a considerable amount of the development work from backend to frontend.

TwinBs co-founder Jackson Blacklock, is an accomplished musician and has published multiple albums in varied styles from classical to electro – and the music doesn’t stop with one TwinB – William Blacklock also toured internationally with his brother in the award winning group Schrödinger’s Cat.

Josh Rachner has been with TwinB since August 2008, as a back-end developer and system specialist. He has helped move development forward by being involved in the design, implementation, and testing of the back-end data crawlers, and data processing/validation features. In his free time, he enjoys playing water polo, juggling, and riding his unicycle.