Sathya Sankaran. Urban technologist, CEO of Rainmatter Foundation, Co-Founder of Urban Morph, Bicycle Mayor of Bengaluru, author of Break the Block, host of the OoruLabs podcast. Technology professional by training, public policy by postgrad, social tech consulting by trade.
Three decades transforming cities through technology and data-driven solutions in sustainable mobility and energy transition. The unusual mix (a technology background plus a PG in Public Policy) is the whole point: most urban problems aren't blocked by ignorance, they're blocked by the gap between people who can read systems and people who can read the bylaw.
Building on Rainmatter's zero-to-one journey to make it a key player in a sustainable future, for ourselves and the functional natural ecosystems we depend on. The shift: from resource-consuming places to climate-conscious, participatory, resilient ones.
Urban Morph is the venture studio I co-founded: full-stack, AI-native, Bengaluru-based. The two platforms with my hands deepest in them: AltMo, a gamified mobility intelligence platform whose data drove a 342% increase in cycling & walking allocation in Bengaluru's Master Plan, established 20+ km of cycle tracks, and won Silvassa Smart City an Excellence in Innovation award; and SyntheSYS, a more recent AI-powered urban intelligence suite for understanding and actioning progress at scale, ward to nation. Currently shipping: dashboards for the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission, Neighbourhoods of the Future (notf.in) for citizen-organised hyperlocal action, and digital information portals for a range of businesses and public-good initiatives.
The Relief Riders initiative during COVID-19 earned the 2021 UN World Bicycle Day Special Award and a nomination for the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. The network spread across 12 cities with 725 volunteers, demonstrating community-led mobility at crisis scale.
Author of Break the Block: Twelve Lessons for Citizen-Led Change from Bengaluru's Rail Campaign (2026), a field guide drawn from the decade-long Namma Railu campaign that secured Union Cabinet approval for Bengaluru Suburban Rail in 2020. Host of OoruLabs, India's premier urban-affairs podcast: long conversations with the people who hold or move levers on cities, Indian and otherwise.
Also associated with WattsNext Energy, Bioman Technologies, and as visiting/adjunct faculty at Kautilya School of Public Policy and Mount Carmel College.
GPS-verified mobility intelligence, double-booked: tonnes of CO₂ avoided for ESG and city-planning ledgers, active minutes for employee wellness. Challenges, leaderboards, and city analytics on top.
AI-powered urban intelligence for understanding and actioning progress at scale, ward to nation. Currently shipping: dashboards for the Karnataka Digital Economy Mission, Neighbourhoods of the Future (notf.in) for citizen-organised hyperlocal action, and digital information portals for a range of businesses and public-good initiatives.
urbanmorph.com/synthesysCOVID-19 cycling response. Volunteers ferrying medicine, oxygen, food across 12 Indian cities. 2021 UN World Bicycle Day Special Award; 2022 Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
Watch the storyThe brutally honest playbook for changing your city when you have no power, no money, and no political connections. Twelve lessons drawn from the decade-long Namma Railu campaign: five citizens, ten years, one Union Cabinet approval (2020) for Bengaluru Suburban Rail.
breaktheblock.inIndia's premier urban-affairs podcast. Long conversations with the people who hold or move levers on cities: Indian transit chiefs, mayors, ward activists, climate scientists, and an Amsterdam Deputy Mayor or Dutch cycling envoy when the question calls for it.
podcast.oorulabs.comMarkdown sharing with the widest surface area: paste in the browser, edit from Obsidian, commit from VS Code, or drive it from Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex & Gemini CLIs via MCP. Four permission tiers, inline threaded comments anchored to text, real-time WebSocket sync, and instant link revocation. Free, no-login, open source.
mdshare.live| Organisation | Role | Mandate |
|---|---|---|
| Rainmatter Foundation | CEO (from Jun 2026) | The job: prepare alt-everything for the climate crisis that is upon us. Unlocking the alt-everything isn't a search problem, it's a thinking problem. |
| Urban Morph | Co-Founder & Director | Full-stack, AI-native urban-tech venture studio in Bengaluru. Ships AltMo, SyntheSYS, and platforms across mobility, governance, and citizen engagement, with government, philanthropic, and corporate partners across India. |
| Bicycle Mayor of Bengaluru | Civic Responsibility (BYCS) | Advocacy and policy work for cycling infrastructure, road safety, and active mobility. Founding-team member of Cycle Day, India's longest-running community-driven open-streets event: 800+ events over 10 years, run by 80+ community partners. |
| Also associated | Advisor / Director / Faculty | WattsNext Energy: energy delivery for EVs and built form. · Bioman Technologies: circular-economy waste management. · Visiting / adjunct faculty at Kautilya School of Public Policy (Hyderabad) and Mount Carmel College (Bengaluru). |
For collaborations, talks, podcast invites, advisory work, and book-related queries: a DM on any of these channels is the best route. Replies generally same-week, sometimes from a moving train.