From monkhood to Michael Jackson: How Ashwin Srisailam built Ahhaa, the mind-fitness app

At the age of 13, Ashwin Srisailam had already chosen a spiritual path that would carry him from a monastery in Andhra Pradesh to the private lives of pop icon Michael Jackson and Rick Allen, the legendary one-armed drummer of Def Leppard. Now 46, he has transformed that unlikely journey into a full-fledged career in mind fitness and co-founded a wellness app, Ahhaa, with Diane Bacchus. It is not just the app but also their shared love for running marathons and public speaking that drew Ashwin and Diane together.

“We met in 2012 in New York through the organisers of an event where both of us were giving a talk. I was fascinated when I heard Ashwin talking. We soon became friends and started finding ways to propagate mind fitness through technology and that’s how Ahhaa was born in 2017,” shares Diane, who is also a spoken-word artiste.