Food Committee assists AKKA Convention management in

• Working with the Food Vendors in providing all the convention attendees with delicious cooked food (some refer to it as “Just like Maduve Oota”).
• Working with the vendors to ensure that convention attendees get to experience a wide variety of delicacies/cuisines from all over India/Karnataka with an authentic touch.
• Working with the Security and AKKA facility team to ensure proper flow of crowd through the dining hall (identifying bottlenecks and avoiding congestions) when Food is served.
• When it comes to delicacies and food experience, the food team is not leaving any stone unturned in providing the convention attendees with a unique experience.
• 1. ADA Compliant Tables at Dining Halls/Stations - Table in the Dining hall will have less number of chairs, so that Disabled people can be accommodated properly.
  2. 24 hours Milk facility and Room for Nursing Mothers - Milk for kids and privacy for Nursing Moms to nurse infants - available 24 hours on all days of the Convention.
  3. Special food for Diabetic people (Limited Variety) - Food prepared for Diabetic persons with no sugar or sugar substitute or less sugar
  4. Separate queue for Vegetarian ONLY people - Stations will be set up with only Vegetarian dishes.
  5. Separate tables for Elders and Parent with Infants - Separate Tables and lines will be set up for Elders and one parent with infant per family.
  6. Special Menu on Ganesh Chaturthi day (Friday) - Because Friday being Ganesh Chaturthi it will be a Pure Vegetarian Dishes all Day.
  7. Continental Breakfast and Kids friendly Menu - Continental Breakfast will be served along with traditional Karnataka Breakfast all days of the Convention and kids friendly Menu like pasta, macaroni and Cheese, etc will be served.
  8. Delicacies from different parts of India - We will have mixed food menu from all parts of India and Mainly Karnataka Dishes.

Contact:

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding Food related activity, please do not hesitate to contact one of the Food Team Members or contact Venu Gopa or Deepak Gulla and we will get back to you.

Food Committee Members:

Core Team Executive Ravishankar B (ravi.shankar@akkaonline.com)
Chair Venu T. Gopal (venu.gopal@akkaonline.com)
Co-Chair Deepak Gulla (deepak.gulla@akkaonline.com)
Team
Gangadharmurthy H. C.
Nagbhushan Chanabasappa
Nitin Shivaram
Raghu Pappu
Sandeep Chandra
Shivakumar Parashuramappa
Siddu Rati

Biography - Food Team members

Venu T. Gopal
I came to U.S. in 1991 as a Graduate Student. I was in the University after my M.S. teaching Undergraduate and Graduate Students. I was the President of Indian Students Association at UNR, Reno, NV for two years. I moved to Bay Area and work for California DOT, involved in QA/QC of highway materials, SAS Bay Bridge. Married to Shoba Venugopal and we have two beautiful daughters Hima and Poorvi. We were involved with KKNC since 2003, Since 2010 we are volunteers for most of the events conducted by KKNC. We are also involved with VPA. My passion for managing food grew since my college days when I was in charge of Surveying Camps, managed KKNC camping in 2013 and involved in food logistics for KKNC 2014 events. We would like to provide a wonderful and memorable experience during AKKA 8th WKC in San Jose, CA. Our family likes to meet people, go camping, skiing, etc.

Deepak Gulla
Deepak Gulla is a Software Engineer by profession currently working for Cisco Systems. He relocated to USA 15 years back for his Master’s Degree at Wichita State University. Some of the past residences for Deepak have been in Wichita, St Louis, Philadelphia and is now married and settled in Milpitas for the past 8 years with his wife and a 3 yr old son. Deepak is an outdoorsy person who enjoys camping, hiking, traveling, photography. He is an avid sports person having played Badminton in most of the Sanctioned tournaments being held across USA/India. Volunteering comes to him as a second nature. He has volunteered in various organizations across different charters, some of them are TieCon, Bay Area Corporate Badminton Challenge, KKNC, VSNA. He is excited to be part of a team which will deliver a unique memorable experience to the AKKA attendees. Having driven multiple conventions as Food lead for VSNA and also headed KKNC as food chair in past, I am sure he will bring in his experience to make this event a memorable one.

Raghu Pappu
Raghu is a engineering professional and has lived with his family in the Silicon Valley bay area for many years. In 2008 he relocated to the UK and had fun exploring Europe but sunny California beckoned and he returned two years later having made new friends and fantastic memories. He loves the varied regional foods of India and decided what better than to give time and energy to the AKKA food committee that will play a major part in making the World Kannada event a memorable one for many years to come. When he is not goofing around with his two fast growing kids, Raghu can be found somewhere outdoors savoring nature and attempting to capture its beauty with his camera. He enjoys classical music and reading non-fiction.

Siddu Rati:
Handsome and highly motivated and accomplished married individual with two kids (high school and elementary) volunteered with different roles in many organizations (VSNA, KKNC, Yogabharati, Sevathon, girl scout, soccer club, school board). He is Passionate in integration, unity and accomplishment having a vision of “Just do It and make it happen”. He was actively involved in VSNA convention with different roles in Business form, fund raising etc. and other non-profit organizations. Considering food is critical in marriage ceremony and same at convention, to “make the difference and memorable event”, volunteering the food committee. He has completed MS and MBA leading technical and management roles at HP from past 14 years.

Nitin Shivaram:
Nitin Shivaram is a passionate technologist with over 15 years of experience and has had the opportunity of working both in Silicon Alley and Silicon Valley. Nitin feels that while the street food is better in the Alley you cannot beat the weather in the Valley. As a Principal Engineer he enjoys the stimulating and challenging work at StubHub (an Ebay company). He is married with two fast growing bundles of joy. He is now in the process of forgetting cricket and fine tuning his game of Golf. His other hobbies include watching movies, listening to music and looking for the next best eatery; The last bit would definitely come in handy being part of the AKKA food committee.

Shivakumar Parashuramappa
Shivakumar is originally from Davanagere and has been living in Bay Area for many years. He is an active volunteer in many charitable organizations and in KKNC for many years. He lives in Sunnyvale with his very supportive wife Triveni and son Surya. He enjoys outdoor activities like hiking, camping and play many sports.

Sandeep Chandra
Sandeep Chandrasekar is young, dynamic, ambitious, smart bachelor who came to USA in 2008 to pursue MBA from Indiana University Of Pennsylvania. He is currently working as Lead Business Development Analyst at Google Inc and located in Sunnyvale, California. He loves traveling all the time and worked is most of the recognized cities like NY, Chicago, Houston, Charlotte, Miami, Atlanta. He has left his foot prints in nearly 25 plus states in US discovering mother-nature. He has outstanding interest in driving sports cars, playing soccer, participating in cultural and sports events, Cooking and Clubbing. He is brilliant in photography and is in process of sharpening his skills. He is also serving as KKNC entertainment committee member to develop cross cultural events. He enjoys meeting new people and would give comfortableness to all. He always understood the old axiom that 'we rise or fall together' and had made teamwork with others job number one for his department. He had exceptional organizational skills and always want to lead from front and would hoping to set an example for youngsters by involving in AKKA con