Sanand Mitra

Sanand Salil Mitra (born May 5, 1983) is the proprietor and owner of VAYAM -Visionaries & Entrepreneurs, an Indian archery pioneer organization. An international archer and twice national gold medallist in archery, he is a state and national awardee with performances in the national archery circuit, since his debut in 2005.

The most feared competitor in the compound archery circuit for his brief archery career (2005–2007), Sanand raised standards in the national archery circuit. A Robotics & Artificial Intelligence major by education and an entrepreneur, Sanand established VAYAM-Visionaries & Entrepreneurs in 2008 to bring Indian archery to international standards through a corporate endeavour. He is the mentor of Archery for Indian Collegiate Athletic Program (ICAP) and will guide the young athletes to improve in the sport.

Sanand was born in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, and did his schooling at the Rajkumar College, Raipur, a school in the Indian Public Schools Conference that had been reserved for members of the erstwhile royal families, and then from Burgess English School, Bilaspur. He completed his BCA & MCA from IGNOU-Delhi, while simultaneously completing his B.E. (Electronics & Communications) from the Institute of Technology, Bilaspur.

While he was waiting for his B-School entrance exam results, in 2005, it has been said that Sanand started archery as a hobby, in a field in Bilaspur. He had no access to any sort of formal training in archery. He practiced his form via downloaded pictures from the dial-up internet connection, from a cyber cafe in Bilaspur. In his usual schedule, he practiced as long as 16–17 hours in the sun, getting up at 5:00 in the morning and shooting indoors, in the college verandah of the SBR College, of which his mother was the principal. In 27 days of shooting and practice, Sanand made his debut on the national archery circuit in the Maharajas College Ground, Ernakulam, Kerala. Winning golds and silvers and breaking national records on his debut, Sanand won the highest medal tally in a single tournament for his state, Chhattisgarh. He had a two-year-long stint in archery and left competitive archery in 2007.

He landed a job in Indian Railways from which he resigned in 2008 to start his own firm, VAYAM-Visionaries & Entrepreneurs, as authorized importers of archery equipment in India, archery range design consultants and trainers. Sanand has been the chief coach for the archery club at the National Defence Academy (NDA), Pune. He has also been instrumental in starting the concept of archery for masses by conceptualising & organising the world's first archery carnival, Sphoorti, Oct 2018, in Nagpur, and India's first archery competition open for public, The Iron Target Challenge, Jan 2019, in Pune.

He is a national record holder, gold-medallist and an internationally ranked archer. He was decorated on several platforms, including the Maharaja Praveerchandra Bhanjadeo Award by Chhattisgarh State, decoration for distinguished performance in Sports, 2005.

He has conducted a series of workshops and lectures on: “Sports Engineering: Design & Dynamics of Sporting Equipment" and "Being a Sportopreneur”, conducted at IITs, IIMs, NITs and universities such as MSU and Baroda. He started VAYAM as a small firm in 2008 and has grown it to its present size.

Mitra is working on High Performance Archery (HPA) in Indian context with his archery training firm "dhanurved", which means the science of the bow, in Sanskrit. He is working on a theoretical model of creating high performance succession order planning for the Indian National Archery team. He was also the civil consultant trainer and sport expert (archery) at the National Defence Academy, Pune.

His company, VAYAM-Visionaries & Entrepreneurs is a distributor for Mathews & Mission archery bows. Mitra is the honorary mentor for archery at iCAP specializing in Indian collegiate athletics, based in Delhi. He was featured in the Small & Medium Entrepreneur magazine in November 2012.

He established a new company, Brisingr GameTec Pvt Ltd, with which he intends on changing the way archery is perceived & played in India. One of Brisingr's first achievements was the conceptualisation, strategising, planning, IT & execution of the world's first archery Carnival, Sphoorti, which was a direct implementation of Sanand's vision. He is now working on implementing his concept for India's FIRST public archery competition, The Iron Target Challenge, starting from Pune & would be covering 40 cities in 3 years, making 10 lakh people play archery.

• Maharaja Praveer Chandra Bhanja Deo Decoration by Chhattisgarh state for outstanding performance in Sports 2005.
• The S.E.C.Railway GM’s Award for excellence in the field of Sports 2005.
• The Award for Excellence in Sports by Rotary International, Chhattisgarh State 2005.
• The S.E.C. Railway GM’s Award for excellence in the field of sports 2006.
• The Award for Excellence in Sports at International Level by Chhattisgarh Yuva Manch, 2006.
• Young Leader’s Award for international representation in the field of Sports by Yuva Nav Shakti, 2006.
• "Entrepreneur of the year 2008", Entrepreneur's Council of Pune.
• A 300-metre stretch of road in Bilaspur, named after him as "Sanand Mitra Marg".
• Sportsman of The Decade Award, Shyam Khel Sammaan, by Dainik Lokmaya, 2011.