Air Cmde R N Gaekwad is the Chairman and Independent Director of Idyllic Futuristic Technologies LLP. A veteran fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force, during his career spanning 35 years, He has been an Operational Squadron Pilot and held various Staff appointments at Command and Air HQ. He is a Qualified Flying Instructor and a Fighter Strike Leader, a twin qualification very few pilots have in the IAF. He spent an unusually long tenure as Flight Commander of two front line fighter squadrons and thereafter went on to Command a Night Strike Squadron, flying MiG 27 fighters. He also had an unusually long tenure as Command Staff in HQ South Western Air Command wherein he was responsible for Operations, Strategic and tactical planning, Armament training and planning and execution of various exercises. For his excellent work he was awarded Presidential award of Vishist Seva Medal in 2010. He attended Air Staff Course at Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, Ooty. He attended National Defence College course at Israeli National Defence College, Tel Aviv, Israel. He holds academic qualification of BCom from MS University of Baroda, MSc from Madras University and MA from University of Haifa, Israel. He Commanded Air Force Station Jodhpur which is the biggest fighter base of the Indian Air Force. For his excellent service, he was awarded Presidential award of Ati Vishist Seva Medal in 2013. He was Air Assistant to two Chiefs of the Air Staff. He was Command Flying Training Officer at HQ Training Command, Bangalore, responsible for all the three stages of flying training in the IAF for fighters, Transport and Helicopters. He also tenanted an appointment in HQ Integrated Defence Staff responsible for Perspective Planning, Capital Procurement, Force Structure Planning and Capability Development for all the three Defence services and Indian Coast Guard. He was appointment as Principle Director (Weapons) at Air HQ responsible of Armament procurement, training and management aerial stores on IAF inventory. He was specially appointed as Principle Director in the Personnel Branch responsible for career planning, training and posting of Officers of all the branches. He was tasked to conduct study on Professional Military Education and Career Planning in IAF which laid down the career paths for officers of all branches of the IAF. He also led the study on ‘Optimisation of Manpower in the IAF’. The recommendations by the study team on process re-engineering and automation resulted in huge saving of manpower. This sizeable number was useful to mitigate the shortage of manpower in short term and resulted in efficient management of Operations, Maintenance and Administration with technologically. He pioneered setting up of IAF Automation Cell which is leading development of futuristic technologies and concepts. Post retirement Air Cmde RN Gaekwad joined National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) and established a new Centre for Futuristic Defence Studies (CFDS) with special emphasis on Defence R&D. While heading this centre, He was entrusted with an additional task to set up the first off base Campus of NFSU in Delhi. After streamlining the working of the campus, he left the University and started supporting the startups across the country. Idyllic Futuristic Technologies LLP was set up to bring in a paradigm shift in Defence R&D in the country. Lack of user perspective has been a major issue faced by the Industry and Academia in India. Having understood this gap, it is an endeavor by IFT to bring Academia and Industry together and connect them with the Users across MoD and other ministries. While Air Cmde RN Gaekwad is a fighter pilot, he is as much into developing futuristic technologies and concepts for defence as much as he is into promoting dual use technologies for social cause.