In Conversation with Rajesh Dhuddu, Global Head, Blockchain

Updated November 2026. This was first published on 1 December 2022. The idea is the same. Any number below is what the original piece said then. It is not a new count.

Key takeaways

Rajesh Dhuddu leads Blockchain & Metaverse practice for Tech Mahindra.
He is responsible for establishing and driving Tech Mahindra’s Metaverse practice, TechMVerse, and is also leading corporate strategies for creating metaverse ecosystems and B2B use cases.
He works closely with global CTOs and CISOs, advises them on industry best practices, and helps them use professional services around design, content, as well as low code plug and play NFT and Blockchain platforms.

Rajesh Dhuddu leads Blockchain & Metaverse practice for Tech Mahindra. He is responsible for establishing and driving Tech Mahindra’s Metaverse practice, TechMVerse, and is also leading corporate strategies for creating metaverse ecosystems and B2B use cases. He works closely with global CTOs and CISOs, advises them on industry best practices, and helps them use professional services around design, content, as well as low code plug and play NFT and Blockchain platforms.

Rajesh has played a key role in establishing Blockchain practice at Tech Mahindra that made Blockchain real and valuable for several global customers. He is also responsible for making Blockchain relevant and valuable for common man in India by spearheading the setup of solutions to block spam calls and text in partnership with 3 leading Telcos and also Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. Under his able leadership many award winning and transformative Blockchain solutions have been internalized by Fortune 500 and Global Clients in BFSI, Healthcare, Telecom, Payments, Manufacturing, Travel & Transportation verticals.

Forbes Magazine has listed Rajesh Dhuddu as a key leader in Blockchain in 2021 and Tech Mahindra emerged as the only Indian company and Global IT services company in the Forbes’ Blockchain 50 list in 2021 and 2022.

Lattice80 has listed Rajesh as one of the top 100 Blockchain Influencers in the world in recognition of his contributions over the last 5 years. Thinkers360 has recognized him in Top 5 Global list of Blockchain influencers.

He is also a member of Blockchain Steering Committee at IIM Ahmedabad, part of World Economic Forum Expert Network (comprising only select 5000 people in the world on emerging technologies) for both Cybersecurity and Blockchain and is founding chairman of Blockchain Special Interest Group at Nasscom.

Q | Can you tell us more about ‘TechMVerse’? What is it, and how does it work? #

TechMVerse is our newly incubated Metaverse practice to deliver interactive and immersive experiences in the Metaverse for our customers. It was launched in February 2022, with the aim of transforming the customer experience with interactive and immersive experiences. With a combination of our best-in-class software (airbnb clone ) and hardware what it can do, TechMVerse delivers real business outcomes with superlative, three-dimensional visual experiences to solve complex business problems and drive monetization across business verticals. It has become the industry’s de-facto answer to conceptualize and implement next-generation use cases that focus on the convergence of physical and digital worlds. This will involve collaboration with industry partners and hyper-scalers in specific areas to maximize the value delivered to end customers.

Tech Mahindra has taken a mobile and web-first approach based on augmented and mixed reality to drive the creator economy. The objective is to deliver on advanced use cases such as gene sequencing, Factories-of-the-Future, and drug discovery. This is supported by a strong infrastructure with 5G, Wi-Fi, Edge, hardware, and software like Edge Compute, IoT devices, AI agents, and Blockchain.

We have also created a comprehensive service suite of Metaverse offerings for our customers across industries with a mix of in-house and partner-led what it can do.

Q | In a world becoming increasingly connected, how do you think businesses must protect t #

As we deep dive further into the Metaverse, data security will play an important factor. Finding solutions to protect users’ online identities and business transactions should be a prime agenda. When it concerns regulating and securing transactions through Cryptos and NFTs, data protection is very critical. Apart from data security, hardware and software security also plays an important role in the Metaverse.

To minimize the cyber security risk, there are a few steps that businesses can adopt.

Define rights in the Metaverse – Brand owners can stay in control of their trademarks or copyrights by engaging in more advanced investigation methods, adapted to identifying risks of infringement in the Metaverse. Also to regularly monitoring and searching for potential infringement, virtual investigators (involving people, automated systems, and artificial intelligence) will possibly need to be deployed to help IP owners keep track of how their intellectual assets are used in the Metaverse. Create and enforce data accountability and data protection responsibilities- Transparency is critical for data privacy protection, and this would mean identifying the data to be collected accurately. Since Metaverse data is likely to originate from a range of sources, being able to pinpoint the source of each data element is also essential. AR/VR technologies capture users’ biometric data, facial gestures, etc. or from the Metaverse itself and these must be adequately protected. Create a rating mechanism for age-appropriate access and use- Currently, there’s no age verification in the Metaverse aside from standard social media age restrictions. Facebook, for example, requires users to be 13 before they can create an account. The same standard applies to users of the Meta Quest (formerly Oculus) VR headset, which is owned by Facebook. Once a child has that headset on, there are no controls on what spaces they can access. Brands must divide the Metaverse environment into categories like in real world - Adult & Under 18. Protect against malware- Malware isn’t going away in the Metaverse. In fact, there may be even more opportunities for employees to accidentally open the door to malware via new social engineering scams. Hence, updating endpoint, perimeter and network protection tools should be a priority, along with applying the principles of zero trust to the Metaverse. Provide awareness of cyber threats- Some of the risks that Metaverse users face are similar to those raised by internet users, such as phishing emails, data hacking, and malware attacks, among others. Another cyber security concern unique to Metaverse is the preservation of the virtual identity of users. To handle these possible threats, we need the Metaverse platforms to adopt a Zero Trust policy – Trust Nothing, Validate Everything.

Q | John Radoff describes the value chain of the Metaverse with 7 layers. In which layer(s #

According to John Radoff, Metaverse comprises of 7 layers, which include Experience, Discovery, Creator economy, Spatial computing, Decentralization, Human Interface and Infrastructure. These seven layers lay down the technical needs for implementing a solution in the Metaverse. Tech Mahindra has offerings within all the layers with the help of AI, 5G, and Web 3, covered by our teams as well as partners (in case of devices). We have a unique ecosystem of our clients, partners, startups, and academia to enable the building of end-to-end Metaverse solutions.

We are committed to deliver best solutions to our clients.

Q | When your company launched ‘TechMVerse’ in February 2022, Tech Mahindra use cases in D #

Since our inception we have expanded our services to all major verticals like BFSI, Telcos, Media & Entertainment, Retail, Hi Tech, and Manufacturing etc.

Our key offerings include: #

Consumer Metaverse - Meta Environment creation, NFT & Crypto commerce management, Device testing, Content moderation (CSAM), Experience (Tech Support) Center, Avatar as a service & AI chatbots 2. Industrial Metaverse- Digital twins, IOT, SI & Testing, Network engineering, Device development, optimization & testing.

In a short span of time, we have developed 40+ solutions and environments which we have taken to 1200+ customers of ours and received several projects from clients across Banking, Hi-Tech, Telecom and other industries. We are planning to serve all major verticals by end of 2022 and get recognized as the leader in the technology. We have also been selected as a member of the ‘Metaverse Standards Forum’ that will enable us to formulate key principles and strategies for widespread adoption of Metaverse in the industry.

Q | Can you tell us what the TechMVerse community can look forward to in the short term? W #

Our go-to-market strategy focuses on using solutions, platforms, alliances, and the start-up ecosystem to create a differentiated offering for our customers thatresults in enhanced revenue generation for our business. At Tech Mahindra, we have over 500 resources working on Metaverse and will scale up to 1000+ in the next 6 to 12 months.

We have partnered with over 15 startups and hyper-scalers for jGTM and co-built new solutions that we will jointly take to the market. Our focus is always on making technology accessible to all, so that people from anywhere and anytime can access it.

Q | How do you envision your company’s role within the Metaverse in 10 years? #

The Metaverse industry is growing at a very fast pace. In fact, it is estimated to reach $800Bn+ by 2028, as per industry reports. Since we have been building our capability in this area, and we have launched our offerings in this space at the right time, we believe we have immense sales potential in the next 3 years. Today, Metaverse is at a stage where social media platforms were about a decade ago. Not many realized the power of user-generated content, community-driven commerce, and the importance of online connection for people, business, commerce, and entertainment. Our aim for the decade is to build an impactful & affordable Metaverse for all, collaborating with more partners and customers for wider use case generations and making Tech Mahindra the go-to setup partner for Metaverse and web 3 applications.

Q | Can you talk about some of the most interesting ways you’ve seen brands trying to crea #

There are several brands that have launched their own NFT Marketplaces or NFTs on open-source platforms, using and working on Metaverse environments.

Digital twin in Metaverse for factories + R&D 3. Genome Sequencing & Drug Discovery + High End Surgeries training 5.

BMW Middle East in partnership with their Dubai importer AGMC, records and archives the roar of the BMW M Engines in the ‘Museum of Sound’ NFT Collection BMW has standardized on a new technology unveiled by Nvidia, the Omniverse, to simulate every aspect of its manufacturing operations, to push the envelope on smart manufacturing. BMW has done this down to work order instructions for factory workers from 31 factories in its production network, reducing production planning time by 30%. Wendy’s has also been enjoying some notable success in the Metaverse. They were able to use the huge popularity of Fortnite – a free, multi-platform game with millions of devoted players – with the release of its own branded game mode, called ‘Food Fight’.

Questions and answers #

What is the main point? #

Rajesh Dhuddu leads Blockchain & Metaverse practice for Tech Mahindra.

What else did the original piece say? #

He is responsible for establishing and driving Tech Mahindra’s Metaverse practice, TechMVerse, and is also leading corporate strategies for creating metaverse ecosystems and B2B use cases.