Leadership
A Rare Convergence
Our leadership brings together a rare convergence of hydrogeological science, digital infrastructure engineering, national scale systems architecture, and secure AI development. This multidisciplinary foundation allows Nextent Labs to approach water intelligence not as a narrow analytics problem, but as a mission critical governance challenge that demands scientific rigor, system resilience, and operational trust.
With experience spanning groundwater systems, large-scale digital platforms, and high assurance infrastructure, our team understands what it takes to build solutions that perform reliably under real-world complexity. Every layer of our platform is designed with resilience, compliance, and long term sustainability in mind—ensuring it can support regulatory oversight, policy decisions, and institutional operations without compromise.
This integrated leadership perspective ensures that our water intelligence platforms are not only innovative, but engineered to meet the expectations of governments and institutions operating at scale.
Samuel Dayanidhi Pachaiyappan
Founder & CEO
Bridging hydrogeological science and AI to build regulator‑grade environmental intelligence.
Samuel Dayanidhi Pachaiyappan is the Founder and CEO of Nextent Labs Pvt Ltd, where he leads the development of AI‑powered environmental intelligence platforms focused on groundwater analytics, aquifer governance, and basin‑scale decision support.
With formal training in Geology and Groundwater Hydrology, he holds an M.Sc. in Geology (Anna University, India) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Groundwater Hydrology (Flinders University, Australia). His foundation spans aquifer systems, groundwater flow dynamics, recharge estimation, and hydrogeological modelling.
In parallel, Samuel is the Founder and Director of Adept360 Tech Pty Ltd (Australia), established in 2013. Over more than a decade, he has led enterprise‑scale ERP and manufacturing system implementations, building deep expertise in data architecture, governance frameworks, and complex systems design.
At Nextent Labs, he bridges scientific domain knowledge with advanced analytics to architect HydroGeoSenZ™—integrating hydrogeological rigor, time‑series intelligence, and structured decision tools to enable sustainable groundwater management and regulator‑grade environmental governance.
Dr. Udaya Banu
Managing Director
Anchoring innovation with governance, stability, and long‑term institutional vision.
Dr. Udaya Banu is a medical doctor by profession with a strong and evolving interest in artificial intelligence and data‑driven systems. Seeing the potential of AI to solve complex, real‑world challenges, she co‑founded Nextent Labs with Samuel Dayanidhi Pachaiyappan.
As Managing Director, she provides strategic stability, operational discipline, and long‑term direction—ensuring innovation remains grounded in governance, execution quality, and institutional credibility. Dr. Banu leads organisational oversight and stakeholder coordination, aligning teams and priorities as the company scales.
She plays a key role in shaping Nextent Labs’ commitment to sustainability, accountability, and long-term impact, supporting the development of HydroGeoSenZ™ and future environmental intelligence platforms with a focus on responsible growth and outcomes that stand up to scrutiny.
Dr. Rajendran Narayanan
Executive Advisor, Digital Infrastructure & Governance
Co‑Inventor of UPI, bringing national‑scale 24×7 critical‑infrastructure discipline to environmental data systems.
Dr. Rajendran Narayanan is a globally recognised digital infrastructure and payments systems architect with over 25 years of leadership across national‑scale financial market and payments infrastructure. He is widely known as a Co‑Inventor of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI)—one of the world’s largest real‑time retail payments systems.
As former Chief Technology Officer at the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), he architected and scaled resilient, high‑availability infrastructure supporting billions of transactions, delivering 24×7 operational integrity and regulatory‑grade reliability.
He has also served as: Chief Digital Officer, Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX)
Director, Indian Financial Technology & Allied Services (IFTAS), an RBI subsidiary
Senior infrastructure architect at IDRBT (RBI institution). His expertise spans real‑time settlement systems, Tier III+ data centres, ISO 20022‑aligned architectures, cybersecurity governance (SOC/NOC), and critical infrastructure resilience frameworks.
At Nextent Labs, Dr. Rajendran advises on building mission‑critical, regulator‑grade environmental data infrastructure, ensuring HydroGeoSenZ™ is engineered with the same resilience and governance discipline used in national financial systems.
Grant Lawton
AI Innovation & Engineering Lead
Designing secure, scalable AI systems built to operate in mission‑critical environments.
Grant Lawton is an AI and digital engineering specialist with 25+ years of experience designing and delivering advanced software systems across artificial intelligence, secure enterprise platforms, and mission‑critical environments.
He builds end‑to‑end architectures spanning AI/ML systems, computer vision pipelines, secure AI agents, MLOps frameworks, IoT and embedded platforms, and enterprise automation. His focus is on creating robust, scalable, production‑grade systems that operate reliably under real‑world constraints.
Grant is the Founder of Mantisec (Australia), a technology company specialising in secure AI systems and high‑assurance software architecture. Through Mantisec, he has led the development of secure‑by‑design platforms that integrate cybersecurity principles with modern AI deployment practices.
At Nextent Labs, Grant leads AI systems engineering, scalable architecture design, and secure deployment frameworks, ensuring HydroGeoSenZ™ and related platforms are built with performance integrity, resilience, and long‑term operational sustainability.
Our Philosophy
Measurement is the first act of care. Understanding precedes protection. Technology must serve both policy and people
Our Vision
To make geo-analytical intelligence accessible to every institution—and eventually every individual—so humanity better understands the fragility of the systems that sustain life.
Our Mission
To enable sustainable resource governance through intelligent, automated, and scientifically grounded geo-data analytics.