Ajikumar “Aji” Parayil is an entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience in technological innovation and commercialization. He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Manus, the proven bioalternatives scale-up platform, and Co-founder of Mirakel Technologies. He invented Manus’ core technology platform at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), launched Manus in 2011, and led the successful commercialization of multiple products – bioalternatives – made through precision fermentation. Notably, Aji has pioneered several novel methods for engineering chemistry using biology to biomanufacture complex natural chemicals. His contributions are reflected in more than 200 U.S. and international granted and pending patents, as well as more than 60 publications in biotechnology and chemical biology. Aji obtained his Ph.D. from Mahatma Gandhi University, India, and carried out his post-doctoral research at the Singapore-MIT Alliance, Singapore, and MIT. He is an elected fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Bioengineering (AIMBE) and received the Society of Industrial Microbiology’s (SIMB) Raphael Katzen Award in 2021 for enabling the deployment and commercialization of biotechnology to produce fuels and chemicals from renewable resources.