THE JURY

Dr. Gangopadhyay, known as the country’s best professor for Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource, is the Dean at Aegis School of Data Science & Cyber Security and the Founding Dean of IIM Indore. Formerly an IAS officer, he has served as Dean of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, and Director of the Central Labour Institute under the Ministry of Labour & Employment, Government of India. He has been a professor in Behavioural Sciences at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, a scientist at DRDO, and a national expert with the International Labour Organization (ILO) and Asian Productivity Organization (APO), Tokyo. Dr. Gangopadhyay holds a Ph.D. from Kolkata and a PG Diploma from IIT Kharagpur.

Mr. Akhil Kumar Gawar is a Director with the Government of Telangana currently looking after food processing in the Department of Industries and Commerce. He is also leading the Telangana State Food processing Society. As per his current role, he is responsible for framing the state policy for promotion of food processing industries and food preservation infrastructure. He is working with Telangana State Industrial Infrastructure Corporation to build a Mega food park and various industrial parks in the state for food processing industries. Mr. Akhil also works closely with Research and Innovation Circle of Hyderabad (RICH) to promote upcoming startups in agri-tech and food processing space. He brings extensive and diverse experience from the private sector having worked with large and well known companies in healthcare and FMCG domain. He has an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad and did his undergraduate from IIT Delhi as an electrical engineering major.

Dr. Aloknath De was the corporate vice president of Samsung Electronics and former chief technology officer of Samsung R&D Institute India in Bangalore where he was responsible for Samsung’s IoT Data Platform and Advanced Service. Dr. De is considered one of the “Most Influential CIO/CTOs of India.” He is a recipient of the Alexander Graham Bell Prize in Canada. He has also received IETE Memorial Awards for distinguished contributions in Electronics and Communications, IDC Insights Award for Innovation in Telecom, and the Zinnov Intrapreneur of the Year award. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Fellow of IE, IETE, and Indian National Academy of Engg (INAE). Dr. De promotes science and technology linkage through IP creation, startup collaboration, and innovative solutions. In addition to more than 30 years of industrial and research experience, including BEL, Nortel (Montreal), Hughes and with ST-Ericsson where he was country director, he served as a visiting professor with IIT-Roorkee and IIT-Delhi from 2005 to 2011. Dr. De holds a B.Tech. from IIT, Kharagpur, an M.E. from IISc, Bangalore, and a Ph.D. from McGill University, Montreal.

Amar Sapra is a distinguished academic in the field of Production and Operations Management, holding the prestigious IIMB Chair of Excellence. His educational journey is marked by impressive credentials, including a PhD in Supply Chain Management from Cornell University and a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Roorkee. Before his current role, he enriched his teaching experience at notable institutions such as the University of Florida and Cornell University in the United States. Professor Sapra is renowned for his expertise in Supply Chain Management, Pricing, and Inventory Management. His scholarly contributions are evident in his publications in top-tier journals like Operations Research and Manufacturing and Service Operations Management. He is also a published author, co-authoring “Principles of Inventory Management: When You Are Down to Four, Order More,” a significant contribution to his field, published by Springer in 2010. Recognized for his research prowess, he has been honored as a “Young Faculty Research Chair” at IIMB. Additionally, he extends his expertise beyond academia, serving as an independent director at Future Supply Chain Solutions Ltd since 2017.

Mr. Amitabh Satyam is the Chief Mentor & Chairman at Smart Transformations. He advises government agencies and corporations on deployments of Smart ideas and solutions. He has recently authored the book “The Smart City Transformations’, along with the co-author Dr Igor Calzada of the University of Oxford. Earlier, as the Managing Partner at SAP, he advised top global clients of SAP on digital transformations of their businesses. At IBM he was the Global Consulting Leader for Telecom for four years.  He advised on business strategy, technology architecture, applications framework, and operations methodology for global customers covering all the continents. He also established IoT practice area and the center of competence and led the key global the deals.  For two years, prior to this role, Amitabh was the business leader for a large, $1bn telecom contract. His earlier roles include Managing Director at MobiApps, Vice President for Telecom Services at Siemens, National Head of Operations at Reliance Infocomm, and Financial Analyst at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney. A graduate of IIT Kanpur with an MBA from Fisher College of Business, USA. Mr. Amitabh has taught in the USA for four years – at The Ohio State University where he received the Hazel S. Brown Teaching Excellence award and at Rider University.

Amit Bhatt is the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT) Managing Director for India. He has more than 20 years of management, urban planning, and transportation expertise and is located in New Delhi. Amit spent 12 years as the Executive Director for Integrated Transport at WRI India before to joining ICCT. He has held positions at Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services and the Urban Mass Transit Company, two of India’s top urban transportation consultancies. Additionally, he has worked as an adjunct professor at the New Delhi School of Planning and Architecture. Amit graduated from the School of Planning and Architecture in New Delhi with a bachelor’s in architecture and a master’s in transportation planning.  Amit also holds a certificate in transport economics and management in addition to a master’s degree in economics.

Dr. Anand Srivastava holds an M.Tech. and Ph.D. from IIT Delhi and is currently a Professor in the ECE department at IIIT Delhi since November 2014, where he also serves as the Director of the IIIT Delhi Incubation Center. Additionally, he is an Adjunct Faculty at the Bharti School of Telecom Technology at IIT Delhi. Prior to IIIT Delhi, he was Dean and Professor in the School of Computing and Electrical Engineering at IIT Mandi and has served as a solution architect at Alcatel-Lucent-Bell Labs, India. His extensive career includes around 20 years at the Center for Development of Telematics (CDOT) as Director and Board member, where he led national-level telecom projects in areas such as Telecom Security Systems, Network Management Systems, Intelligent Networks, and Optical Technology. Dr. Srivastava has conducted significant research at the Photonics Research Lab in Nice, France, and has been involved with ITU-T, Geneva, in optical networking standards. He is currently driving VLC/LiFi standardization activities under TSDSI. His research interests include optical core and access networks, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, Fiber-Wireless (FiWi) architectures, and visible light communications.

Dr. Anandhi Ramachandran, Professor at International Institute of Health Management Research, Delhi India is a Healthcare Profession with 25+ years of experience that spans academics, research, training and healthcare software designing & development. She has cross cutting education and work experiences in the field of bioinformatics, information technology, business management and public health informatics. She is also the nodal faculty for Centre of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and program director of Fellowship program in management at IIHMR. Dr. Anandhi is associated with many National and International bodies of Digital Health and Telemedicine. She has published many scholarly articles, invited to present papers in International conferences and has a well-funded research track. Prof Anandhi’s focus is on health system strengthening by integrating the ever evolving technology into healthcare practices with particular focus on design, implementation and evaluation of digital health technologies for delivering effective and quality healthcare.

Mr. Anil Kumar Jain is currently the CEO of National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) is a non-profit Company incorporated under Section 25 of the India Companies Act, 1956 (now section 8 under Companies Act 2013) with an objective of facilitating improved internet services in the country. Having spent 36 years in various telecommunication roles, Mr. Jain is an expert in internet, broadband and telecom sectors. Some of the organizations he has been associated with include BSNL, MTNL and the Department of Telecommunications, India. Mr. Jain was on the board of NIXI for over 12 years before he took up the role of CEO just last year. His aim is to make the internet accessible and beneficial to every individual in our country. His aim is to make inclusive growth of Internet with easy accessibility, always available, affordable and helpful in official & home work environment.

Anil is Founder and Managing Partner at Unicorn India Ventures. He has been one of the pioneers of angel investments in India as head of operations and President at Mumbai Angels and Bangalore Angels, leading Angel Investment forums in India. Anil has helped close approximately 60 venture-financing deals and was directly involved in closure of over 25 deals. Anil has served on the Board of 5 companies and is involved with various incubation centers as mentor in India as well as internationally. Prior to joining Mumbai Angels, he headed new projects and investment in start-ups with Artheon Group, a Telecom, IT & Energy group. His early career started with heading a branch office at Century Rayon, B.K. Birla Group Company, after which he moved to Business Access India Pvt. Ltd. providing consulting services to Scandinavian companies from diverse sectors establishing their presence in the Asian markets. Then he moved to Transasia Biomedical Ltd., India’s largest manufacturer and exporter of bio-medical equipment. Anil graduated in Engineering and Post-Graduation in Management (Marketing) and PGDBM in Strategic Finance and Control.

Dr. Arun Pulikkottil Jose is a prominent figure in digital and public health in India, currently serving as the Head of the BRIDGE Centre for Digital Health at the Centre for Chronic Disease Control in New Delhi. He holds an MD in Community Medicine and a Post Graduate Diploma in Management of Reproductive and Child Health Programmes from IIPH and UNICEF, and is pursuing a PhD in Translational Research at Maastricht University. Dr. Jose has significantly contributed to digital health through initiatives like Digisahayam, an assisted telemedicine project, and various digital education programs for health professionals. He is dedicated to healthcare equity and has played key roles in international healthcare, including serving as Deputy Chair of the South & West Asia, Middle East Regional Advisory Group of the International Society of Hypertension and leading the society’s May Measurement Month initiative. Dr. Jose has received numerous awards and fellowships, including the NIH-funded Global Public Health Leader fellowship, and has been widely published in peer-reviewed journals and textbooks.

Mr Arvind Bali CEO of Telecom Sector Skill Council (TSSC), TSSC is committed to developing world class skilled manpower for the Indian Telecom industry. Established in 2013, TSSC is a not for profit organization set up with funding support of NSDC through Ministry of Finance, Government of India and Industry Associations.

Mr. Bali headed Videocon Telecom and is actively involved in Business Development, Project Management & Telecom Infrastructure Development. An accomplished business leader, Mr. Bali has 30+ year’s expertise in management of various business streams ranging from telecom, plant & operations, manufacturing & utilities with globally respected outcomes. He possesses capabilities of transforming under-performing organizations with powerful analytical skills, potent communication capability & strategic vision.

Prof. Aggarwal has been working on issues related to sustainable management and public policy for more than fifteen years. During this period, he has worked with academic and policy research organisations like University of Manchester; IIED, London and The Energy and Resources Institute. He has successfully completed several research projects sponsored by World Bank, UNFF, JICA, DFID, GIZ, Government of India, various state governments and multinational and public sector companies.

He has advised central and state governments and corporates on sustainable development, climate change and corporate social responsibility issues in India. He is a reviewer of sixth assessment report and contributing author to fifth assessment report of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Prof Aggarwal has a PhD from University of Manchester and an MPhil from University of Cambridge, UK

Mr. Ashutosh Sharma is a seasoned banker with over 18 years of expertise, having served in various global financial hubs. His extensive experience spans international banking, strategy, institutional banking, capital markets, and transaction banking. Currently at IFSCA, Ashutosh plays a pivotal role in shaping GIFT-IFSC as a prominent financial center, both regionally and globally. He has been instrumental in formulating key regulations and spearheading strategic initiatives like Global In-house Centers and Aircraft leasing. Prior to IFSCA, he held a significant position at ICICI Bank in Hong Kong, overseeing institutional relationships for the APAC & Americas regions and leading the bank’s foreign currency borrowing endeavors. An alumnus of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Ashutosh specialized in Finance and Strategy. He also possesses a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering.

Dr. Ashok Alur holds a PhD in Agriculture, an MBA, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Agricultural Extension Management. With over two decades of experience, he has expertise in higher education, natural resource management (NRM), agriculture, horticulture, rural development, international cooperation, food security, policy advocacy, institutional development, and entrepreneurship. He is the Founder Director of the Centre of Excellence for Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) in Karnataka, supporting over 1200 FPOs and developing state policy and a common brand for FPOs. He also heads the NRM Division at the University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot. Dr. Alur has served in various roles, including Vice Chancellor at Anantapur, Special Officer and Professor at UHS Bagalkot, Project Coordinator at ICRISAT, and Program Coordinator at the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation. He has facilitated the establishment of two universities and advanced research centers, led land resource inventorization projects, and spearheaded international initiatives for agricultural value chains and NRM programs in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Dr Modi is the Assistant Professor at Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department, IIT Kanpur (Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur). His  research are areas of Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Previously, he worked at Disney Research (DR), Los Angeles. At DR, he conducted research in multi-modal Affective computing, Conversational Systems and Natural Language Understanding (NLU).

He did his Ph.D. at Saarland University, Germany under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Manfred Pinkal and Dr. Ivan Titov. He was associated with Department of Computational Lingusitics, MultiModal Cluster Initiative (MMCI) and Department of Computer Science.

Dr. Avik Sarkar is Faculty at the Indian School of Business working in the areas of Data, Emerging Technology and Public Policy. At ISB, Dr Sarkar is heading the development of the India Data Portal, one stop portal for analysis and visualization of government data and working on the societal & policy aspects related to use of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence trustworthiness, ethics, data privacy, e-commerce policy, etc. Dr. Sarkar was the former Head of Data Analytics Cell and Officer on Special Duty (OSD) at NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India Aayog) premier policy think-tank of the Government of India.  At NITI Aayog, Dr. Sarkar helped in developing India’s first AI Strategy and roadmap for use of data, analytics and artificial intelligence for Governance, Policymaking across various sectors for India’s inclusive growth and led efforts towards setting up the first High-Performance Computing based Data Analytics Lab and Energy Modeling Unit at NITI Aayog.

Sh. Bhupendra Singh Awasya has been a Scientist at the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India, for over 14 years. He specializes in cyber security, handling incidents, reverse engineering, VAPT, forensics, product evaluations, and datacentre security architecture. He has published research on “Honeypot Deployment in Broadband Networks” and a study on the security posture of Indian banking financial institutes. Certified by SANS Institute in various cyber security domains, he is currently the Director of Cyber Swachhta Kendra (CSK), a citizen-centric cyber security project under the Digital India initiative. CSK promotes cyber hygiene, detects malware, and provides free security tools. He advises over 500 critical infrastructure organizations on cyber security and is involved in several government project review committees and international security groups.

Mr Bhupesh Daheria is known in education reform leader with 20 years experience in the field. His career is focused on eradicating the birth penalty through offering quality education to the masses at affordable cost. He founded Aegis School of Business, Data Science, Cyber Security & Telecommunication in 2002 with the support of Bharti Airtel; India’s top telecom firm for developing the next generation leaders.

Under his guidance in 2011 launched India’s first mMBA on tablet on Mobile University platform which was unveiled by Mr Sachin Pilot, former Hon’ble Minister of State for Communications & IT, Government of India.

Aegis joined hands with IBM which now known as the best program in Data Science and 2017 launched India’s first PGP program in CyberSecurity. Mr. Daheria is founder and Chief Organizer of Aegis Graham Bell Awards In 2013, He launched mUniversity (known as mUni Campus)– An open market place and delivery platform for the masses. His mission to launch mUni Campus is to make education accessible to all by eliminating geographical and financial constraints.

Prof. Brejesh Lall, a PhD graduate from IIT Delhi in Multirate Signal Processing, began his career at Hughes Software Systems in 1997, where he worked for nearly eight years on source coding and PHY layer solutions for various communication technologies. In 2005, he returned to IIT Delhi as a faculty member in the Electrical Engineering Department, focusing on signal processing research areas such as object representation, tracking, classification, odometry, and underwater acoustic communications. He has held key roles, including heading the Bharti School of Telecom Technology and Management, coordinating centers of excellence in telecommunications and 5G, and setting up an IoT lab with Samsung. He is currently the Co-PI of the “Building an end-to-end 5G Test Bed” project funded by DoT, has mentored five startups, and serves as an expert advisor to several government and private agencies in signal processing.

Dr. C. Krishna Mohan is currently a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Dean of Public and Corporate Relations at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IIT Hyderabad), India.

Prof Krishna Mohan heads Visual Learning and Intelligence Lab (VIGIL) at IIT Hyderabad working in the research areas of video content analysis, computer vision, machine learning, deep learning. He is a recipient of Excellence in Teaching Award, in recognition of distinguished teaching in the year 2018 at IIT Hyderabad. He has published more than 60 papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conferences proceedings. He has guided several Ph.D., Masters, and Undergraduate students

Chetna Gala Sinha is a passionate listener who respects risk-takers — which makes her a powerful force in the banking world. A longtime activist and farmer, in 1997 she set up the Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank, Indias first bank for and by rural women. Today, the Mann Deshi Bank has 100,000 account holders, has loaned over $70 million and regularly creates new financial products to support the needs of female micro-entrepreneurs. In 2006, Sinha founded the first business school for rural women in India, and in 2013, she launched a toll-free helpline and the first Chambers of Commerce for women micro-entrepreneurs in the country. In 2012, she set up a community empowerment program for farmers that supports water conservation; it has built ten check dams and impacted 50,000 people. In January 2018, Sinha served as a co-chair of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and later that year, she was awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar – the highest civilian award for women in India – by the President of India.  Mann Deshi has supported over half a million women and aims to reach one million women by 2024.

David has worked in mobile network engineering for 35 years, his experience includes standards, rollout and optimization, networking and security, analytics, and machine learning. He began his career at the Mobile Systems Division, British Telecom Research Laboratories in Martlesham Heath, UK, and worked in the UK, Europe, the US and Hong Kong and around Asia. At GSMA he is responsible for coordinating various mobile industry technology initiatives, including 5G, AI and IoT in the APAC region. David is a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology and a Chartered Engineer.

Dr. Debapriya Dutta completed his Ph.D from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi and joined the National Agricultural Research Service of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). He served as Scientist in the Central Soil and Water Conservation Research and Training Institute, Dehradun. He was appointed as the Counselor (Science and Technology) in the Embassy of India, Washington D.C.during 2008-2012. Currently, he is serving as Head and Adviser/Scientist ‘G’ in the Science for Equity Empowerment and Development (SEED) division of the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India.

Dr. Deepankar Roy is an Associate Professor in National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM), Pune, India. He holds M.Tech in Computer Application from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Dhanbad) and Ph.D in Payment Systems from Department of Management, Savitribai Phule Pune University,India. His research interests are in the domain of Digital Transformation, Digital Financial Services, FinTech and ICT Management. He has published papers in peer reviewed journals. He provides consultancy services to banks and conducts training programs for senior management of banks and financial institutions in the areas of Digital Banking, Blockchain Technology, Artificial Intelligence, Cyber Security and Financial Inclusion. He also handles courses for Post Graduate Diploma in Management (Banking and Financial Services) students at NIBM in above mentioned areas. He has the following two  honours to his credit : 1)Was invited to a panel discussion on ‘To CBDC or not to CBDC…?’ by Federal Reserve Bank of New York(FRBNY) in New York city during June 2023. This panel was part of a Compliance conference organized by FRBNY where there were participation by Central Bankers from different countries, 2)Provided guidance to Ministry of Finance, Government of India for creating a concept paper/cabinet note for facilitating cashless payments in India during May-June 2015

Mr. Dilip was the Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). He has leads the permanent secretariat of the industry chamber, which is the largest and oldest apex business organization in India, and a potent voice for policy change. FICCI represents over 2,50,000 members through Member Bodies covering all the States of India.

Before joining FICCI, He served as Managing Director & CEO of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). NSDC fosters private sector investment and initiatives in training and skill development.

He has also worked in several key industry organizations, including SIAM as its Director General. He was a member of the Harvard Business School project under Professor Michael Porter that worked on the competitiveness of Indian industry. With varied experiences of working in the private sector, he advices start-ups including organizations in the digital, education, skills and livelihood space. He has also served as Chairman of an Engineering Institute.

A fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science (WAPS), he was awarded the Indian Achievers Award in 2018, The Game Changer Award in 2015 and the Rashtriya Media Ratan Award in 2013.

Disha is currently involved with The Council’s research on India’s power sector legislation and institutional framework, evaluation of renewable energy policies/schemes, scaling up bioenergy applications, and economic recovery strategies post COVID-19. She has more than eight years of experience in policy and regulations to accelerate India’s renewable energy transition, providing technical assistance to stakeholders, facilitating policy dialogues and collaborations, grant-making, and raising philanthropic funds.

Prior to joining The Council, she was the Associate Director at Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation leading national and state-level initiatives aimed at accelerating climate change mitigation and improving urban air quality. She has contributed to several initiatives and committees of the Government of India, including the State Rooftop Solar Attractiveness Index (SARAL) and wind potential re-assessment (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy), and India’s Renewable Electricity Roadmap 2030 and Financing 175 GW RE by 2022 (NITI Aayog). She has been an active contributor to strategically important efforts such as the India Energy Security Scenarios 2047 and the draft National Renewable Energy Bill.

Disha holds a Master of Technology degree in Renewable Energy Engineering and Management from TERI University in New Delhi, and Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Sciences from Apeejay College of Engineering, Gurgaon.

Dr Sahoo is the Associate Professor for Humanities, Social Sciences & Management with IIT Bhubaneswar. Dr Sahoo key research interest includes Open Macroeconomics, Environmental and Natural Resource Economics, Social Sector, Public Policies, Applied Econometrics, and Development Economics. He has done his PhD. from Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore and his Masters from Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. He is been honoured for several academic accolades including World Bank sponsored course for the Teachers of South East Asian countries. He has written several book with the title includes An Economic Analysis of the impact of FDI on the Indian Economy: A Macro level and Sectoral Level Analysis; India’s Experience with Different Currency Regime: An Explorative Study since 1970-71 and Environmental impact of Coal Mines on the Local Inhabitants: A Case Study of North Eastern Coalfields, Margherita, Assam.

Dr Ebin Deni Raj is the Assistant Professor at Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) department, IIIT Kottayam (Indian Institute of Information Technology Kottayam). His research areas are Data Science, Machine Learning (ML), and Artificial Intelligence (AI). He is an ACM Distinguished Speaker in the area of Data Science. He is a recipient of Microsoft AI for Earth grant in the year 2019. He also received the best thesis award by the Computer Society of India. Previously he worked at Alcatel Lucent. He worked on developing Cloud APIs for different use cases.

Dr. Singh is a Scientist and heads Division of Biomedical Informatics at the Indian Council of Medical Research. The Indian Council of Medical Research, the apex body in India for the formulation, coordination and promotion of biomedical research, is one of the oldest and largest medical research bodies in the world; He has been the Co-Ordinator for ICMR’s task force which established 20 Biomedical Informatics Centers of ICMR in leading medical research institutes and medical colleges with a mandate to nucleate and support informatics in medical research through training programs and services established .

He is a technical professional with 17 years of experience in data management and analysis. He is leading a team providing data analysis services to ICMR programs like ICMR Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network, implementation research in mental health and further.

Dr. Singh has extensive experience in handling and analyzing next generation sequence data, genotyping by sequencing and epitope prediction.

Dr. Harsha Jariwala serves as an Assistant Professor in the Finance & Accounting Area at IIM-Jammu, holding the role of Chairperson for the MBA (Hospital Administration & Healthcare Management) program, a collaborative effort of IIM Jammu, AIIMS Jammu, and IIT Jammu. Additionally, she has been appointed as the President of the Financial Literacy Management Council for WICCI (Women Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry) in Jammu and Kashmir.

Renowned for her contributions to financial literacy in India, Dr. Jariwala has empowered over 12,000 women with money management skills. Her efforts earned her a spot in the “Top 100 Women in Finance 2020” under the progressing category by AIWMI. She also received the “Ek naari, 100 pe bhari” Award for Social Contribution and the “Jury Choice Distinguished Alumni Award for Women Achiever” from GEMS Alumni Association, Faculty of Management Studies, Ganpat University, Gujarat.

Her Ph.D. research on “Financial Literacy and Investment Decision” was a pioneering study in India, winning the “Best PhD Thesis Award” and the “Best Research Paper” in the Advanced Research State Category. Dr. Jariwala has published extensively, including a book titled “Financial Literacy and Investment Decision: A Case of Indian Investors,” and over 20 papers in top journals.

She is a Certified Trainer for Financial Education by NISM, a Resource Person for Financial Education by NCFE, and a Resource Person for Financial Literacy by SEBI in Western India. Dr. Jariwala holds a B.B.A. in Finance and an M.B.A. in Finance, is UGC-NET qualified, and has eighteen years of teaching experience in management education across several Indian universities.

JA Chowdary is a prominent entrepreneur, technology leader, and innovator with over 25 years of experience in both private and public sectors. He has been instrumental in advancing the Indian IT industry as an IT advisor, founder of global tech companies, and chairman of STPI in Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore. He has also made significant contributions to ISRO’s satellite projects and founded several social initiatives. Currently, he advises the Tamil Nadu government on technology entrepreneurship and chairs the Blockchain Committee at the Bureau of Indian Standards. He holds an M.Tech from IIT Madras and lives in Hyderabad.

Dr. Jai Asundi is the Executive Director of CSTEP. He joined the organisation in 2009 and has been involved in research and development (R&D) projects in various areas. His initial work was in the field of emergency and disaster management. He mentored teams across areas spanning climate, energy, and urban development. He spearheaded the establishment of AI for Social Impact as a sector of work and the creation of the Center for Air Pollution Studies (CAPS) at CSTEP. His broader research interests lie in decision-making and the development of decision-support systems for diverse public policy problems.

Dr. Asundi started his career as a software engineer/analyst at Infosys Technologies. He spent a year as a postdoc at the Software Engineering Institute, Pittsburgh, prior to becoming an Assistant Professor of Information systems in the school of Management, at the University of Texas at Dallas. He holds a BTech from IIT Bombay and MS and PhD degrees from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a senior member of the IEEE and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University.

Mr. Mehta is the Managing Partner at the Indian Angel Network Funds Division, where he focuses on seed and pre-series A investments to support startups and generate returns for Limited Partners. He previously served as CEO of Mosaic Media Ventures, leading its acquisition by HT Media and overseeing the Mint newspaper business. Jaideep has also been involved with the Confederation of Indian Industry and the All India Management Association, mentoring young leaders and entrepreneurs. His career includes leadership roles at Gartner, IDC, and Dow Jones / News Corp, and successful investments in startups like Tenmarks, Fareye, and Uniphore. As Managing Director of IDC India & South Asia from 2011-17, he earned multiple accolades, including the CIO Choice Award and the World Marketing Congress Leadership Award. Jaideep holds a degree from Shri Ram College of Commerce and an MBA from Manchester Business School. He enjoys reading, tennis, and exploring remote parts of India.

James Williams has over 30 years of experience in the Telco sector, with mobile engagement his principal focus. His clients have included Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), Content Aggregators, API companies, Messaging Hubs, Technology vendors and Enterprises, whilst studying for his degree in European Business and German, Mr. Williams fell rather by accident into the world of Technology and Telecommunications. Known by the industry as ‘Mr Connectivity’, he lives and breathes connectivity of all types and is himself an automotive enthusiast. He lives in the north of England and over the years has worked with many large brands, including a good number in India.

Professor Jayashree Shinde heads the Department of Educational Technology at SNDT Women’s University and holds the additional role of Dean for Interdisciplinary Studies. With 29 years of experience, she has been instrumental in leading teacher training initiatives, including serving as Director of the Malaviya Mission of Teacher Training Centre under UGC. She has expertise in areas such as Educational Technology, eLearning, and innovative pedagogies and has worked on several national-level committees for NEP implementation. Prof. Shinde has managed numerous high-value projects, including collaborations with the Commonwealth of Learning, Canada, and has conducted training programs for over 2000 teachers across India. Internationally, she has worked as a resource person in countries like Bangladesh and Mauritius and is actively involved in various educational advisory and editorial roles, including the Advisory Board of UNESCO’s “Open Education for a Better World” project.

Former Deputy Director General in Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). He had been the main architect for creation of 08 Telecom Centres of Excellence (TCOE) in Public Private Partnership mode for Industry led research in IITs and IIM with the support of Telecom Operators and Department of Telecom; and had managed these centres as Director of TCOE India for over eight years. He was also the promoter and founding Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Telecom Sector Skill Council that works towards adequate availability of skilled manpower to boost growth of telecom sector. He has substantial contribution in development of the Indian telecom ecosystem and has to his credit formation of 17 Start-Ups.

Dr. Jena holds a Bachelor degree in Electrical Eng., Three Master degrees – one each in Telecommunications (IIT Kgp), International Business (Symbiosis) and Defense Strategy (Madras University) – and a PhD from IIT Delhi.

He had three decades of rich experience in Indian Defense in the field of R&D, Policy Making, Project Management and Indigenous Development of Electronics, Communication &; Weapon Systems before stepping into the Telecom sector.

Jibu Elias is a renowned AI Ethicist and the leading expert on India’s AI ecosystem. Jibu is currently the Research & Content Head of INDIAai -The National AI Portal of the Government of India. He also serves as a Senior AI Researcher with NASSCOM.

He is a member of the Working Party on AI Governance (AIGO) and Member of the Expert Group on AI Classification and Risk and the Working Party on Artificial Intelligence Policies. And one of the Founding Editors of Springer’s AI and Ethics Journal- the first multidisciplinary academic journal on AI ethics.

Jibu is a faculty in Globe Perspectives on AI Ethics – A course offered by The GovLab at NYU, the Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence – TUM and the Center for Responsible AI at NYU, where he teaches the role of culture and eastern perspective in AI Ethics.

With years of experience covering emerging technologies with PC Mag and Times of India Group, Jibu’s work currently focuses on building a unified AI ecosystem in India and closing the digital divide created by technologies such as AI. He is an alumnus of The London School of Economics, where he studied International Relations with a specialisation in Sino-India relations.

Dr. Kumar holds a PhD in Biotechnology from the Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, and an MBA from Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University. He has conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Illinois at Chicago and Ohio State University, with a focus on leukemia, chromatin remodeling, and mitochondrial dysfunction. He has published several acclaimed peer-reviewed papers. As Vice-President of Life Science Incubator at IKP Knowledge Park, Hyderabad, he mentored startups and established a translational research center. Currently, as Director & Head of BBC, he focuses on innovations in agriculture, food and nutrition, biofuel/bio-energy, and pharma/healthcare, and collaborates with KBITS to develop a Life Sciences Innovation cluster in Bangalore.

John Grimes was appointed Chief Executive in 2008, and has grown the profile and influence of the Smart Energy Council since that time. He is a bold advocate for the smart energy industry and sits on a number of expert reference committees and boards providing advice to several state governments and the energy sector.

John started his career as an officer in the Air Force and went on to found and grow a number of companies, including a startup company he took to a successful listing on the ASX with a market capitalisation in excess of $30m.

His most recent company was in the environmental sector with operations in Australia, the US and the Middle East. John has a passion for the solar, storage and the smart energy industry. He is regularly called upon by the media to provide relevant and independent comment in these areas.

Currently designated with International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), A statutory authority established by Government of India. The main objective of the IFSCA is to develop a strong global connect and focus on the needs of the Indian economy as well as to serve as an international financial platform for the entire region and the global economy as a whole.

With experiences in client sites in the United States (Houston, San Francisco), Canada (Calgary, Toronto), and Mexico, Senior Technology Professional with experience in consulting and delivering transformational IT Projects for Government/Regulators (RBI) and Fortune 100 clients . Experience building up a Technology Business Incubator and exposure to the startup ecosystem.

Has experience as a member of a management team (part of the five-person core team that co-founded ReBIT, Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s IT subsidiary) with a passion for people, process, and technology. Has a lot of experience in Technology Visioning, Software Estimation, IT Roadmap Definition, Legacy Modernization, Business Case Articulation, Metrics-Driven Operations, Transition, and Vendor Management. With significant exposure to North America (US, Canada, Mexico), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile), Central America (Costa Rica), Europe (UK), and Asia-Pacific (China, Philippines, India), he thrives in geo penetration. He has managed multi-million dollar projects with multiple teams across multiple time zones.

Prof. Srinivas is a Postgraduate in Business Administration and holds a Ph.D. from the School of Management Studies, University of Hyderabad. His Ph.D. thesis was titled “Knowledge Acquisition and Organizational Socialization among Knowledge Workers – A Study in the Indian IT Context.”

He is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), and Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC) from Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), USA.

Before joining IIM Visakhapatnam, he worked with National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) as Senior General Manager. He comes with a rich industry experience of more than two decades and has previously held various senior positions in Centre for Innovations in Public Systems (CIPS), a specialized centre set up by the Ministry of Finance, Accenture, Hewlett Packard (HP), Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), and was a Visiting Professor at School of Management Studies at University of Hyderabad (UoH) and NMIMS, Hyderabad.

He has led Management Consulting, IT Consulting, ERP /IT Project implementations, e-Governance projects and IS Audits,

His research interests are in the domain of Knowledge Management, Information Systems, e-Governance, IS Security and Privacy, Governance, Risk, and Compliance.

Julie Wall is a Professor of AI and Advanced Computing at the University of West London. She has expertise in designing intelligent systems, focusing on speech and language applications for both academic and industrial environments. Her research has focused on advanced natural language processing technologies and biologically inspired audio systems, resulting in over 50 scholarly publications, patents in the UK and US, and substantial research funding achievements. A committed member of the British Standards Institution (BSI) and several professional societies, Julie actively contributes to setting standards in AI, demonstrating a profound commitment to advancing the field and its applications.

Kanu is a Partner at Khosla Ventures, investing in enterprise applications and infrastructures that leverage machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing, language models, as well as robotics, autonomous systems, and hardware acceleration. She has led and manages KV’s investments in companies including PolyAI, Zordi, Mimica, Lexion, Zendar, NoMagic, Korbit, Analog Inference, and Rosebud. With over 10 years of operating experience as a research scientist at Intel and Cadence, Kanu was also a founding or early engineer at startups such as OmniSci, Nascentric, and Atrenta. She has co-authored three books, authored 35+ peer-reviewed publications, and holds a patent in high performance computing and hardware acceleration. Kanu holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from Texas A&M University, a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from the University of Delhi, and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she co-presided over the annual Venture Capital and Private Equity Conference.

Prof. KS Ranjani, an accomplished Fellow Chartered Accountant and Cost Accountant with over two decades of post-qualification expertise, is currently Associate Professor in the Finance and Accounting Area at IIM Mumbai(formerly NITIE, Mumbai).

Her academic journey is underscored by a Ph.D. from SNDT University, Mumbai, where she explored “The Role and Impact of Commercial Microfinance Institutions in Financial Inclusion. Prof Ranjani has worked closely with several Microfinance businesses. She worked on a funded project to develop an Application Wrapper Innovation to enable small businesses to onboard into digital transactions. Notably, her collaborative work with IIM Mumbai colleagues has resulted in a case study titled ‘Shri Ram Temple: A Fintech Solution for Large Scale Project,’ showcasing her academic prowess and practical insights into innovative financial solutions for major projects. Beyond academia, her corporate experience as a Business Analyst – Finance at Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited adds a practical dimension to her profile, demonstrating a seamless integration of theoretical knowledge with real-world applications in the realm of financial solutions for largescale projects.

Dr. K. Srinivas Reddy, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at IIT Madras and honorary professor at the University of Exeter, UK, obtained his PhD in Energy Studies from IIT Delhi in 1999. Specializing in renewable energy, particularly concentrating solar power and energy efficiency, he has published over 300 papers, holds 9 patent applications, and co-authored a popular book on sustainable energy. Prof. Reddy is a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering and the World Society of Sustainable Energy Technologies. He has secured approximately USD 15 million in research funding as Principal Investigator or Co-PI for over 30 projects. His contributions to solar thermal technologies and energy-efficient materials have earned him multiple awards, including the WSSET Innovation Award and the AICTE Career Award for Young Teachers. He has supervised over 200 students and organized numerous workshops on renewable energy technologies.

Kavita Bhatia holds the esteemed position of Group Coordinator & Senior Director in the Emerging Technology, Bhashini, Aadhaar & eGovernance group within the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) of the Government of India. Her responsibilities encompass the nationwide implementation of various initiatives, including Aadhaar, Digital Payments, Emerging Technologies, Bhashini, and the Digital India program.

Educationally, Kavita boasts a BSc in Physics and a B.Tech in Electronics Instrumentation, both from Bombay University. Her professional journey commenced at IIT Mumbai as a Research Assistant. Here, she pioneered the nation’s first Smart Card project, “SMARS”, in collaboration with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and IIT Mumbai. At present, she leads a dedicated team of professionals at MeitY. Their collective efforts are directed towards the execution of numerous technical projects, such as the Centre for Excellence in IOT, AR/VR, Blockchain, Computer Gaming, National Program on AI, Digital Payments, Mobile Seva, National Single Sign On, Digilocker, UMANG, Payment Gateway, eSign, and Standards. These projects form the backbone of the Digital India initiative by the Government of India.

One of Kavita’s notable achievements is the “Mobile Seva” project, which was honored with the United Nations Public Service Award for its contribution to “Promoting whole of government approaches in the information age.”

He has worked for over three decades with Tata Motors – working across value chain and operations, heading quality, vendor development and later taking key positions in After sales such as heading South India and subsequently heading After Sales for International Business for CV of Tata Motors.

In the stint with Foton Motors he spearheaded the strategy for Quality and After Sales. Last 2 years he has spent in turning around MLR Auto. In a short span of 24 months, he has completed the project and established network of dealers across Andhra and Telangana crossing double digit market share.

Mr. Sen is a post-graduate from IIT – Kharagpur and graduated from Maulana Azad Collecge of Technology.

Kim Collaço is the Executive Director International Affairs at ASA, a cross border accounting and consulting firm that works with foreign companies setting up and operating in India. Based in Lyon, she leads ASA’s international business development in France and UK. She has 16 years of experience in India in-bound investments including institutional investments, fund raising, business strategy and partner search across industries creating mid and long-term investment and go-to-market strategies. She has executed projects across industries from financial services and technology to energy, defence, aerospace and manufacturing including automotives. She has been a speaker on various domestic and international platforms including Cambridge Cleantech, Charge Point Operators Society of India, National Highways for EV, the Indo-Dutch Chamber of Business and Sciences, UK India Business Council and the Department of International Trade, UK to name a few. Kim holds an MBA from the University of Cambridge, Judge Business School and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management from the Goa Institute of Management.

Krishan Batra has diverse experience of 4 decades in the field of Technology & SCM. He enjoys engaging people in sustainable transformation and inspiring business excellence. In his last assignment with UN organization as Chairperson of the supply chain, he was instrumental in re- engineering business processes and implementing ERP worldwide. He started his career with Voltas after completing M.Tech from IIT Delhi. Later he completed MBA from Syracuse University in USA.

Mr. Batra was actively involved in developing EDI Standards during his tenure with the United Nations in Geneva. He is the founder and developer of UNSPSC Classification Standard which is used by SAP, ORACLE, and many others as a global standard. He is Advisor of Economic Times on use of new technology to digitize the supply chain. ISM-INDIA is an affiliate of ISM USA which is the largest and oldest organization in the world with its presence in 70 countries. ISM-INDIA is an Associate Partner of Economic Times on Supply Chain issues & knowledge partner of many organizations.

Kun Zhang is the Acting Chair and Professor of Machine Learning and the Director of the Center for Integrative Artificial Intelligence (CIAI). His research focuses on machine learning and artificial intelligence, with a particular emphasis on causal discovery and inference, causal representation learning, and machine learning under data heterogeneity. Zhang’s work aims to enhance transparency in causal learning and reasoning across science, AI systems, and human society. His application areas include biology, neuroscience, computer vision, computational finance, and climate analysis. He also holds an associate professorship at Carnegie Mellon University, where he continues to explore causal learning and reasoning. Zhang has played a key role in organizing major conferences, serving as the general and program chair of the 1st Conference on Causal Learning and Reasoning (CleaR 2022) and program chair of the 38th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI 2022).

Lavanya brings deep life cycle growth equity investing experience to the firm. She has deployed funds, mentored portfolio companies through their journey and created healthy exit outcomes for investors in both India and the US. She joined Trifecta Capital to build out its late-stage equity platform, to consolidate its position as the financing partner for the new economy. She also cultivates a deep interest in fitness, yoga and mindfulness.

He worked as a Scientist in CARE, IIT Delhi from 1977 to 1985 where he was involved in designing and implementing real-time DSP systems. For the last 32 years, he is involved in teaching and research in the areas of digital systems design, electronic design automation and embedded systems. He has supervised 17 Ph.D. students, 4 MSR students, 216 M.Tech/B.Tech projects and published nearly 137 conference and journal papers. Further, he has held visiting positions in universities in Canada, USA and Germany. At IIT Delhi, he has been the Philips Chair Professor, Head of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, Dean of Post Graduate Studies & Research, Deputy Director (Faculty) and Deputy Director

He has been a recipient of three National awards, ACM Eugene L Lawler award and very recently IIT Delhi’s Life Time award for his work in the disability space. He also served briefly as the Vice Chancellor of a Greenfield Institution of Eminence named Satya Bharti Institute of Technology.

Prof. M. D. Agrawal is a visiting professor at SJMSOM, IIT Bombay, and Adjunct Faculty at IIT Gandhinagar, specializing in digital transformation and Industry 4.0. He directs AIMA’s advanced certificate course on digital innovation and has taught at NITIE. Formerly the CIO at BPCL and an advisor at TCS, he has extensive experience in consulting and coaching on digital strategies. Prof. Agrawal, honored with the Excellence in Higher Education Award, has led numerous technology projects and published research on the downstream oil industry. He has been President of the Computer Society of India and SEARCC, and his contributions have earned him several prestigious awards.

Professor M. Jayadev is a distinguished academic in the field of Finance & Accounting at IIM Bangalore, where he also holds the esteemed position of Chairperson at the Centre for Capital Markets and Risk Management. His research interests span across Banking, Corporate Finance and Valuation, and Management Accounting. Beyond academia, Professor Jayadev has offered his expertise in the realms of Basel Accords, Banking, and Risk Management to various banks, consulting firms, and software companies. He is an associate member of the Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB) and has been honored with fellowships from ICSSR and UGC.

In addition to his academic and professional pursuits, Professor Jayadev is actively involved in the corporate world. He serves on the board of directors for BGSE Financial Limited and is also a board member for two burgeoning start-up ventures. His educational accolades include a PhD from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India, and an associate membership from the Indian Institute of Bankers (CAIIB).

Prof M Sreekumar received bachelor degree in mechanical engineering from Madurai Kamaraj University in 1989, and master degree in manufacturing engineering from Madras Institute Technology, Anna University, India, in 2004. He has obtained Ph.D. degree from IIT Madras, India, in 2008 for the research work on “Shape memory alloy actuated compliant parallel manipulator”.

He is currently serving as a faculty at the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing, Kancheepuram, Chennai-600127 India (An Institute of National Importance established by the Ministry of Education, Govt. of India) since 2008. He is possessing around 13 Years of experience in the industry, especially in the design of automation and material handling equipment and around 19 Years in teaching and research. Under his supervision, seven research scholars have received PhD degrees as on date.

He was also a Visiting Professor at the University of Genoa, Italy, for the EMARO (European Master on Advanced Robotics) programme. His research interests include robotics, fuzzy control, smart materials & structures, parallel & compliant mechanisms, swarm robotics, smart manufacturing, and IoT & Industry 4.0. He is an active member of various professional organisations including IEEE and ISTE.

Madhavan Narayanan is an editor, journalist, writer and columnist with more than 35 years of experience in both Indian and international environments. He has worked for media organisations and publications including Reuters, The Economic Times, Business Standard and Hindustan Times. Narayanan regularly features as a commentator on BBC radio, ET Now and Mirror Now, in addition to writing for The Quint, The Economic Times and other publications. His recent ventures with partners include Knowledge Factory, an annual festival of insights and ideas. He has also translated a Tamil novel into English which is due for publication by HarperCollins.

Lt Gen Madhuri Kanitkar, AVSM, VSM has assumed the prestigious appointment of Dy Chief Integrated Defence Staff (Med) on 29 Feb 2020. The Gen Officer is a medical graduate of Armed Forces Medical College, Pune University and postgraduate in MD (Paediatric) from Indian Naval Hospital Ship (INHS), Asvini. She has had the distinction of being first in Pune University in all the three phases of MBBS and was awarded the President’s Gold Medal & Kalinga Trophy for the best outgoing student of the graduate wing in academics and extra – curricular activities in 1982.

The Gen Officer has held various key staff appts, as MG Med, Northern Command, Udhampur, Dean & Dy Commandant, Armed Forces Medical College, Pune, Deputy Director General AFMS (P&T), prestigious appointment of Prof & Head, Dept of Paediatric at Armed Forces Medical College Pune, Sr Adv Paed, BHDC & MH Namkum, Reader, AFMC Pune and Cl Spl Paed, CH (SC) Pune & 167 MH.

For her distinguished service Gen Kanitkar has been awarded Ati Vishisht Seva Medal in 2018, Vishisht Seva Medal in 2014, Commendation by Chief of the Army Staff in 2000, 2003, 2004, 2012 (twice) and Commendation by GOC-in-C in 2008.

The Gen Officer has been nominated to the Prime Minister Science Technology Innovation Advisory Committee and Board of Governors of Medical Council of India in the year October 2018 and July 2019 respectively. Her Thrust has been to align medical education and research to Public Health needs.

Prof. Dr. Manoj Kumar Patairiya is currently Adviser & Scientist ‘G’, Science & Engineering Research Council, Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India and responsible for promoting scientific research and innovation in the country. In his prior assignment he has served as Director, CSIR-National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources and taken number of initiatives. Earlier Dr. Patairiya was Additional Director General of Doordarshan and All India Radio, where he was responsible for setting up a 24×7 Satellite TV Channel DD Kisan including external broadcasts. He also served as Head & Adviser, National Council for Science & Technology Communication and started a variety of innovative programmes. A well accomplished scientist, academician, administrator, and communication professional, Prof. Patairiya specializes in biosciences, mass media, management and policy. He is decorated with prestigious national and international awards. He has a number of publications and two Indian Patents to his credit.

Director, National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE). He was a Professor with Higher Academic Grade (HAG) in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. His research and teaching interests are in modeling the Manufacturing Processes and Operations analysis in Supply Chain Networks. Optimization, Simulation and Computational Intelligence are the main techniques adopted by Prof. Tiwari to automate the decision support system for complex and large-scale problems in Manufacturing and Logistics System

He is Recipient of “Most Influential Researcher Award” in the domain of Operations and Supply Chain Management. He is the Recipient of Mahalanobis Distinguished Educator Award from the Operations Research Society of India (ORSI), in the category of Management education. Prof. Tiwari is in the editorial board of several International Journals.

Prof. Tiwari is also serving as Chairman, Sectional Committee of Global Initiative for Academic Networks (GIAN), Chairman of Board of UG Studies AICTE, First member of Board of UG Studies AICTE, and Member, Board of Governor at NIFFT Ranchi. Prof. Tiwari is Fellow of Institute of Industrial Engineers (IISE, USA), Fellow of Indian National academy of Engineering (INAE, India), and Fellow of National Academy of Sciences (FNASc, India).

Dr. Manoj Singh Gaur assumed the charge of Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Jammu on June 29, 2017. Prior to joining IIT Jammu, he was a Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT) Jaipur, India. Additionally, he was Professor-In-Charge (Coordinator) of IIIT Kota, which is currently being mentored by MNIT Jaipur. He has been Dean, Students Affairs and Head, Central Computer Centre at MNIT Jaipur as well. He also served as Chairman, Senate UG Board at MNIT Jaipur.

He completed his Master’s degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and Ph.D. from University of Southampton, UK. In his teaching and research career of more than two decades, he has been Investigator of a number of funded research projects in the area of Information Security and Networks on Chip. He has been part of the core group of Project ISEA (Information Security Education and Awareness) which is a major multi-institutional project in the domain of Information Security in India.

His current research areas include Computer and Network Security (Network Attack Models and Countermeasures), Mobile Platform Security, Cloud Security, Malware Analysis, Networks-on-Chip, and SDN. He has published more than 170+ papers in reputed journals and conferences. He has also contributed to a number of book chapters. He has several funded international collaborations with many countries.

Ms. Varmani is the Vice President of Invest India- National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency that helps investors looking for investment opportunities and options in India and Lead and involved in Prime Minister’s Science Technology & Innovation Advisory Council Secretariat and involved in Waste to Wealth Mission. Ms Varmani is is driven by the national growth agenda and the vision to create exemplars in the education and innovation domains.

With her current role in the service to the nation she has worked with British Council, Intel Corporation, United Nation. Influencing policy, managing complex alliances and stakeholders, facilitating long term partnerships, leading missions and programmes, are her forte. She did her Masters from Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Dr Mathew Varghese, heads of the orthopaedics department at Delhi’s St Stephen’s Hospital. He is a hero to his patients and other admirers, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Gates describes Dr Varghese as “my inspiration and my real-life hero” for “fighting and (having) dedicated his life for polio eradication in India”. He is public health expert his famous viral explanatory video on timeline of how the virus infects any patient. He also explains how keeping track of you symptoms can save your life. Dr Varghese joined St Stephen’s in 1990. The presentation brings out the painstaking efforts he has put in over the ensuing years. Currently, St Stephen’s Hospital is a regional centre for the national polio vaccination programme.

Dr. Maunendra is an Associate Professor at the Computer Science and Engineering Department at IIT Hyderabad, India. He is also associated with the Department of the AI Department at IIT Hyderabad as an affiliated faculty member, and headed the department from April 2022 – April 2024. His main research areas are Natural Language Processing, Information Retrieval, and Machine Learning. He is a part of the Natural Language and Information Processing (NLIP) Research Group at the Department of CSE, IIT Hyderabad. Research papers from his group have been published at major conferences and journals like ACL, EMNLP, EACL, SIGKDD, SIGIR, etc. Prior to Joining IIT Hyderabad, he has worked for Samsung Research India Bangalore and Sybase Inc. (a SAP Company).

Dr Mridul Saggar is the Professor of Practice (in the area of Economics) at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Kozhikode. Dr Saggar has three decades of experience in various central banking functions. He was earlier the Executive Director, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), overseeing the central bank’s monetary policy and economics research functions. He was also one of the six members of the RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in charge of taking collegiate decisions on policy interest rate and the monetary policy stance; as also of its Financial Markets Committee (FMC), that takes decisions on its financial market operations. Earlier, he had served as the Head of the International Department of RBI, representing India at various international bodies/G20 Working Groups/Task Forces. He was also the Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority (IEPF) Chair Professor at NCAER. during June-November 2022. He also ssrved as Chief Economist of Kotak Institutional equities during 2008-10. Currently, he is also on-boarded as an Expert by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to render expert advise to IMF member countries in the area of monetary policy as part of IMF missions. A Ph.D. from IGIDR and a mid-career fellow at Princeton University, his research interests cover macroeconomics, international finance, monetary policy and monetary operations, international financial architecture and international economic relations, global financial regulatory reforms, financial inclusion, national accounts, and agriculture policy. He has several publications in national and international journals and has taught and delivered guest lectures at various academic institutions in India and abroad.

Muhammad Bilal is a professor of Applied AI and Technology Ethics at Birmingham City University, UK. He earned his PhD in Applied Artificial Intelligence from UWE, Bristol, and holds an MS in Advanced Database Systems. Professor Bilal has a broad spectrum of research interests that encompass Knowledge Engineering, Information Retrieval, Algorithm Design, Big Data, AI Product Development, and Visual Computing, with applications across diverse sectors, including healthcare, finance, digital manufacturing, and smart infrastructure. He has led the research, development, and deployment of numerous AI-powered enterprise products and brings extensive experience in collaborative research design and governance. Furthermore, Bilal has authored over 50 research articles published in high-impact journals and presented at international conferences.

Dr. Nagender Kumar Suryadevara, a Professor at the School of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Hyderabad, is a distinguished academic with expertise in smart sensing systems and the Internet of Things (IoT). His research focuses on designing technology-agnostic solutions for seamless integration of heterogeneous IoT deployments and applying machine learning algorithms to analyze large-scale IoT data in resource-constrained environments. He has held leadership roles at various prestigious institutions in India, Ethiopia, and Oman and earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from Massey University, New Zealand. With numerous publications and active research collaborations, Dr. Suryadevara is recognized as a thought leader advancing IoT, smart sensing, and machine learning applications.

Commander Navneet Kaushik is the Group Head (Projects) & Program Director (Start-Ups), Technology Development Board, Department of Science and Technology, Govt. Of India; He is experienced professional working for commercialization of Indigenous Technology with a demonstrated history of efficiently working in the government administration, projects and interfacing with industry. He was the Commander from the Indian Navy with 20 years of work experience in Quality, Project and Acquisition Management with strong communication and relationship management skills with an ability to lead and manage large teams.

Dr. (Ms.) Neelam Patel graduated in Agricultural Engineering from Allahabad University (1989-94), M. Tech. from IIT, Kharagpur (Agriculture System Management 1994-96), Ph.D. from ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi. Qualified Agricultural Research Service Examination in 1996 and joined as a Scientist at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, ICAR in 1997. Worked extensively on precision farming technologies (per drop more crop, automation etc.) development and dissemination. She brought several innovations at Centre for Protected Cultivation Technology, ICAR-IARI. She is the recipient of several awards and honours including Panjabrao Deshmukh Outstanding Woman Scientist Award -2015 by ICAR, WATSAVE ANNUAL AWARD 2006 for Young Professional of International Commission on Irrigation & Drainage; Gyan Vigyan Puraskar, Ministry of Home Affairs 2004; Siksha Puruskar, Ministry of Human Resources Development, 2006. She is Fellow of National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Indian Society of Agricultural Engineers, Indian Society of Soil and Water Conservation. She is working with India’s Think Tank NITI Aayog as Senior Adviser (Agriculture and allied sectors).

Dr. Neelesh recently moved to Academia as Director, Symbiosis Centre for Alumni Engagement (SCAE), established across the Symbiosis International University to focus on creating a connected world of alumni for new possibilities.

Before, in a career spanning over 22 years, he has gained an extensive global experience in creating IP, wining and managing large international business in various engagement models, domains and technologies. Dr. Neelesh has created and managed competencies such as Cloud, Application Performance Management and Modelling and Simulation, and contributed to make them super-sized. He was leading a team of strategic consultants. He had set up 3 Customer experience and technology centers and made them profitable. As a member of Specialist Cadre – he was responsible to enable multi-fold growth for the organization in disruptive technologies.

Dr. Verma is the first woman Director General of National Informatics Centre, a Premier Science and technology organization of the Government of India. National Informatics Centre (NIC) was established in 1976, and has rich experience in providing ICT and eGovernance support to the Government for the last 4 decades and bridge the digital divide. It has emerged as a promoter of digital opportunities for sustainable development. NIC has been closely associated with the Government in different aspects of Governance  besides establishing a Nationwide State-of-the-Art ICT Infrastructure, it has also built a large number of digital solutions to support the government at various levels, making the last-mile delivery of government services to the citizens a reality.

She was mission director of Aarogya Sethu, Indian open-source COVID–19 “contact tracing, syndromic mapping and self-assessment” digital service, primarily a mobile app. She holds a PhD from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. Her areas of research interests include applications of emerging technologies in Governance, Cyber Security, Data Centers, etc.

Mrs. Nidhi Bansal took over as Director, Technology Development Fund (TDF) on 01 March 2020. TDF extends funding and technical support to private sector industry (especially MSMEs & Startups) that may work in collaboration with the academia or research institutions to carry out innovation, research and development for military technology. At TDF, she has been working towards the accelerated growth of the scheme in line with the vision of “Atmanirbharta” of the Govt of India, nurturing the R&D culture in the private sector with Academia for building an eco-system in the country.

Mrs. Nidhi Bansal is an Aero Engineering graduate of Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh and was awarded University gold medals for best academics and also for project on “Design of a Multi role Fighter Aircraft – ASTEJ”. She holds a Masters degree from IISC Bangalore in Mechanical Engineering. She is an alumnus of prestigious institutions like NIAS, IIM, Ahmedabad and other universitites. She joined DRDO at Naval Physical and Oceanographic Laboratory (NPOL, Kochi) as Scientist and has been instrumental in indigenization of various Sonar Systems and Laser Systems during her tenures at NPOL and LASTEC. She spearheaded the indegenous development of “Pressure Recovery System” for high power lasers. She has over 30 years of experience in the field of CFD, Thermal Mechanics and Electronics Cooling for military systems. She has many awards and publications to her credit. She is a lifetime member of various professional societies like Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI), Indian Institute of Engineers (IIE), Indian Society for Heat and Mass Transfer (ISHMT), and Indian Laser Association (ILA).

Mr. Nikunj Sanghi is an industry veteran with over 4 decades of experience in automobile retail industry. He has been vocal on the issues related to the automobile industry on almost all business TV channels & the print media. He is a strong business development professional skilled in Negotiation, Business Planning, Operations Management, Sales, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). He is an experienced owner with a demonstrated history of working in the automotive industry. He is today among the top 10 dealers of Mahindra & Mahindra. He is also amongst the top 10 dealers of Hero MotoCorp. His dealership J.S. Fourwheel Motors has many state-of-art facilities across many districts in Eastern Rajasthan with a turnover over 300 crores.

Mr. Sanghi is an eminent philanthropist and is trustee of various charitable trusts including the Jaipur Calagary Eye Hospital and Rajasthan Swasthya Yoga Parishad, SML Blood Bank Charitable Trust & Rotary Charitable Trust. In addition, he is also a part of various social organizations. He is a patron of Authorised Motor Vehicle Dealers Association Rajasthan, Alwar Tractor and Automobile Dealers Association and as well as a member of Industrial Advisory Committee Govt. of Rajasthan, Bhartiya Skill Development University Jaipur. He is the past chairman of Alwar Chapter, Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

Mr. Sanghi is Honours Graduate in Commerce from University of Rajasthan and He has also graduated in law from University of Delhi. He is a qualified company secretary and is a member of The Institute of Companies Secretaries of India.

Dr. Nirupama Kulkarni is Senior Research Director at CAFRAL. She is an applied empirical economist and her research interests include corporate finance, banking, household finance, real estate and monetary policy. Her recent work focuses on the role of government policies in the financial and housing market and its implications. Her research looks at how government regulation can stack the odds against private market competition and the implications of government policies aimed at increasing homeownership.

Nirupama has an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from IIT Bombay, an MBA from Stern School of Business, New York University and a Ph.D. in business administration (finance and real estate) from Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. She has been the recipient of the Fisher Center Fellowship at UC Berkeley, Fisher Center Research Grant at UC Berkeley, Vanier Family Foundation Grant at UC Berkeley and was the FWA Clarin S. Schwartz Memorial Scholar and a Glucksman Research Fellow at the Stern School of Business, New York University.

Mr. Nikunj Sanghi is an industry veteran with over 4 decades of experience in automobile retail industry. He has been vocal on the issues related to the automobile industry on almost all business TV channels & the print media. He is a strong business development professional skilled in Negotiation, Business Planning, Operations Management, Sales, and Customer Relationship Management (CRM). He is an experienced owner with a demonstrated history of working in the automotive industry. He is today among the top 10 dealers of Mahindra & Mahindra. He is also amongst the top 10 dealers of Hero MotoCorp. His dealership J.S. Fourwheel Motors has many state-of-art facilities across many districts in Eastern Rajasthan with a turnover over 300 crores.

Mr. Sanghi is an eminent philanthropist and is trustee of various charitable trusts including the Jaipur Calagary Eye Hospital and Rajasthan Swasthya Yoga Parishad, SML Blood Bank Charitable Trust & Rotary Charitable Trust. In addition, he is also a part of various social organizations. He is a patron of Authorised Motor Vehicle Dealers Association Rajasthan, Alwar Tractor and Automobile Dealers Association and as well as a member of Industrial Advisory Committee Govt. of Rajasthan, Bhartiya Skill Development University Jaipur. He is the past chairman of Alwar Chapter, Institute of Company Secretaries of India.

Mr. Sanghi is Honours Graduate in Commerce from University of Rajasthan and He has also graduated in law from University of Delhi. He is a qualified company secretary and is a member of The Institute of Companies Secretaries of India.

Professor Olinga Ta’eed PhD FIoD is Visiting Professor in Blockchain at Birmingham City University and since April 2019 appointed to 7-person Chinese Ministry of Commerce ‘China E-Commerce Blockchain Committee’ with oversight of 70% of US$ 103 trillion global market. He is Founder and Director of the not-for-profit Centre for Citizenship, Enterprise and Governance – world’s leading think tank on movement of value with 170,000 members. He is Chief Editor of Frontiers in Blockchain, the peer reviewed academic journal with 475 editors. In 2017 carried out the UK’s first and only official ICO (Initial Coin Offering) with FCA guidance. Currently he is launching in the Middle East the world’s first  £210m Seratio DLT Open Bank, the TTP Procurement 4IR Foundation leading 2700 multination consortium HQ in Nairobi, and an international community charging Electric Vehicle project using blockchain.

Dr. Omkar Rai was Director General, Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) and has got wide experience in the matters of IT/ITeS industry. Software Technology Parks of India(STPI) was established and registered as an Autonomous Society under the Societies Registration Act 1860, under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India on 5th June 1991 with an objective to implement STP Scheme, set-up and manage infrastructure facilities including data com & incubation for startups and provide other services like technology assessment and professional training.

Prior to joining of Software Technology Parks of India (STPI), he served National Informatics Centre (NIC) in various capacities. He earned wide experience in formulation and implementation of various important ICT applications across various domains. He is also serving as Director on the Board of Directors of MTNL-STPI IT Services Limited and National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). Dr. Rai has been educated in Banaras Hindu University (BHU) from where he earned his Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D in Statistics.

SK Ong lectures at National University of Singapore, and her research interests are virtual and augmented reality applications in manufacturing, ubiquitous manufacturing, assistive technology and rehabilitation engineering. She is a pioneer in the research and development of augmented reality technologies application in product design and manufacturing. As a firm believer that research outcomes should benefit the general population, she leads the laboratory to apply these augmented reality technologies that have been developed for manufacturing in the assistive technology area. She is a Fellow of the International Academy for Production Engineering CIRP, where she was the 1st from the Asia region and the 4th female fellow in the world to be elected in 2012. She received 2004 Outstanding Young Manufacturing Engineer Award, US Society of Manufacturing Engineers and 2009 Emerging Leaders Award in Academia (US Society for Women Engineers). She has published 8 books and over 300 international refereed journal and conference papers, with a google citation of more than 10,890, and a H-index of 57.

Dr. P. Saravanan is a distinguished academic and professional in the realm of Finance and Accounting, currently serving as the Dean (Corporate Relations & Faculty Affairs). Formerly a professor at IIM Shillong, his expertise spans corporate finance, security analysis, and corporate governance. With a prolific publication record, he has contributed 45 articles to esteemed journals, including those ranked by the Australian Business Deans Council. Seven of his case studies have been recognized by Ivey Business School and are part of the Harvard Business School case collection. A regular columnist for major business newspapers, Dr. Saravanan has also penned three books with renowned publishers like McGraw Hill and Oxford.

In addition to his academic pursuits, Dr. Saravanan has played a pivotal role in the evaluation of over a hundred Ph.D theses across premier institutions like IITs and IIMs. His corporate training endeavors encompass a range of topics, benefiting organizations such as UNDP-India, LIC, and L&T. As a consultant, he has collaborated with various governmental departments, offering his expertise to states across India. His directorial stint at TANSIDCO and affiliations with international institutes like the Institute of Financial Accountants UK and Institute of Public Accountants Australia further accentuate his illustrious career. As an educator, he has been lauded for his teaching prowess, consistently receiving high feedback scores across various programs.

Professor Pabitra Mitra received the B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering from IIT Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India, in 1996, and the Ph.D. degree from the Indian Statistical Institute, India, in 2004. He is currently a Professor with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Kharagpur. His research interests include machine learning, data mining, and information retrieval.

Palok Aich is currently a member and was the first chairperson of School of Biological Sciences at NISER Bhubaneswar. Before joining NISER he was a Scientist at Vaccine Institute (VIDO-INTERVAC) @ CANADA. By training he is a biophysicist. During his stay in Karolinska Institute, Sweden, he developed the world’s first UV-FCS with Professor RIgler. He began his career to understand higher ordered DNA structure-dynamics which led to the discovery of a novel form of DNA called M-DNA (where ‘M’ stands for metal) with his mentor Professor Jeremy. He then turned his interest in quantifying stress status of individuals and animals. At VIDO he built the program to quantify various stressors in cattle and later in NISER for humans. He slowly transformed the project on stress to understand the gut-adipose-brain axis and the role of gut microbiome. Today his programs deal with perturbation of gut microbiota by diet, antibiotics, disease and altered light-dark cycle. He has both industry and academia collaboration and several relevant accolades. His overall goal is to identify a handful of gut microbes that can maintain health instead of having a luxury of trillions of microbes. He currently teaches undergraduate and post-graduate courses on Biophysics and Biostatistics, Quantitative Biology and Chemical Biology. He also served as Dean, International affairs as well as at other equivalent administrative positions at NISER.

Ms Pamela association with the telecom sector began in 1985 and since then she has worked in different capacities with organisations such as AT&T Information Systems, IBM, HP, C-DOT, Network Programs India and Texas Instruments India. She is currently director general of the Telecom Standards Development Society of India and president of the Cloud Computing Innovation Council of India. Her works to bring together technical experts from the industry, academia and government on a collaborative platform to define India-specific use cases and develop local standards in the 5G space. During her long professional journey, several experiences have stayed with Ms. Kumar. One such memorable experience was her involvement in the development of India’s first fully indigenous telephone exchange while she was at C-DOT. Another experience was leading the design of a single-chip solution for the 2.5G feature phone at Texas Instruments India. Kumar is an electronics and electrical communications engineer from Punjab Engineering College with an MSc in electrical engineering from Rutgers University. She has also done an executive general management programme from IIM Bangalore.

An officer from Indian Defence Service of Engineers, 1989 Batch, Shri Paresh Kumar Goel, is presently on deputation in Ministry of Road Transport and Highways as Director (Transport, International Cooperation and Establishment). He is an Electrical Engineer and graduated from University of Roorkee (IIT Roorkee) in 1989. He has served all across the country including border areas in Western Sector and NE region and has a rich experience of planning and execution of Defence infrastructure projects. He has earlier also held the appointment of Director (Road Safety) in the Ministry for considerable time. Presently he is dealing with the policy matters related to Transport and International Cooperation in addition to Establishment related matters in Ministry.

Prabin Kumar Panigrahi, esteemed professor in the Information Systems area at the Indian Institute of Management Indore, brings a rich academic background with a master’s from NIT Rourkela and a Ph.D. from IIT Kharagpur. His research, delving into realms like Social Inclusion in IT, Emerging Technologies, and Artificial Intelligence, has graced numerous prestigious journals, underscoring his prolific contribution to the field. Prof. Panigrahi’s expertise is further recognized through various international and national honors, including the Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Lecture Fellowship and the Best Teacher Award at IIM Indore.

His editorial acumen benefits the International Journal of Business Information Systems and the Journal of Global Information Management, among others. Notably, Prof. Panigrahi’s commitment to cybersecurity and e-governance is exemplified in his involvement with Cyber Surakshit Bharat and the SWAYAM platform, contributing significantly to national cyber resilience initiatives.

His accolades, such as the outstanding paper in the 2021 Emerald Literati Awards and the Prof Manubhai M. Shah Memorial Award, highlight his scholarly excellence. Further embellishing his international stature are fellowships and research positions under the Obama-Singh Initiative, at institutions like UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of Wales, and HEC Montreal. Additionally, his inventive spirit shines through the 11 patents he has filed, showcasing a relentless pursuit of innovation and knowledge enrichment.

Pranav Kumar is a Director of Investments with LeapFrog’s Asia team based in Singapore. His role includes sourcing, evaluating and managing investments across South and Southeast Asia. Pranav currently serves on the boards of LeapFrog partner companies NeoGrowth and Dvara KGFS.

Prior to joining LeapFrog, Pranav worked at the World Bank Group as a specialist in the finance and private sector development. Previously, he was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, leading teams on strategy and business transformation projects for banks, insurers and other financial services companies.Pranav holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a Bachelor of Technology degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay.

Dr. Pushpak Bhattacharyya is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay and along with academia role he currently holds Chairman position for the Committee for Indian Language Standards, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY), Chairman for LITD 30, Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Ministry of Commerce and Industry. He completed his B.Tech from IIT Kharagpur, M.Tech from IIT Kanpur, and PhD from IIT Bombay, with a stint as a visiting research fellow at MIT. Renowned for his work in natural language processing, he has received several prestigious awards, including the IBM Innovation Award and the Yahoo Faculty Award. He has served on national committees related to language technology and is an associate editor for ACM TALIP. His research interests include NLP, Machine Learning, and Machine Translation, and he recently published a textbook on Machine Translation.

Amongst the most seasoned B2B investors in India, Radhesh brings rich operational experience in the enterprise technology space. He is a self-driven professional ready to take up challenges. He started Arka Venture Labs along with 3 anchor investors in 2018 August with the objective of investing, mentoring, and providing connections to the ecosystem for B2B startups between the India and US corridor. The fund has made 27 investments till end of 2021 out of which there are 4 exits and 11 uprounds (Nexus, Lightspeed, Matrix, B Capital, Sequoia, Facebook to name a few). Radhesh also mentors his portfolio startups in areas like product, product market fit, GTM, channels strategy, branding, uprounds etc.

He is the investment lead for Obviously.ai (Upround from B capital, TMV, UTec), Deepaffects (Acquired by Rincentral), Insent (acquired by Zoominfo), Simplicontract, Nirmata (Upround from Uncorrelated, Zee5 Ventures), dotin Inc (acquired by Opensesame) , Firsthive (acquired by Mela Ventures), Essenvia, Enact, Glance HQ, Rocketium, Trainn and Zapscale. Radhesh has also spent 18 years in IBM garnering strong technical, sales, and business development experience. He headed the Global Entrepreneur Program (IBM startup initiative), for IBM India and South Asia and made it a company to be reckoned with by the Startup ecosystem in India.

He is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and is also affiliated with the National Resource Centre for Value Education in Engineering. His current research interests include Neuroimaging, Yogic Neuroscience, and Machine Learning. Before joining IIT-Delhi, he served as VP Analytics and Head of R&D at Opera Solutions India, a New York City-based analytics software company serving Fortune 500 clients. Prior to that, he worked at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, where his research focused on high-performance computing and machine learning techniques for analyzing Neuroimaging data, particularly in medical image reconstruction and functional connectivity of the brain in fMRI data. Earlier in his career, he managed the high-performance computing group at IBM India Research Lab and held an adjunct faculty position in the Computer Science Department at IIT Delhi, where he taught courses on game theory and communication networks. His past work also includes contributions to communication networks, game theory, auction algorithms, and Economics.

Rahul leads GSMA’s Mobile for Development (M4D) team in Asia Pacific which covers four themes: digital inclusion, financial inclusion, resilience to climate change and humanitarian response. He also leads GSMA’s engagements in Bangladesh. He has been part of M4D for nine years starting in the Digital Utilities programme which supports the use of mobile to improve access to energy, water and sanitation services in underserved communities.

Prior to joining the GSMA, he worked in a variety of roles ranging from engineering of wireless communications systems to general management in solar energy and media & entertainment sectors.

Rahul has an MSEE with a major in communications and digital signal processing from the Missouri University of Science and Technology and an MBA in general management from IIM-Ahmedabad.

Former Director General of Health Services, India, and past-chairman of Board of Governors, Medical Council of India, Professor Rakesh Kumar Srivastava, was Indian delegate for WHA (2005-2011), member of public health task force for past epidemic/pandemic/disaster, architect for preparedness against pandemic, chairman of PCT committee and member of Tech Transfer Committee, Advisory Committee in Medical Technology Assessment Board in Department of Health Research, chairman of PMR specialty board with National Board of Examination (NBE), besides serving on various committee of Ministry of Health, NBE, Welfare Ministry, SEARO Office, WHO. Professor Srivastava brought about health system reform by creating National Centre for Disease Control, which has state of art national surveillance system, Integrated vector borne disease program, Microbiology with BSL-3 lab, national tele-medicine program, national AMR policy and national IHR compliance mechanism. He is a well-known public health expert, hospital administrator and medical educationist.

Professor Srivastava is presently involved in transforming primary care by integration of technology, innovation and artificial intelligence solutions in healthcare. He is patron of Indian Federation of Neuro rehabilitation, member of Executive committee of Kalam Institute of Medical Technology (KIHT), Vizag, senior advisor for innovation and technology at Wadhwani Initiative for Sustainable Health (WISH), India. Professor Srivastava graduated/post-graduated from KGMC, Lucknow University, India (1971/75), fellowship in UK/Denmark (1982) and did certificate course from Upsala University (1984) Professionally, he is renowned physiatrist, who had contributed to patient care as specialist in Safdarjung Hospital, as professor in PMR department of VMMC, as PMR sub-specialty board chair of NBE, as chairman of locomotor disability subcommittee of RCI, as EB member of NIOH, Kolkata, as architect for competency based curriculum for PG in PMR under NBE, as DGHS in developing blueprint for AIIMS like institution(with PMR as integral department) and a secretary/president of IAPMR for PMR specialty development

Mr. Singh is an Electrical Engineer from NIT and an MBA from IIM Calcutta. He worked in Corporate for ~12 years before joining NITI Aayog as a lateral entrant at the Director level in E-Mobility vertical. He has worked in management positions at Daimler and MAN Truck and Bus India (A Volkswagen Group Company). He has co-authored several reports, including the recently launched report on Battery recycling. He is a senior team member for ACC PLI. He is part of the ETD 51 committee for EV infrastructure standards and the Technical jury for Battery Swapping Standards. He was instrumental in bringing out the Light EV charging standards published in mid of 2021. He is also leading the Battery swapping policy. He was one of the youngest in management at Daimler and also in MAN Trucks and Bus (where he was India’s CFO). He is also a member of the steering cum external expert committee for all CSIR Units.

Prof RK Shyamasundar is a JC Bose National Fellow and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay. He was the Founding Dean of School of Technology and Computer Science at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He is a Fellow IEEE, Fellow ACM and Fellow of all National Science and Engineering academies and a Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Trieste. He has authored over 300 peer reviewed publications, 8 patents, and 8 books. More than 35 Ph.D. students have graduated under his guidance in India and USA. He has been a consultant to ESPRIT projects, Industries, Govt. of India etc. He is on the editorial board of Journal of parallel and distributed computing, Sadhana etc. He has served as Faculty/Visiting Scientist at various places like IBM TJ Watson Research Center, UCSD, UIUC, SUNY at Albany, INRIA, IRISA, University of Cambridge, JAIST at Japan, Max Planck Institute at Saarbrucken, Visiting Distinguished Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, UK twice etc. One of his principal areas of research has been cyber security and is leading the Information Security Research and Development Center (ISRDC) funded by MEITY at IIT Bombay. He has/had been on the boards of IIIT Allahabad, IIIT Jabalpur, IDRBT, Bombay Stock Exchange etc.

Rangan Banerjee is the Forbes Marshall Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay – a Department that he helped start in 2007. His areas of interest include energy management, modelling of energy systems, energy planning and policy, hydrogen energy and fuel cells. He is on the editorial board of Energy for Sustainable Development, International Journal of Sustainable Energy, International Journal of Sustainable Engineering and International Journal of Thermodynamics and Frontiers in Energy Research. He has been involved in setting up a Megawattscale Solar Thermal Power Testing, Simulation, Research Facility sponsored by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. He was the faculty advisor to Team Shunya the first Indian Student team selected for the finals of the Solar Decathlon 2014 held in Europe that involves designing and constructing a fully functional Solar house.

He was a member of the TIFAC Technology Vision 2035 – Apex Committee and Chairman of the Energy Technology Theme. He was a Convening Lead Analyst for Industrial End Use Efficiency and a member of the executive committee for the Global Energy Assessment (2008-2011) coordinated by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. He was a Member of International committee to review UK’s Energy Research Programme in 2010 (RCUK Review of Energy). He was a member of the Working Group on New and Renewable Energy for the Elleventh and Twelfth Five Year Plans and a member of the Planning Commission’s Integrated Energy Policy. He has been involved in advising the city, state regulatory commission and energy agency, Planning commission, Niti Aayog, MNRE on energy issues. He has co- authored a book on Planning for Demand Side Management in the Power sector, a book on Energy Cost in the Chemical Industry and a book on Engineering Education in India. He has conducted two international training programmes on solar energy and several National programmes on renewable energy and Energy Management. He is also an Adjunct faculty (Honorary) in the Department of Engineering & Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University. He has been the Dean(R&D) of IIT Bombay. He has received the Excellence in Teaching Award from IIT Bombay and is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

Dr. Ranjna Nagpal (Deputy Director General) heads the Agri-Informatic Division at NIC, and is spearheading the implementation of Digital solutions in Agriculture and allied domains (Fertilisers, Irrigation, Animal Husbandry, Agro-Forestry etc.).

She has more than 3 decades of expertise in conceptualisation and implementation of multiple pioneering ICT initiatives in the country, most of which have been awarded at various forums. During these 3 decades she has been a part of the growth and challenges of technology from basic IT infra to smart digital systems, which enables her to provide very valuable insights for the application of technology to solve grassroot level problems

Prof Rajat Agrawal, the Head of the Department of Management Studies at IIT Roorkee, is a prominent figure in the academic world, particularly in the realms of Operations and General Management.

Dr. Agrawal’s research interests span a broad spectrum within Operations Management, including Supply Chain Management, Quality Management, Inventory Management, Manufacturing Strategy, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), and Innovation. He also delves into Business Models and Entrepreneurship, with a specific focus on IP Management. His expertise is not confined to these areas, as he also explores General Management topics such as Indian Models of Management. His commitment to education and research is evident from the prestigious Ramkumar Prize he received in 2020 for Outstanding Teaching and Research. Beyond his primary role, he is involved in various interdisciplinary capacities, serving as a Joint Faculty member in the Department of Design and as an Associate Faculty in both the Centre of Excellence for Disaster Mitigation and Management and the Centre for Transportation Systems. His diverse contributions also include a tenure as the Former Associate Dean of Innovation and Incubation, reflecting his commitment to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship in the academic community.

Dr. Rajkumar Buyya is a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Director of the Cloud Computing and Distributed Systems (CLOUDS) Laboratory at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He served as a Future Fellow of the Australian Research Council during 2012-2016. He has authored over 625 publications and seven text books including “Mastering Cloud Computing” published by McGraw Hill, China Machine Press, and Morgan Kaufmann for Indian, Chinese and international markets respectively.  He is one of the highly cited authors in computer science and software engineering worldwide. Microsoft Academic Search Index ranked Dr. Buyya as #1 author in the world (2005-2016) for both field rating and citations evaluations in the area of Distributed and Parallel Computing. “A Scientometric Analysis of Cloud Computing Literature” by German scientists ranked Dr. Buyya as the World’s Top-Cited (#1) Author and the World’s Most-Productive (#1) Author in Cloud Computing. Dr. Buyya is recognized as a “2016 Web of Science Highly Cited Researcher” by Thomson Reuters, a Fellow of IEEE, and Scopus Researcher of the Year 2017 with Excellence in Innovative Research Award by Elsevier for his outstanding contributions to Cloud computing.

Software technologies for Grid and Cloud computing developed under Dr. Buyya’s leadership have gained rapid acceptance and are in use at several academic institutions and commercial enterprises in 50+ countries around the world. Dr. Buyya has led the establishment and development of key community activities, including serving as foundation Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Scalable Computing and five IEEE/ACM conferences. Dr. Buyya received “Mahatma Gandhi Award” along with Gold Medals for his outstanding and extraordinary achievements in Information Technology field and services rendered to promote greater friendship and India-International cooperation.  He served as the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing. He is currently serving as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Software: Practice and Experience, which was established over 45 years ago.

Mr Rakesh Kumar Upadhyay is an Indian Telecommunications Service (ITS) 1975 batch officer who was the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) Of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL). A graduate of IIT, BHU, Varanasi in Electronics Engineering, he is also a graduate of Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) Wellington. He has obtained MSc (DS) degree from Madras University and is a MBA from IGNOU. He served telecommunications sector for more than 40 years in India and abroad and held important positions in the Department of Telecommunications (DOT), Government of India, Telecommunications Consultants of India (TCIL) and BSNL, both leading Indian Public Sector Companies-PSUs.

He successfully led these two PSUs as their Chairman and Managing Director (CMD). He served as country in-charge Republic of Yemen (ROY) and People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria for TCIL.  A widely travelled person, he headed and also was member of important Government delegations visiting foreign countries, delivering keynote addresses in many international conferences.

Dr. Raman Saxena is currently a professor of design thinking, HDC, and HCI at the Software Engineering Research Centre, IIIT Hyderabad. He is also an adjunct professor at the Department of Design, IIT Kanpur. Before moving to academia in 2013, Dr. Raman had 25 years of corporate and senior leadership experience in multidisciplinary and multicultural organizations, including Siemens, Nokia, Network Programs (NPI), Human Factors International (HFI), and CA Technologies, etc., in India, the US, Europe, and China, where he worked on many high-impact technology and design projects in the areas of HCI, product design, service design, software, and information technology. He holds a PhD in Human-Centered Design from the India Institute of Technology (IIT) in Guwahati as well as an industrial design diploma from India’s premier design institute, the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmadabad, and is a Federal Government of Germany scholarship recipient for an advanced programme in product design, planning and development, and international management.

He has been actively engaged with startup and incubation as a co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Microskills, a platform offering learning, skilling, and a growth eco-system for the BoP and microentrepreneurs. He has mentored several startups and incubation initiatives, including the AUD Centre for Incubation & Innovation of Entrepreneurship (ACIIE), and served as a mentor at DLabs and the Indian School of Business (ISB) Hyderabad. Many international conferences and seminars have invited him to speak, including the South Asia Connection on Economy, Health, and Education at Soka University South Asia Research Center, Japan 2020, the International Council of Design (ICoD)’19 in Graz, Austria, the ICoD’18 in Beijing, China, the ICoRD21 at IIT Mumbai, COCREAID’15 at IISc (Indian Institute of Science) Bangalore, the User Friendly Conference Shanghai, China, 2011, and the WUD Event in Shanghai, China.

He has also served as a jury member for the CII Design Excellence Awards 2018 and the India Design Mark 2014 and 2015, both of which are initiatives of the India Design Council, a government-sponsored initiative. He has also served as an Advisory Board Member of the National Institute of Design’s R&D Campus Bengaluru (Bangalore) from 2008–2010. He conceptualised and organised several conferences, seminars, workshops, and Gurukul programmes related to design, business, technology, and innovation under the USID Foundation, a non-profit platform for evangelising design and technology for social impact.

R Ramanan was the 1st Mission Director of the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM) – a flagship national Innovation initiative of the Hon’ble Prime Minister and the Government of India of India under the NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India). AIM’s goals are to establish and promote a vibrant culture of innovation and entrepreneurship nationwide. As the Mission Director of AIM, Ramanan has been instrumental to date in the launch and execution of several nationwide innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives.

R Ramanan was previously Managing Director & CEO of CMC Ltd, a subsidiary of the globally acclaimed Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Ramanan led CMC’s rapid transformation from a domestic government organization to a global IT private sector organization. Under his leadership CMC share price grew over 2100% between October 2001 to 2014, its operating profits over 1338%, 72% of its business coming from the overseas markets and leading to its successful amalgamation into TCS in 2015

Ramanan’s joined TCS in 1981 after graduating from IIT Mumbai in Electrical Engg and played an instrumental role in the growth of TCS with a variety of responsibilities ranging from product development, technical marketing, global business development, and general management of large centers of TCS.

Professor Rathinavelan Thenmalarchelvi, holding a Ph.D. from the University of Madras, is a distinguished member of the BioTechnology department. Her research interests are diverse and impactful, spanning Bacterial Glycobiology, Transition State Structures of Proteins, DNA-protein Interaction, and DNA Structure and Dynamics. She is also deeply involved in Multiscale Modelling, integrating AI and ML in biotechnological research, and employing Optics, Photonics, and Spectroscopy in her studies. Furthermore, her work extends to understanding Disease and Toxicity Mechanisms, contributing significantly to Drug Discovery, Drug Target Validation, and Preclinical Testing in Molecular Virology. Her multifaceted research endeavors make her a prominent figure in advancing the field of biotechnology.

Ravi is an Entrepreneurship Evangelist, Startup Expert, Curator & Ex Business Advisor Shark Tank India and an Alumni of The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), a premier professional exchange program by U.S. Govt. Department of State’s. He is Strategic Director & India Representative at Royal Family of Dubai The Private Office of Sheikh Saeed bin Ahmed Al Maktou.

Ravi has over 10 years of experience helping Start-ups, Entrepreneurs and Govt. across India to solve problems using Entrepreneurship, Technology, and Innovation. He is the Chief of Partnerships at Venture Catalysts Group – a $0.7 Billion Multistage VC Network (www.venturecatalysts.in). His expertise lies across sectors such as Entrepreneurship, Angel Investment, Venture Capital, early-stage ventures, Government Relations, Global Startup Ecosystem, Business Incubator, Operations, Events, and Media.

Coming from a small village in Jharkhand, his humble background helped him witness Multiple Geopolitical challenges first hand which inspired him to study Journalism and Communication. Ravi started his career as a Journalist & went on to join the Indian Entrepreneurship Ecosystem to help Startups solve problems. Working with start-ups, Global Corporations, Government and multiple stakeholders, Ravi thrived in new challenges, committing to continuous learning and thought leadership while demonstrating originality in thinking and leadership through action. A connector, mentor and keen observer of the ever-shifting and metamorphosing Startup Ecosystem, Society, Business and Government space, Ravi has spotted social disruptions and changes while evaluating risks and economic rewards for enterprises.

Professor Ravi Shankar, a luminary in the field of Operations and Supply Chain Management, serves as a Professor (HAG) at the Department of Management Studies (DMS) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. He is distinguished as a Fellow of the prestigious Indian National Academy of Engineers (FNAE), a testament to his expertise and contributions in his field. As of March 2023, his research has garnered over 34,900 citations, with an impressive H-index of 79. This level of research productivity is arguably unparalleled in any business school across India. Professor Shankar’s academic interests are diverse and impactful, encompassing Operations & Supply Chain Management, Business Analytics & Optimization, Project Management, and Technology Management & Innovation. His work in these areas has significantly advanced the understanding and application of these disciplines.

His major areas of interest are expansive and influential, covering Decision Sciences, Logistics & Supply Chain Management, Operations Management, Project Management, Business Analytics & Optimization, Strategic Technology Management, and Knowledge Management. This breadth of expertise highlights Professor Shankar’s role as a leading academic and researcher, shaping the future of these critical business and management domains.

23+ years of experience across various geographies with the world’s leading telecommunications & Networking OEMs, Service Providers, System Integrators, ISVs & Academia. Digital Evangelist with a background in Technology & Consulting with Fortune 500. Currently involved in the introduction of AI-enabled Platform-Based Services, Consulting, Transformation, Thought Leadership, Product & Program Management & Business Transformation Advisory Services for Roadmap, Revenue Generation, Digital Strategy, Business Processes, IT Architecture. He heads Digital & Business Transformation for ConneQT Business Solutions and an IIM-Bangalore Alumnus. He is an angel investor with preference of early Stage Startups with strong & differentiated value proposition with large market size. Founder’s Team with Strong Focus on Product Market Fit, Profitable Growth, and Tech background.

Ritu Mehta is Professor of Marketing at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta. She obtained her Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. She holds a BTech in Chemical Engineering and MBA in Marketing. Prior to joining academia, Ritu worked in consumer-packaged goods companies in diverse sales and marketing roles. Her research interests include, among others, retailing, consumer behavior, sales promotions, and role of gender in consumption and decision making. Her research has been published in several international journals such as Journal of Marketing Management, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, International Journal of Consumer Studies, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, and Decision. She has presented her work at leading international conferences. She has also developed several case studies with Ivey Publishing. Ritu’s teaching interests include marketing research, retailing, pricing, and services marketing.

Dr. Rupesh Kumar Pati is associated with Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (IIMK) from May, 2007. Before joining IIMK he served ISRO as a scientist in Program Planning and Evaluation Group. In ISRO he was a part of a team responsible for planning and monitoring of various prestigious PSLV, GSLV missions. After joining IIMK, he has received Indo Shastri Partnership Development Seed Grant (2012-13) to work in HEC Montréal, Canada for understanding and designing sustainable pharmaceutical Supply Chain for Indian and Canadian Industry. He was also awarded Emerald/ IAM management research fund award 2010 (supporting the dissemination of knowledge for social good in India) by pursuing research on “Reverse Logistics in Indian Pharmaceutical Industry” (along with Ms. Sushmita A Narayana).

He is a member of the Advisory Board of School of Project Management (SOPM), NICMAR University, Pune. He was also the member of the Expert Committee for revision and updating the Manual on 24×7 sustainable water supply formed by CPHEEO under Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (GoI). He is also one of the Jury member of L&T project management institute reputed industry case competition.

At IIMK he is actively involved in research publication in the domain of sustainable supply chain management. He has published in 25 top International Journal publications in the domain of Operations Management (like Production Planning and Control, Resources conservation and Recycling, Journal of Cleaner Production, OMEGA-Management Science, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Logistics Management, Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, OPSEARCH etc.).  His current research interest is in sustainable supply chain, green business, and project management. In recent years most of his research studies have been highly appreciated among academicians (based on citations) and is primarily in the field of enhancing sustainability in pharmaceutical, fertilizer as well as organic food sector.

He has also conducted over 100 training programs for leading corporates in the area of Supply chain, project and quality management, green business etc. One of his student has set up her own sustainable farming practices there by reducing solid waste (environment and health issues) and providing join to marginalized section of society (details can be seen in  www.tmkagroproducts.com).

Dr. Sagar Mitra is currently an associate professor in the Energy Science and Engineering Department at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India. Dr. Mitra received his Ph.D. in solid state electrochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, in 2004. After completing his PhD, he joined Prof. J.M. Tarascon’s lab for two years as a postdoctoral researcher (2004–2006). Later, he joined the electronic industry at Replisaurus Technologies in Stockholm, Sweden, as a Principal Electrochemist (from 2006 to 2009). At Replisaurus Technologies, he has received a prestigious Swedish award as “Expert in Electrochemistry for the Electronic Industry” in 2006. He is currently leading the battery research team in the National Centre for Solar Photovoltaic Research and Education (funded by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Govt. of India) at IIT Bombay, and his current research is mainly focused on advanced materials and technology development for different energy storage applications, particularly lithium-ion batteries and sodium-ion batteries.

Dr Samit Bhattacharya is an Associate Professor in the Dept of Computer Science and Engineering, with over 15 years of experience in teaching and research. He is an active researcher in the broad area of human-computer interaction, having specific interest in Extended Reality (Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality), E-Learning, Smart Interactive Systems, Affective Interfaces and User-Centric Computing. He is the founder and principal investigator of the User-Centric Computing and Networking Laboratory (UCCNET) at the Dept of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Guwahati. His achievements include over 85 research publications including books, book chapters, journal articles and conference proceedings; successful supervision of 6 PhD theses (with couple more continuing), 20+ MTech and 40+ BTech projects; execution of funded research and consultancy projects worth over INR 90 million; multi-dimensional teaching experience catering to students, faculty, and working professional/executives in India and abroad covering an array of topics; recipient of national and international awards; membership of various national and international committees.

After graduating as an Electrical Engineer from NIT Kurukshetra, Mr Samrat completed his Post Graduation in Supply Chain from NITIE Mumbai. During the 21 years in the industry have worked in almost all the fields of Supply Chain like Procurement, Demand Planning, Inventory Planning, Production Planning, Distribution, Ware House Management. Spent bulk of his career with FMCG, Pharma Companies and Tyre Industry.

He has been handling roles of increasing responsibility across the Supply Chain having worked extensively in Supply, Demand and Production Planning. Later on he had opportunity to work in Procurement at RB for more than 3.5 years where a strong vendor base was developed that is giving structural benefits to the organization even upto now. Also worked as Head of Supply Services where he was involved in various initiatives to Modernize the warehouses.

Currently at Dabur he is Leading a large Cross functional and Change management project in his current role as Head of Supply Chain. Part one of the projected is successfully implemented in which the key improvement areas were the Integrated S&OP process, Range Availability improvement at the CFAs, Continuous Replenishment System for the Distributors, Post GST Network optimization and Long Term Capacity Planning. The project has lead to improvement in Range availability at CFAs and at the Distributors. Second phase is about the IT interventions which is under way currently.

Sandeep Phanasgaonkar is a seasoned professional with over 3 decades of experience in business and technology leadership, spanning IT for banking, financial services, ERP software, and business and IT outsourcing. Since 2013, he has been a strategic consultant, helping enterprises leverage IT for growth and profitability. His expertise includes implementing private and public cloud, mobile technologies, infrastructure virtualization, and business intelligence processes.

Sandeep plays a crucial role as a mentor and advisor to high-tech startups, collaborating with private equity firms, venture capitalists, and angel investors. He focuses on guiding these companies to tap into the vast enterprise and mass market in India and abroad, with a particular emphasis on the Mumbai-Pune region’s mobile, social media, and cloud companies.

Previously, Sandeep was the President & Chief Technology Officer at Reliance Capital Ltd, where he developed a diverse enterprise platform that significantly contributed to the company’s rapid growth. His career began at the State Bank of India, followed by significant roles at Tata Unisys, Oracle Financial Software, and Deutsche Bank. He notably served as the Regional Technology Head for Deutsche Bank in Asia, managing critical phases including the Y2K transition and cash management system implementations. Later, he joined GE Capital, India, as Group CIO and then moved to Genpact as the Global Chief Information Officer, overseeing global IT deployment and operations.

A career bureaucrat for 24 years from West Bengal Civil Service (Executive) cadre who had earlier served as an Intelligence Officer for 4 year whilst remaining in charge of various high value government installations, among other assignments in the North-East. I

Alma Mater of Ramakrishna Mission Ashrama, Narendrapur, Mr. Das has a Master’s in law, specialising in Constitutional Law from Kakatiya University; another Master’s in Business Administration from ICFAI University; Bachelor of Science with Honours in Physics from Calcutta University along with Post Graduation Diploma in Rural Development; Cyber Law, Intellectual Property Rights and Training & Development from various institutions of repute. Recently, he topped the first National Cyber Security Scholar Programme organised by ISAC, MDI Gurgaon and NCIIPC, Govt of India. He has also been trained as a Cyber Security Strategist by DSCI and CrowdStrike. He is a Certified Lead Implementer Professional in ISO 27701 and GDPR by BSI.

Dr. Sanjay is a though leader for telecom technologies. He has a unique blend of Technology, Advocacy, Education, Defence and Management. He has 30+ years of experience (including 11 Yrs in India Air Force in Tele Communication stream as a Short Service Commissioned officer) in Telecom domain in Wireless technologies like IoT, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, CDMA, GSM, Microwave, UHF/VHF. He has also worked in Infrastructure security, safety as in Smart cities, Wireline networks, Broadband Networks etc. in different roles such as Practice Head, BU Head, Delivery Head etc. He also has PMP & CWNA certifications.

Dr Sanjay has worked with various companies like TCS, Wipro, Tata Teleservices, Tata Infotech, Amdocs (Comverse), Nelco, Hinduja Group, India Satcom, apart from his Air Force tenure. He is also a member of Board of Studies for Dept. of IT at NMIMS Mumbai.  He has done his Ph.D. from Mumbai Univ in Management (Thesis on ‘Study of Customer Experience in mobile telecom networks and its impact on Operator’s financials’). He has done his BE & ME in Electronics & Power engg from VNIT Nagpur. He has also done ICWA (I), MDBA (Finance) from Symbiosis Pune, and Armed Forces Program (Full time 6 months) in General Management at IIM, Ahmedabad. Dr Sanjay has acquired PG Diploma in Big Data and Business Analytics from Aegis School of Big Data, Data Science and Cyber security, Mumbai in 2017. He also has UGC-NET (Management). He had completed LL.B. from Mumbai University and currently is a practicing Advocate in Bombay High Court and other Mumbai courts.

Renowned as a luminary in global health and a proven digital health innovator, Dr. Sanjay Sood stands among the pioneers in global telemedicine since 1998, leading ground-breaking digital innovations that fortify health systems worldwide. With an expansive skill set in large-scale digital health implementations, his expertise spans diverse geographies, fuelling transformative change. His dedication to advancing global health initiatives is evident across his extensive career. His depth of knowledge and insights are exemplified in over 50 distinguished world-class publications authored by him.

As the helm of eSanjeevani, India’s National Telemedicine Service and the world’s largest telemedicine platform, as the Project Director Dr. Sood leads this monumental endeavour that has provided health services to over 200 million patients nationwide. His exceptional leadership has garnered accolades such as the prestigious Digital India Award 2020, conferred by the Hon’ble President of India, acknowledging the profound impact of eSanjeevani. Currently serving as the Associate Director at C-DAC, Mohali, and as the Technology Director for Healthcare Technologies C-DAC India, Dr. Sood continues to drive innovation and transformative solutions in global health. His collaborations with global development organizations including BMGF, JHPIEGO, J-PAL, PATH, TAF, and USAID underscore his significant contributions in the development sector. Additionally, he has excelled in multicultural teams, leveraging diverse perspectives for pioneering advancements. Driven by an unwavering passion for development initiatives, Dr. Sood’s proactive approach and steadfast belief in leading from the front continue to shape the future of global health. His efforts empower communities, strengthen health systems worldwide, and implement cutting-edge digital health solutions.

Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Varshney is a prominent figure in the field of scientific cooperation in India, holding a significant position as the Head of the International Scientific Cooperation in the Ministry/Department of Science & Technology, Government of India. His career in this department commenced in 1990, and since then, he has played a vital role in advancing international scientific collaborations through bilateral, multilateral, and regional partnerships.

As the Indian Co-Chair of the Governing Body of the Indo-German Science & Technology Centre (IGSTC) and the U.S-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund (USISTEF), Dr. Varshney has been instrumental in promoting joint industrial research and development. His expertise extends to his role on the Board of Directors of Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA), a private limited company. He is also actively involved as the chair of the IORA Working Group on Science & Technology and serves as a Member of the Governing Council of the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy (ARCI).

Dr. Varshney represents India in several international forums, including as the Focal Point for BRICS Working Group on Science & Technology and a member of the OECD Committee on Science & Technology Policy. He has previously been a Governing Board member of the US-Indian Education Foundation (USIEF) and a member of the Board of Research Studies in the Department of Geology at Aligarh Muslim University.

His international experience includes serving as the Counsellor (S&T) at the Embassy of India in Moscow, where he facilitated India-Russia bilateral scientific cooperation from April 2008 to June 2011. His academic credentials are equally impressive, with a Master’s in Geology from Aligarh Muslim University, where he was awarded the University Medal in 1984. He also qualified for the UGC NET in 1985 and was awarded the Dr DN Wadia Research Fellowship in 1986 for his research in Himalayan Geology. Dr. Varshney was conferred a Doctor of Science (DSc) (Honorary Causa) by Amity University, Rajasthan.

As a Life Fellow of the Geological Society of India and the Nepal Geological Society, and a member of the International Association of Sedimentologists, he contributes significantly to his field. His efforts extend beyond academia into science popularization, evidenced by his regular contributions to newspapers, magazines, and journals.

Dr. Varshney’s career is marked by his dedication to fostering scientific collaboration and his contributions to the field of geology and scientific policy.

Dr. Satish Narayana Srirama is an Associate Professor at School of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Hyderabad, India. He is also a Visiting Professor and the Honorary Head of the Mobile & Cloud Lab at the Institute of Computer Science, University of Tartu, Estonia, which he led as a Research Professor until June 2020. His current research focuses on cloud computing, mobile web services, mobile cloud, Internet of Things, fog computing, migrating scientific computing and enterprise applications to the cloud and large-scale data analytics on the cloud. He received his PhD in computer science from RWTH Aachen University, Germany in 2008. He is an IEEE Senior Member, an Editor of Wiley Software: Practice and Experience journal, a 51-year-old Journal since Jan 2016, and a program committee member of several international conferences and workshops. He has co-authored over 160 refereed scientific publications in reputed international conferences and journals. Dr. Srirama has successfully managed several national/European/international/enterprise collaborative research grants/projects worth over 6 million Euros during the past decade, in the areas of cloud computing, software engineering and Internet of Things. He also served as an expert panel member in evaluating project grants for various government-funding bodies such as the Academy of Finland, Italian Ministry for Education, Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation, Research Council of Norway etc.

Prof. Saurabh Kumar is currently working as an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Indore in the Information Systems area. He is presently the Chair of the Integrated Program in Management (IPM) at IIM Indore. He has worked earlier as a Faculty at IIM-Nagpur and also as a Visiting Research Scholar at Beedie School of Business (Simon Fraser University), Canada. He has undergone his Doctoral Studies (FPM) in the IT & Systems area at IIM Lucknow. He holds an engineering degree in computer science and has corporate experience with Tata Consultancy Services, Bangalore. He is working in the fields of data mining, business analytics, and digital transformation. He was awarded with the very prestigious award of Young Faculty Research Chair-2020 of IIM Indore. He has publications in reputed journals like Industrial Marketing Management (ABDC-A*), IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management (ABDC-A), Behaviour and Information Technology (ABDC-A), Journal of Enterprise Information Management (ABDC-A), and so on.

Saurabh has been involved in the startup ecosystem since his graduation over 11 years ago. A majority of this time was spent as an entrepreneur setting up companies in the healthcare, food-tech and e-commerce domains. About five years ago, he switched to the investment side and has been an investor at Trifecta Capital ever since. Currently, Saurabh is a Director at Trifecta Capital and invests in Consumer Services, Healthcare, Ed-Tech, Social Media and Agri-Tech sectors among others. He is a prolific risk-taker and revels in exploring new segments for business opportunities.

Having been a serial entrepreneur, Saurabh brings the unique “founder’s perspective” to the table. He specialises in standardising the operations of a company and using technology as a catalyst to achieve scale. Saurabh is an alumnus of IIM-Ahmedabad and IIT-Varanasi.

Seema Bhardwaj is an Indo-German professional with over two decades of experience in strategic advisory. Before joining GTAI in July 2020, she headed the India Desk of a major German law firm for 14 years, consulting companies from German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) in their market entry into India. She studied law in India and Germany and holds a Master’s degree in Political Science. In her current position as Director, India, Seema Bhardwaj is responsible for Indian Investors are providing support on all questions relating to business establishment in Germany. Market Data, legal and tax framework information, personnel recruitment, and site selection support are all part of Germany Trade and Invest’s service portfolio.

She is a regular speaker at international conferences and speaks German and English about Indian law.Further Seema Bhardwaj is the Ambassador for the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Change. Action, Germany; Head of the German Indian Roundtable (GIRT) in Berlin; a founding member of the Indo-German Association of Legal Cooperation (IGAL); A Member of the Internationalization Committee of the Berlin Chambers of Commerce

Dr. Shanta Thoutam, a gold medalist in BTech Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, has an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from New Mexico State University (NMSU) in the United States.She worked for 5+ years as an analogue IC designer in Austin, Texas, USA. While pursuing her PhD, she had the opportunity to serve the Arrowhead Center, the primary economic development arm of NMSU, in various capacities, including as a Technology Commercialization Associate, a Commercialization Analyst, the Director of Launch Competition, a Proof of Concept Center, and a technology commercialization accelerator that created 10 startups and 10+ patents. For 5+ years, she played key role in bridging the gap between NMSU and the market by successfully advancing technologies emerging from campus to business development settings. She is also one of the Stanford VentureWell University Innovation Fellows (UIF).

After living in the USA for 15 years, she accepted the opportunity with T-Hub and relocated back to India with a great zeal to learn, serve, and build the innovation and startup ecosystem of India. As the Vice President of Corporate Innovation and Business Development at T-Hub, she was instrumental in establishing partnerships with new corporate clients and retaining old ones while spearheading various open innovation programmes for corporate clients that are scouting for startups working on disruptive technologies emerging in sectors including AgriTech, FinTech, HealthTech, Sustainability, Transportation and Logistics, Smart City, etc. Some of the marquee T-Hub Corporate Innovation programmes that she led had about 170+ startups graduate with $130 million in funds raised cumulatively, and seven of them were acquired.

From September 1, 2021, she is appointed as the Chief Innovation Officer of the Government of Telangana to foster the innovation and entrepreneurial culture that transform the livelihoods and lives of grassroots innovators, social innovators, and women across 33 districts in Telangana. She presides over several advisory committees and panels that deal with innovation and entrepreneurship. She shares and lives the Telangana government’s vision of making Telangana one of the world’s innovation and startup destinations.

Dr. Shekhar C. Mande obtained his MSc in 1984 from Nagpur University and PhD in 1991 from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in Molecular Biophysics. After postdoctoral training of two years at Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands in the laboratory of Prof. Wim G. J. Hol, he worked as Senior fellow, in laboratory Prof. Wim G. J. Hol for three years at University of Washington, Seattle, USA. He returned to India in 1995 and joined as Scientist-C, at Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh and continued working there until 2001. In 2001, he moved to Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad and worked there as staff scientist until 2011. Since 2011 he is working as The Director of National Center for Cell Science, Pune. His laboratory has been involved in two broad research themes in the recent past: (1) structural characterization of M. tuberculosis proteins and (2) computational analysis of genome-wide protein: protein interactions. Dr. Mande received several recognitions for his studies, Fellow, Indian National Science Academy New Delhi, Elected 2010, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Biological Sciences, 2005, Wellcome Trust International Senior Research Fellow, since 2003, Fellow, National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad, India, Elected 2003, Fellow, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, Elected 2003 and B M Birla Young Scientist Award, 1999 for his contributions to Science.

Dr. Srikanth Rupavatharam leads the Digital Agriculture initiatives and heads iHub, ICRISAT’s innovation platform for AgriTech start-ups. As a Senior Scientist in the Digital Agriculture cluster of the Global Research Program ‘Resilient Farm and Food Systems,’ he holds a PhD in Postharvest Technologies from Massey University, New Zealand, and a Master’s from Writtle College, University of Essex, UK. A recipient of several prestigious awards, including the Gardner’s Prize and the David Livingstone Fellowship, Dr. Srikanth brings over 23 years of experience in agricultural research and development across the UK, Africa, Oceania, and India. He specializes in digital agriculture strategy, quality assessment using non-destructive techniques, and process engineering innovations with AI, UAVs, modeling, and big data analytics. Passionate about impacting smallholder farmers, he focuses on building their capacities through innovative digital tools for agricultural extension and management.

As the CEO of TASK, his major role is enhancing the employability for the youth in Telangana under the Department of ITE&C, Government of Telangana. He has been responsible for on boarding Govt. degree colleges and polytechnics, multiple industry partners as well enhanced the offerings at TASK. his priority has been to increase focus on the rural areas of the state as well as to promote skilling and placement of girls and the underserved communities. With the onset of the COVID pandemic, he has been spearheading the transition of conventional training programs to virtual (online and blended) mode, and initiated several webinar series on various subjects.

He was part of the Program Review & Support Group (PRSG) for PMGDISHA, was also part of the two-member committee which has provided guidelines to be followed for all Govt. of India Websites & apps (GIGW). He served as a member of various Govt of India’s working group like ‘IT for Masses’; ‘Technology Development for Indian Languages Program’; part of the content, assessment for NDLM & PMGDISHA. An eminent speaker at national and international forums, he is also part of the Technology Advisory Group for ‘Girls in IT’, A champion of Social & Grassroot innovations and inclusive India, his passion got him to join the advisory board of the Nagrik Foundation & Action Aid India.

Prior to joining TASK, he was the CEO of NASSCOM Foundation, the social development arm of the Indian IT-BPM industry body – NASSCOM, where he led the ‘tech 4 good’ movement in the country for little over 4 years. Prior to joining NASSCOM Foundation, he was based out of Malaysia, working as Head Corporate learning, APAC and MENA, at GlobalNxt University (formerly U21Global), a leading Online Graduate School, helping thousands of people working in corporates across the Asia-Pacific, Middle-East and North African regions with limited or no access to good quality academic opportunities.

Through his unique perspective and diverse and rich experience spanning over 32+ years, he helped take NASSCOM Foundation to newer heights and helped create much larger impact. He has also been championing the cause of collaborative CSR, where corporates can join hands for a common cause, with government and non-government entities to solve social issues and create large scale impact. As a respected leader in the space, A student of Computer Applications & Physics from Delhi university, earlier in his career, Shrikant has played a pivotal role in the success of APTECH  in India, in Latin America & the Middle East.

Srikanta Bedathur is the DS Chair Professor in AI in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD). Before joining IITD, he worked at IBM Research India (2014-18), IIIT-Delhi (2011-14), and Max-Planck Institute for Informatics (2005-11). He completed his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science. Srikanta is the recipient of the inaugural IISc CDS alumni achievement award (2019), 10-year test-of-time award at ECIR 2020, NASSCOM AI Game Changers (runner up) in 2022. He has published more than 90 research papers in data science, data mining, AI and ML areas.

Shobhana Lele, currently the VP-IT for The Bombay Dyeing and Manufacturing Co. Ltd., is a seasoned IT professional with more than two decades in the industry. She has a varied experience in industries like chemicals, FMCG, pharmaceuticals, retail, real estate, and manufacturing, with previous stints at Sanofi India Ltd., Heinz India Pvt. Ltd., and BASF India Ltd. in multiple geographical locations in Europe, the UK, and China. She has a master’s in information technology from the University of Madras. She is on the committee of CIO Klub, a non-profit organisation of, for, and by CIOs. She is also a certified independent director.

Prof. Somanath Tripathy is a Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department of Indian Institute of Technology Patna, India. He is also serving as an Associate Dean, Administration and former Associated Dean Academic, at IIT Patna. As a researcher, he is passionate about working in security, blockchain, machine learning, and IoT applications. He has successfully mentored 5 Ph.D. students and currently mentoring 6 Ph.D. students. He has published more than 100 research papers in different journals and conferences of repute like IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, IEEE Transactions on Emerging Topics in Computing, IEEE Transactions on Services Computing, ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications, TrustComm and GlobeComm, are naming a few. He serves as a reviewer in International conferences and journals of repute, like IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Springer, and Elsevier.

He has co-founded and mentoring two startups, Federated Learning Explorer Pvt. Ltd. which is working on AI in Agriculture, and Whitenet Explorer Private Limited on secure FinTech applications. He has been PI and Co-PI of several security-related projects from the Ministry of Home Affairs, India, and SERB (Mathematical Research Impact Centric Support (MATRICS), India. Prof. Tripathy is currently serving as an associate editor of Sadhana-Academy Proceedings in Engineering Science of the Indian Academy of Sciences and editor of IETE Technical Review. He is a Life member, CRSI [Cryptology Research Society of India], a Senior Member, IEEE.

Mr. Subhash built one of the largest tech Think-Tanks in Southeast Asia, and he is credited with creating one of the most novel audit procedures ever. In 2018, the Department of International Trade (DIT) in the United Kingdom recognised his process as a “unique disruptive technology with exceptional global potential, being led by a professional management team.” He is the founder and CEO of both the venture-building company Technoplat and Lemon Advisors Lemon assists firms in “growing and scaling” their operations in more than 30 nations via offices in the UK and India. Lemon focuses on the following five industries: telecoms & media, fintech, health tech, space tech & aviation, and renewable & sustainable energy. Lemon provides services in the areas of technology transfer, knowledge transfer, and business transformation.

A global platform called Technoplat was created to foster and expand tech-based start-ups. Its primary focus is on emerging businesses in the MENA, APAC, and EU regions. Mr Subhash serves on the board of directors and as president of global partnerships for Orbital Micro Systems (OMS), a SpaceTech Data firm founded by the University of Edinburgh. He is a judge for Tech Nation’s Rising Star 4.0 Program Skill, In-depth Understanding of Technology, and Tech Nation UK Ambassador. Wide-ranging business connections with industry experts, the corporate and governmental sectors, investors, and financing organisations; areas of expertise; “C” level access spanning Asia, the Middle East, and Africa; the EU; and the United States; Entrepreneur, tech adviser, non-executive, and mentor at Tech Nation, Level39, NatWest Accelerator, and TechStars.

Subrat Kar graduated with Honours in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani in 1987. He holds a Doctoral Degree in Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (1991). He has been with the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste as a Post-Doctoral Fellow (1991-1994). Presently he is a Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi where he is also the Ram and Sita Sabnani Chair Professor.

His research areas are in optical communication, switching, access technologies, telecom protocols, embedded systems and high speed networks. As a member of the Optoelectronics and Optical Communication research group, he works in the area of non-linear optical CDMA networks, free-space optical communication (ground-satellite and inter-satellite) and in ultra-fast optical LSI and fault-tolerant integrated optical switching architectures. His interests also involve formalisms in embedded system design, hardware-software co-design, telecom protocol design and verification tools for telecommunication protocols. He has designed and holds patents in the field of large-scale sensor networks, routing algorithms, macro languages, large scale repository design for sensor data and localization issues in sensor networks.

Mr. Sudhir Gupta has done his B.E (Electronics) in 1979 from the University of Indore and Post Graduate Diploma in IT & Management in 1999 from the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi.

Having spent 25+ years in technical roles in different companies like HCL, Agilent, Marvell, Freescale, Juniper, among others, Sudhanshu has gained extensive experience in the embedded domain in different verticals like networking, storage, printing and imaging, medical equipment, IoT, security, etc. He also holds a patent in the imaging area.

Sudhanshu completed his graduation in electrical engineering from IIT-BHU and is also a certified intellectual property rights professional from the Indian Law Institute.

As “Head – CoE Gurugram and Director – Technical Solutions” with NASSCOM Center of Excellence for IoT and AI, Sudhanshu leads the overall operations of Gurugram CoE and is also responsible for driving the solutioning of the problem statements brought by CoE partners. Primary focus verticals are healthcare, standardisation activities, electrical vehicles, and academic engagements.

Captain Ramanujam has a rich experience of 30 years in Maritime Logistics and Transportation. He has been engaged with the skill eco system since its inception in 2010. Mr Ramanujam was the CEO Logistics Skill Council his endeavour was to ensure Logistics Companies have at least 25% of their workforce below Managerial Cadre are skilled and LSC certified, while reducing the cost of hiring by 20% in 3 years. He is an ardent advocate of Apprenticeship and feels this should be the preferred route for Companies and Candidates as it is a win-win situation for both. He also feels Education and Vocational Skills are intimately connected and has had the support of the Academic Institutions, Industry and Government of India to embed Logistics Training in the Educational Sector in a first of kind Degree Apprenticeship Program.

Mr. Khanna is a partner of the Investment Advisor and is responsible for ideating, identifying, investing, monitoring and exiting investments in the consumer products and services sector. Mr. Khanna also plays a role in managing key LP relationships. Mr. Khanna is serving and has served on the boards of several portfolio companies of the Investment Advisor – NTL, Barbeque Nation, Sapphire Foods, Mrs. Bectors Foods and Thalappakatti Hotels. Prior to joining the Investment Advisor in 2008, Mr. Khanna was a director in the investment and corporate banking sector at Yes Bank, an Indian private sector bank. Mr. Khanna was responsible for originating mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”) and capital raising transactions across North and East India for four and a half years, originated several private equity transactions and worked with several private equity funds, including with CVCI. Mr. Khanna was also an integral part of the startup team at Yes Bank and served in a variety of leadership roles. Prior to his engagement at Yes Bank, Mr. Khanna spent four years at Citi’s corporate and investment banking business, before which he was with GE’s commercial finance business for 18 months. Mr. Khanna earned an MBA from the University of Baltimore and a B.S. degree in Engineering from the University of Maryland.

She holds 20^th position as “India’s 100 Most Influential Cyber Warriors”. Ms Tulika has lead to undertaking national initiatives in technology assessment & development, several initiatives have been undertaken towards building the country’s internet resilience; significant contributions in the national cyber security strategy and cyber warfare formulation as also policy and regulations; initiatives for creation of skilled workforce; programme for encouraging cyber security industry & startups; international alliances for collaboration and confidence building measures. Member Task Force and Committees. She has Lead technology development and successful field implementation in the areas of Digital Payments; Alternate Technologies for Connectivity in Rural India; E-Readiness Assessment Methodologies; Internet Governance; Digitization & Digitalization, E-Learning; E-Infrastructure; IPv6; Convergence, Communications & Broadband Technologies;Smart Cities;Transforming Villages into Smart Villages;Security especially in Digital Payments. She has Lead research & development in the areas of Microelectronics & Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems(MEMs); Convergence of Cognitive Radio Frequency with Internet; Emerging Technologies – IoT, Data Analytics, Blockchain Technology & Artificial Intelligence. She has Technical Reports and Research Papersthat have lead to adoption and implementation– Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMs); E-Learning Models for Secondary Education; E-Readiness Assessment of India; Internet Governance Position Paper of India; Secondary Usage of TV White Space in UHF Band to provide Broadband connectivity; Smart City – IoT Framework; Security – Digital Payments, IoT, 5G; Women Empowerment through ICT, Standards – Smart Grid, IoT, Digital Payments.Digitization & digitalization; Network Engineering; Cyber Trailing, Wireless Sensor Networks; Pervasive Computing; Security in IoT/CPS; Blockchain Technology.

He has Built a large Geocycle (AFR) Business in ACC; Nil TPA (2006) to 0.5 Million TPA (2015), Served as a Member of many strategic committees of Holcim, ACC, and Geocycle. He Spearheaded a Co-processing initiative – that ensures sustainable growth – in the country and established it as a business model. He has  Implemented advocacy through CII to include co-processing in the Indian Policy framework, and served as an expert member on several committees constituted by the Govt of India and also some state governments.

After retirement in 2018, he has executed strategic assignments for the European Union and a few organizations from Europe and has also started a new Circular Economy Initiative named   ISCE. He extends consultancy services as an expert to some of the globally operating management consultancy companies and also to cement plants and waste management companies. He has published >30 papers in national and international journals of repute with global scientists, academicians, and officers of CPCB  & SPCBs as co-authors. He has also co-authored a book on co-processing which is published by Springer, Singapore.

Dr Usha Ananthakumar is a Professor in the area of Decision Sciences & Quantitative Methods at Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay.  Her areas of research include Applied Statistics, Classification under Imbalance, Statistical Learning and Data Mining. Her publications have appeared in International journals like Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Production and Operations Management, Journal of Quantitative Economics etc., Her teaching interests include Statistical Methods, Multivariate Data Analysis and Predictive Analytics.

V Giridhar is currently an Assistant Professor at the Industrial and Management Engineering department of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK). He was awarded PhD in Marketing Management in the year 2019 for his original ethnographic research work on marginalized communities presented in his doctoral thesis titled “Identity, Resistance, and Transition among Indian Subaltern Communities.”

Prior to joining for his PhD at IIM Shillong, Giridhar held managerial positions in Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, Vishakapatnam and State Bank of India, Hyderabad. He holds a master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur; and a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering (BE) from Osmania University, Hyderabad.

After obtaining his doctoral degree, V Giridhar worked as Assistant Professor in Indian Institute of Management Bodh Gaya for an year, where he taught courses like Marketing Management and Retail Management. His research interests include consumer culture, subaltern consumers, B2B marketing, and retail management.

Commander Varun Gupta has 20+ years of rich Naval experience in Information Security and ICT in Indian Navy and has held important portfolios onboard ships and shore units.

He has commanded two Naval ships and has been a specialist in fields of Communication, Networking, Electronic Warfare and Infosec. Having lead Operations Networking, Information Security and Electronic Warfare through his career, he is presently serving at Headquarters of Western Naval Command as Director ICT and Infosec.

The officer is alumnus of National Defence Academy and is an MBA in IT Systems. He’s a keen learner and is passionate about Cybersecurity and Digital Transformation. He also holds industry certifications viz. CISSP, AWS Solutions Architect Associate and ISO 27001 LA.

Dr. Veena Iyer is an Associate Professor with Indian Institute of Public Health Gandhinagar. Her areas of academic and research work include Maternal health, Infectious diseases, and Urban health. She is a qualified medical practitioner from Goa Medical College (1990) and has secured an MPH from Emory University, Atlanta (2009), and a PhD from Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

In the 90s Veena served as an Emergency Medical Officer at Lokmanya Tilak Medical College and Hospital, Sion, Mumbai for three years. Veena worked as a Medical Officer of an Urban Health Centre in Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation for ten years (1995-2005) where she practiced as a General Practitioner and implemented all national health programmes. That body of work resulted in her present areas of interest. Veena has also volunteered with the United Nations as a Medical Doctor at Accident and Emergency Services, Rio Claro Health Centre, Trinidad, for a year (2007).

He has done his PG Diplomas in Cyber Law (2016), IPR Law (2017), ADR Law (2018), Company Law (2019) and International Trade Law (2020) from ILI /ISIL, New Delhi;

Dr. Vikram Popli is a Director with LeapFrog’s Asia team. He is an orthopedic surgeon with more than a decade of experience in healthcare private equity investment. After completing his MBBS from Maulana Azad Medical College, Vikram completed his MS in orthopedics from Safdarjang Hospital. He has also obtained an MBA in Finance from ISB Hyderabad. He comes to LeapFrog not only with deep medical experience, but with 10 years of experience in private equity through OrbiMed, a healthcare focused fund, where he was a Director.

Vikram has experience of investing in various sub-sectors in healthcare and lifesciences including hospitals, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and distribution. He was involved in multiple investments at OrbiMed, including KIMS Hospital, a leading chain of hospitals in Kerala and GCC, Surya Children’s Medicare, the largest private neonatal and pediatric hospital in Mumbai, and Advanced Enzymes, the largest enzyme company in India and in the Top 15 businesses in its industry globally. He has successfully exited investments generating good returns for the investors. His experience in these investments spans all stages of the transaction from deal identification, diligence, negotiation, investment, post investment monitoring,  performance improvement, impact assessment and exit.

Dr Vinay Kulkarni has completed his B.Tech. in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, Ph.D. in Computer-aided Manufacturing from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is currently the Director of Aegis School of Data Science, Faculty for Statistics and Probability, Apache Hadoop at Aegis School of Data Science and also an former Adjunct Professor at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay In the past he has worked as a Vice President – Innovation and Incubation, Geometric Ltd, Strategic Advisor for Mindmap IT Solutions.

Vinod Keni is the Managing Partner, IAN Alpha Fund, an early-stage VC fund. He is also an advisor to Harmonic, a venture-buyout fund based in the US. In addition, he is the co-founder of Bottomline, a finance transformation and automation platform, and Peachtree Management Advisors, a boutique growth advisory and management consulting company.

An experienced entrepreneur, investor, advisor/mentor, and business builder with more than 25 years of operating, entrepreneurial and investing experience in the US & India, Vinod has a track record of success in achieving positive business results. Having lived in the US and Singapore besides India, Vinod combines the best of Western practices and processes with Indian pragmatism.

He has worked with early and growth stage companies, leading the finance function, investing in them, fund raising, M&A, corporate development and being a mentor/advisor to founders and management teams. As a CFO, he has led two NASDAQ IPOs and worked extensively in building and growing businesses. Vinod leverages his extensive experience, best practices, pragmatism with demonstrated execution capabilities and networks.

Y. Narahari is an Honorary Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Automation at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India. He previously served as the Dean of the Division of Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Sciences (EECS) at IISc from 2014 to 2021 and as the Chair of Computer Science from 2010 to 2014. His research focuses on the intersection of game theory, optimization, and machine learning. Narahari is the author of the widely regarded textbook Game Theory and Mechanism Design, which is considered a definitive resource for engineering students. He is a fellow of several prestigious academies, including INAE, IEEE, INSA, IASC, and NASI.