By now many of you across Indian #Startup and #OpenData world would know that Mrutyunjay Mishra, @M2OD is no longer with us. He suffered a cardiac arrest yesterday evening at his hometown Sambalpur, Orissa. Mrutyunjay was, in his own words a Researcher.

Most of us know him as a this enthusiastic, upbeat, full of ideas entrepreneur who loved life to the max. You could always find new and innovative ideas coming from him and once he opened his mouth, he could speak for hours and hours at a stretch. Infectious enthusiasm!!

He was one of the founding members of @Janwaar_Castle along with Ulrike, which brought Skateboarding culture to India improving the lives of numerous kids and families in Panna / Janwaar. Credited for out of the box ideas, he was also the founder of India Open Data Association,

working tirelessly to spread awareness about Open Data and Data Sciences and Research. Sit with him for a while and you would always be enamored with his travels, people he met and work he was doing. Always had something weird and interesting to share!

He compared Open Source to Samosa - where Everyone can make a samosa, everyone loves eating it too and can also profit from it. I'd first met him when he was setting up Pollution Monitoring Devices pan India in around 2013-14. The kind of data collected along with @oizom_IoT was

probably one of the firsts in India back then and afaik OIZOM scaled great heights after that. He was recently working on Mandala Innovation Network - which was an idea to create collaborative structures for Social initiatives.

He took much of his academic (read researching) brilliance from his father - who is a retired Professor in Sambalpur, having written various scientific papers across his field. Coming from a family of scholars, his father I know is a known academician and Water conservationist,

while also being adept in Vedic literature and sciences. He had once told me that M2 had pen friends across the world during the 90s - right from Japan to US who used to send him different things from their countries. He was also a philatelist and had a humungous collection.

@M2OD is survived by his wife, 3 adorable kids, a dog Leo. I wish his journey from here on is peaceful, though not losing out on his brilliance of discovering new ideas and that his enthusiasm continues for his next life. Om Shanti. 🙏

Guys. Need help. @M2OD's dog Leo is up for adoption in Noida. He's a 6yrs Champion bloodline neutered male GSD. Docile+plays with houseflies. Friends helping but none able to adopt because keep traveling. Wouldve done it myself, but adopted an indie 5 months ago.