SPEAKERS

A prodigy, a luminary and an outstanding persona in the field of engineering and management, Anuj Jain did his B.tech from IIT Roorkee and MBA from IIM Lucknow in 2009. He has had an overwhelming experience for 8+ years across Internet and Telecom domain with eminent companies like Snapdeal, MTS India etc. He has also worked with startups and well established multi-nationals in different roles like Marketing, Strategy, Operations etc. Currently, he is working on his own venture - Blood Network, a social startup, which he conceptualised while facing a crisis situation. With Blood Network he aims to connect the dots of fragmented industry and create a complete ecosystem around Blood Donation.

Garima Vishal is an exquisite example of humanitarianism whose services could count on blessings for decades to come. She rose above all odds in being the director of Dejawoo School of Innovation situated in a small city of Bihar named Muzaffarpur. She graduated from Manipal Intitute of Technology in Information Technology and then  worked in Infosys for 3 years as System Engineer. She is a Post Graduate from IIM Lucknow with Marketing as her specialization.  Throughout her career, she was always involved  in teaching small children. While working in Infosys Bhubanewar, she taught 30 underprivileged kids and helped in getting them admissions in different schools. She was also an evening tutor in IIM Lucknow for the underprivileged kids

Prof Nandi has great academic vision which he has demonstrated time and again and which he had acquired in working with three of the greatest countries of the world, USA, Russia and China. Prof Nandi obtained a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur in 1984 and a Master’s degree from Jadavpur University, Calcutta in 1986. He did his Ph.D in the Academy of Science, Moscow, Russia (1992) and post doctoral research in the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, USA ( 1994-1995) where he was also a visiting faculty in the Institute for Software Research during 2010-2011. He was also a postdoctoral fellow in the Chinese University at Hong Kong (CHUK), PRC during 1997-1998. He is a senior member of ACM, USA and IEEE, USA as well as the founder chairman of ACM-IIIT-Allahabad Professional Chapter, (2009-2010). He is also the founder chairperson of UP IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Chapter (2014-2015).

Prof. H. P. Khincha is an Investment Professional at Tempus Capital and a Professor at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He also served as the chairman of IEEE Bangalore section and directors of many industries. Prof. Khincha was a faculty at the Department of Electrical Engineering, at the Indian Institute of Science for 42 years 1969 to 2011, from where he retired. At IISC, Prof. Khincha was the Chairman of the Department of Electrical Engineering, Chairman of the All India Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering, Division of Electrical Sciences, Founder Chief Executive of the Society for Innovation and Development of IISC, Advisor for Technology enhanced Learning Program NPTEL and the Co-ordinator of the Quality Improvement Program. He served as Chairman and member of committees of different ministries and organizations of Government of India such as, National Mission on Power Electronics, National Mission on Automation system Technologies and National Mission on Intelligent Transportations. Prof. Khincha was awarded the Life time Achievement Award by systems Society of India (2010) and also Best Power Engineers Volunteer award By IEEE.

Dr. Jayakumar Singaram is presently part of 3 companies in the technology startup space: GeniusPlus Technology Pvt Ltd, Rinanu Semiconductor LLP, and GeoSpace Instruments LLP. He has been very active in technology startups and was the founding member of Epigon Audiocare and Epigon Media Technologies, PiiTech Systems and was part of Cranes Infotech, Mistral Solutions and Collcraft (IIT-Bombay) as a Director and a consultant with Essel Utilities, Mumbai. His dream projects include design and development of Karaoke Machine for TAITO which helped the company move from 7th position to 2nd on networked Karaoke segment where he also worked with MIT Media Lab. He has also worked on Satellite Radio Receiver for WorldSpace broadcast system, which was a start of the art solution at that time using low cost DSPs to receive broadcast signal. He has developed the 128 kbps Wireless data link for Indian Navy. Dr. Singaram did his undergraduation in Mathematics from Madras University, B.Tech in Aerospace from Madras Institute of Technology and M.Tech and PhD from IIT Bombay in the area of systems and control engineering. He was also a research fellow in KU Leuven in Belgium working on reconfigurable processor.

Dr. Jharna Majumdar served DRDO from 1990 to 2007 and retired as Scientist G and Head of Aerial Image Exploitation Division, Aeronautical development Establishment (DRDO), Bangalore, India. Dr. Majumdar received B.Tech (Hons.) in Electronics and Electrical Engineering and Post Graduate in Computer Technology from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur in 1969 and 1970 respectively. She worked as a Research Scientist in the area of ‘Robotics and Automation’ at the Institute of Real Time Computer Systems and Robotics, Karlsruhe, Germany during 1983 to 1989. Her research areas include Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, AI, Parallel Processing and development of Image Exploitation System for Aerial and Ground Based reconnaissance platforms. She is currently Professor, Dept of Computer Science and Engineering and Dean R & D, NITTE Meenakshi Institute of Technology, Bangalore and Chairman of the Review Committee of a large number of Prestigious National Projects of DRDO and CSIR.

Rahul Kala received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Information Technology from the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Gwalior, India in 2010. He received his Ph.D. degree in cybernetics from the University of Reading, UK in 2013. He is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, India in the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. He is the author of four books and over 90 papers. His recent book on robotic planning is entitled On-Road Intelligent Vehicles: Motion Planning for Intelligent Transportation Systems (Elsevier, 2016). He is an active reviewer of leading journals of the domain. He is a recipient of the Early Career Research Grant from the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. He is a recipient of the Best PhD dissertation award from the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society; scholarship under the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Program from the UK Government; the Lord of the Code Scholarship from RedHat and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay; and the GATE scholarship from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

Dr Rajashree Jain is an Associate professor and Programme Head for BBA-IT (Bachelors in Business Administration-Information Technology), at Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Pune, India. She has more than 20 years of experiences in teaching, research and academic administration. She obtained her Ph.D Degree under the faculty of Computer Studies from Symbiosis International University, Pune, Maharashtra, India. She holds double Masters Degrees in Applied Electronics. She has been a meritorious student all along and was a national merit scholarship holder, a rank holder and has received a Gold Medal for securing first rank during her post-graduation. She also has more than 25 research papers to her credit published in reputed Journals and has presented research papers at various national and International Conferences. Her research areas are Microwave techniques, antennas, optimization, nature based algorithms, AI and Sensor network, IOT, Data analysis, entrepreneurship and education. She is an active member of professional organizations like IEEE, CSI and National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN). For the past 10 years she is been into entrepreneurship training and mentoring student start-ups in the area of techno management. She is a certified entrepreneurship educator from NEN, IIM B and Stanford Technical Ventures Programme (STVP). Past several Years she is been working as an active volunteer to serve IEEE Pune Section in various capacities. She was Chair, Women In Engineering, IEEE Pune Section 2014-2016. She currently is Vice Chair, WIE, IEEE India Council and Secretary IEEE Pune Section

Dr. Rajesh Ingle is a Dean and Professor, at Pune Institute of Computer Technology, and Head, EDC and Business Incubation Centre. He is also working as an Adjunct Professor at Department of Computer Engineering, Government College of Engineering Pune. He is also SENATE Member University of Pune.

Ridhima Dua is a coach, counsellor and trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming and founder of iFlame Consulting. She has trained 4000+ people and is on a mission to train/transform 1 million people and change their lives.  She believes that mind is capable to train anything you love. She has got 12+ years versatile experience in the industry and is a certified Master’s NLP & Trainer Affiliated with NFNLP, US & a Certified Basic NFNLP Practitioner & Trainer. She proudly considers herself as a Life Coach, Motivational Speaker & Corporate Trainer. She is also an IAO Certified Trainer, with Specialization in Facilitation Skill, training & Behavioral Skill Training Program. She has conducted many sessions in IT, ITes, Manufacturing Industry, Banking & Finance, Colleges & Institutes. Her skill areas include: Neuro Linguistics Programming, Soft skills, behavioral skills, Leadership, Management, Coaching, and Motivation. Her audience range from entry level to Top level management and has also conducted training workshops in companies like Tata Toyo, Xoriant, Ideas, Atos, Amdocs, Barclays, Fiserv, Gallaghar, Wipro, KSB etc.

Dr. Sharmila Mande is Chief Scientist and Head of the Bio-Sciences R&D activities at TCS Innovation Labs (Pune), India. She also leads the ‘Digital Health and Personalized Medicine’ program at TCS. She has more than 30 years of researh experience in Life Sciences domain.

She received her PhD degree in the year 1991 in Physics from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. She had her post-doctoral training at University of Groningen, The Netherlands and University of Washington, Seattle, USA. She continued her research at Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTech) and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) in Chandigarh, before joining TCS in 2001 to start the Life Sciences R&D activities at TCS. She is on the board of one of the Tata group companies, Advinus Therapeutics.

During her sixteen years at TCS, she has successfully built a group of Bioinformaticians, and trained many of them, including engineers, mathematicians, physicists and biologists in this field. Her main areas of research include microbiome analytics, biomarker discovery for early diagnosis of diseases/disorders, algorithm development for analyzing large scale biological data and applying the same to understand human health. She has a number of projects in collaboration with several renowned National/International academic institutes as well as hospitals. The focus of these projects is on diseases/disorders like malnourishment, diabetes and tuberculosis.

Shekhar Raghavan is another legendary personality who has created an awareness regarding the importance of rainwater harvesting right from the dawn through his door to door campaign since 1995. In January 2003, he was selected as an Ashoka Fellow by a U.S. based non-profit organization called Ashoka Innovators for the public appreciating his efforts to promote rainwater harvesting in Chennai city. In June 2004, he was invited to Srilanka to present a paper on Rainwater Harvesting in a seminar. He also advised the Sri Lankan government on the need to set up a Rain centre in Colombo and to legislate rainwater harvesting. In August 2005, he was invited to Japan as the only participant from India, to present two papers in the Tokyo Asia Pacific Skywater Forum held in Sumida city, Tokyo. The Government of NCT of Delhi engaged his services as invitee to offer service and advice on Rainwater Harvesting vide their cabinet decision dated 16th July, 2015. He was conferred the Vocational Service Award by the Rotary club of Chennai Thiruvanmiyur on 26th April, 2016..

Prof S. N. Singh, who was born on 5th September 1966, obtained his M. Tech. and Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, in 1989 and 1995, respectively. More importantly, BTech from KNIT Sultanpr. Presently, he is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India. He is on leave from IIT Kanpur and working as Visiting Professor at Denmark Technical University, Denmark. Before joining IIT Kanpur as Associate Professor, Dr Singh worked with UP State Electricity Board as Assistant Engineer from 8- 8-1988 to 13-6-1996, with Rookree University (Now IIT Rookree) as Assistant Professor from 14-6- 1996 to 1-1-2001 and with Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok, Thailand as Assistant Professor from 2-1-2001 to 4-4-2003. Dr Singh received several awards including Young Engineer Award 2000 of Indian National Academy of Engineering, Khosla Research Award of IIT Roorkee, and Young Engineer Award of CBIP New Delhi (India), 1996. Prof Singh is receipt of Humboldt Fellowship of Germany and Otto-monsted Fellowship of Denmark. His research interests include power system restructuring, FACTS, power system optimization & control, security analysis, wind power, etc. Prof Singh is a Fellow of Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) India, a Senior Member of IEEE, USA, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India). Prof Singh has published more than 270 papers in International/national journals/conferences. He has also written one Book on Electric Power Generation, Transmission and Distribution published by PHI, India and one book on “Fundamentals of Electrical Engg” published by PHI (in press).