Manoj Ranaweera is the man who built Manchester's tech startup ecosystem from 2006 to 2013. He is the Founder & CEO of Techcelerate which grew into a community of 2300 tech entrepreneurs, senior managers, investors, deal makers and service providers who were all united in building an ecosystem for technology companies in the North, especially in Manchester and the North West during the period of 2006 to 2013.

Manoj has been building tech companies since 2004 with a fair share of failures and 2 Exits (Northern Tech Awards to GP Bullhound and edocr.com to Accusoft, Inc). Today, Manoj runs 3 ventures: Techcelerate - a trusted premier tech founder network for entrepreneurs who are building tech companies in the UK; Deal Lite - intelligence product which tracks venture backed tech companies of UK and the investors who fund them and SkilledUp Life - which brings together over 35,000 skilled Volunteers looking to gain more Experience with Tech Startups that require Talent.

Manoj holds a Bachelor's degree in electronic engineering from the University of Brighton and an MBA from the Alliance Manchester Business School.