Fourteenth Leadership Conclave

Ambassador V Ashok Indian Foreign Service (retd.)

Shri Ambassador Ashok graduated in Civil Engineering from IIT Delhi, and joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1982. His diplomatic assignments include Hongkong, Malaysia, China, Austria, Sri Lanka and USA. Shri Ashok was India’s Ambassador to the Czech Republic and Zimbabwe and retired in the rank of Secretary, Govt. of India. He is Guest Professor, IIT Gandhinagar and Adjunct Professor NIAS, Bengaluru. He speaks Chinese and several Indian languages. He has authored a book, Dasavatara – The Ten Incarnations of Vishnu, as well as blogs on sustainable development, agriculture, energy, history, international relations, spirituality and consciousness studies.

Shri Harsh Bhargava President, Competitiveness Mindset Institute & President, Bankworld Incorporated, USA

Shri Harsh Bhargava is an MBA from Harvard Business School. He started his career in India as a Tata Administrative Service (TAS) officer with Tatas. Shri Bhargava is the Founder & President of I Create Inc, a nonprofit corporation, providing comprehensive entrepreneurship programs for women, unemployed youth, and army veterans at 17 centers in India for the past 25 years. He is also Co-Founder & President of Competitiveness Mindset Institute, USA (CMI), involved in research and training of key non-cognitive skills to Indian youth and professionals. Over 12,000 participants have undergone CMI’s flagship program “Finding the Leader in You” or FLY in over 180 universities, institutions and firms in India and the US including IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Bombay, Indore, NID, BHU, NJCU (USA) and educational institutes in Srinagar, J&K. Core skills trained in the FLY program are conscientiousness, perseverance, innovativeness, taking initiative, problem solving with communication as the cross-cutting theme. These non-cognitive skills were identified as critical for Ethical Leadership and for being Globally Competitive by a nationwide survey completed by 2700 CEOs, experts in academia, and thought leaders in India. Shri Bhargava continues his part time work as the President of Bankworld Inc, a Washington, DC based management consulting company with experience in over 75 countries. Projects include competitiveness strengthening in emerging markets and entrepreneurship. He is an author and a speaker at global and national conferences in the US and India and at universities such as the Wharton Business School, IITs in India, etc. He has served as a guest professor at IIT GN for the past several years.

Shri Pradeep Bhargava Chairman, MECF Ltd, Pune

Shri Pradeep Bhargava earned his BSc (Honors) from Rajasthan University, Jaipur and BE in Electronics and Communications from IISc Bengaluru and MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. Shri Bhargava is the former Managing Director of Cummins Generator Technologies India Limited. He had steered the growth of the Organization, made it a Market Leader and a major global player. Shri Bhargava’s association with Cummins started in 2000, where he was first responsible for steering growth and transforming a leading Engine business into a wholesome Energy Solutions Enterprise. A veteran in the industry, Shri Bhargava has held responsible positions in both private and public sector organizations. His tenure with the public sector spanned a decade, during which he worked with Indian Space Research Organization, Atomic Energy Commission, Electronics Commission, and Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd. (BHEL). In the private Sector, he has held various positions at the Kalyani Group, first helping them diversify and thereafter spearheading the Group’s entry into Consumer Electronics (Kalyani Sharp India). He then helped steer the foray of the Group into the infrastructure sector. Shri Bhargava was the CEO of the Lighting Business of General Electric, Bengaluru prior to joining Cummins. He was the Executive Member of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC). He is involved with education institutions such as Symbiosis International University, IIM Ahmedabad/ Bangalore/ Udaipur in different roles. He is an Independent Director on listed Companies, and Trustee on various Foundations. Active on various Industry forums, he Chaired CII’s Western Region and was President of Mahratta Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, Pune.

Dr B.K. Gairola Advisor (IT) Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA), Government of India

Dr. B.K. Gairola is the Principal Advisor Airawat Research Foundation (ARF) and Deputy Chairman Haryana Parivar Pehchan Authority (HPPA) apart from being Advisor (IT) for the Warehousing Development and Regulatory Authority (WDRA). Dr Gairola has more than 45 years of experience in handling e-governance in various Central and State Government Departments. He was Mission Director (e-Governance), Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India. Earlier, he served as Director General, National Informatics Centre (NIC), Government of India for six years. He was the founding Director of IIIT Naya Raipur. Dr Gairola was conferred the SKOCH ICT for India – Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 and the Science and Technology Excellence Award 2010 by the Uttarakhand State Council for Science and Technology.

Prof Ashish Garg Professor and Head, Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering and Kotak School of Sustainability Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Prof Ashish Garg is currently Professor and the Head of Sustainable Energy Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur. He has founded several sustainability-related entities and initiatives at IIT Kanpur, including the Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering, the Kesavan Centre for Energy Policy and Climate Solutions, and the Kotak School of Sustainability, while also securing a significant amount of external funding. His research focuses on various aspects of clean energy and sustainability, with current interests in solar photovoltaics, energy harvesting, hydrogen, recycling, decarbonization, and Net Zero matters. He also leads the Schmidt Sciences funded research frontier network for building a global academic network on energy modelling and decarbonization. He has coauthored over 200 research publications and has guided/co-guided more than 45 Master’s and PhD theses. He is a passionate teacher and has also taught a few courses on NPTEL, an initiative of the Government of India, which are globally accessible. He has conducted several national-level exercises to develop a well-rounded materials engineering curriculum, resulting in recommendations that led to curriculum alterations in IITs/NITs and IISc. He is a regular speaker and panellist on several forums related to sustainability. He is a Materials Engineer and Scientist by training, having studied at VRCE (now VNIT) Nagpur, IISc Bangalore, and the University of Cambridge for his undergraduate, postgraduate, and doctoral degrees. In his free time, he enjoys travelling and trekking in the mountains.

Prof Manoj Singh Gaur Director Indian Institute of Technology Jammu

Prof. Manoj Singh Gaur is the Founding Director of the Indian Institute of Technology Jammu (IIT Jammu) and is currently serving his Second consecutive term as the Director of the Institute. Concurrently, he is a Professor in Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Jammu. He assumed the charge of IIT Jammu on 30th June 2017, and has since then built IIT Jammu from the ground up. Prof. Gaur has made key contributions in every project he undertook. Prior to joining IIT Jammu, he was a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur (MNIT Jaipur), India. Additionally, he was the Professor-In-Charge (Coordinator) for Indian Institute of Information Technology Kota (IIIT Kota), which is mentored by MNIT Jaipur. Prof. Gaur has held key positions as Head (Computer Science and Engineering), Dean(Students Welfare) and Head (Central Computer Centre) at MNIT Jaipur during his career in academia and research. His current research areas include Computer and Network Security (Network Attack Models and Countermeasures), Mobile Platform Security, Malware Analysis and Networks-on-Chip. Prof. Gaur has supervised 25 PhD scholars and published more than 200 papers in reputed journals and conferences and has been a key contributor to a variety of book chapters.

Ms Debjani Ghosh Distinguished Fellow NITI Aayog

Ms Debjani Ghosh is a Distinguished Fellow at NITI Aayog, where she leads the development of a frontier technology think tank focused on strengthening India’s readiness in emerging technologies for economic and societal impact. With over 28 years of leadership experience, she has held senior roles at Intel and made history as the first woman President of NASSCOM (2018–2024), significantly advancing India’s deep-tech and innovation ecosystem. A leading voice on AI and human-centric technology, Ms Ghosh has been instrumental in positioning India as a global innovation hub through initiatives such as “Think Digital. Think India.” Her contributions have earned wide recognition, including honors from the President of India, Vogue’s Tech Leader of the Year, and inclusion in FemaleOneZero’s 40 Over 40 list. She also serves on the boards of Karmayogi Bharat and the RBI Innovation Hub.

Prof Nuno Guimarães Professor, Department of Information Science and Technology (ISTA) University Institute of Lisbon, (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal

Prof Nuno Guimarães graduated in 1983 in Electrotechnical Engineering at Instituto Superior Tecnico (IST/UTL), MSc. In EEC IST/UTL (1987) and got his PhD in Electrotechnical and Computer Engineering (1992) from IST, Lisbon, Portugal. He was Professor at IST/UTL (1992/1997) and Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (1997/2012), invited Professor at the TUB (Berlin Institute of Technology) Germany (2010), and consultant/researcher at AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ, USA (1989-1991). He was Dean of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (2003-2009), Pro & Vice Rector of ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon (2012-2018). He was a member of the board and founder of several startup IT companies (1999 to 2006). Prof Guimarães is Senior Member of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) since 2012, Chair of the Portuguese Chapter of the Internet Society (ISOC) since 2021, and Chair of the Scientific Committee of the Cyberspace and Law Research Center of the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon since 2022. His academic and scientific interests include Human Computer Interaction and User Experience, Digital Society Challenges, Technology and Law. He is a visiting scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar since 2014.

Prof Pankaj Jalote Emeritus Professor Computer Science and Engineering, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Delhi

Prof Pankaj Jalote is Emeritus Professor at IIIT-Delhi, of which he is also the founding Director. Prior to this, he has been a Chair Professor at IIT Delhi, Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the IIT Kanpur, and an Assistant Professor at University of Maryland at college Park. On leave from academia, he was Vice President at Infosys Technologies Ltd. for 2 years, and a Visiting Researcher at Microsoft Corporation, Redmond for a year. He has a B.Tech from IIT Kanpur, MS from Pennsylvania State University, and Ph.D. from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of six books including the highly acclaimed CMM in Practice, which has been translated in Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc, and the best-selling text book on Software Engineering (latest edition: Software Engineering using Open Source and genAI, Springer, 2025). He has also authored Building Research Universities in India (SAGE, Nov 2020), and has written many opinion articles on higher education in India in leading newspapers. His research interests are in Software Engineering (Process, Quality, Productivity, etc), Open Source Software, AI for Software Engineering, and Higher Education. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and INAE and a Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Kanpur and Siebel School of Computing and Data Science of UIUC.

Prof Siddharth K Jabade Vice President, Administration and Development (VPAD) Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

Prof Siddharth Jabade holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Bombay and served as the Founding Vice Chancellor of Vishwakarma University (VU), Pune. With over two decades of leadership in innovation, intellectual property, higher education policy, and institution building, he has transformed VU into a globally recognized institution. Under his leadership, VU received the Times Higher Education (THE) Awards Asia 2023 for Leadership and Management and secured top rankings in the WURI Global Innovation Index. An accomplished innovation ecosystem builder, Prof. Jabade has mobilized multi-million dollar investments for research, impact-driven technology development, and university–industry labs. His fundraising successes include partnerships with WILO Foundation (Germany), Tata Autocomp, Singapore-based fund to Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and Silicon Valley–linked investment funds. With deep experience navigating the Quadruple Helix of academia, industry, government and society, He has led strategic partnerships with globally renowned universities, including Penn State, SUNY Binghamton, NTU Singapore, Stanford, KAIST, and Harvard. Notably, he played a key role in establishing the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported Energy-Smart Electronic Systems Centre in collaboration with SUNY, which led to successful technology spin-offs. Prof Jabade also shares a long-standing relationship with AIT. He has served as Director of Innovation and IPR at AIT Consulting (now AIT Solutions) and held positions as Affiliated Faculty and Visiting Faculty, where he taught the flagship course “Intellectual Property Rights for Technology Development.” Currently as Vice President at AIT, he leads transformation in strategic partnerships, innovation-led revenue mobilization, and the development of an AIT-wide Knowledge Enterprise model that blends applied research, entrepreneurship, intellectual property, and development finance for regional impact across Asia.

Shri Maulik Jasubhai Chairman & Chief Executive Jasubhai Group, Mumbai

Shri Maulik Jasubhai is the Chairman and Chief Executive of the Jasubhai Group which includes Jasubhai Engineering, Jasubhai Media, CHEMTECH Foundation & Jasubhai Foundation. Under his leadership CHEMTECH has expanded the scope of services by adding technology verticals, and key business networks for the Indian Chemical Processing Industry. He is passionate about the Student Outreach Program, an initiative of CHEMTECH Foundation launched by the Founder Chairman Shri Jasu Shah which aims at developing future leaders for the industry. Currently, he is spearheading the Indian and international operations of Jasubhai Engineering, which operates in Precision Manufacturing for Aerospace & Defense Industries and Specialized Process Equipment & Engineering Services. Prior to his current role he was the Founder CEO of Jasubhai Digital Media. Jasubhai Digital Media was a pioneering IT Media company with brands like Digit, Chip, Skoar and ZDNet.com. Shri Maulik holds an undergraduate degree in Industrial management from Carnegie Mellon University and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton Business School, Pennsylvania. He started his career with Executive Director with Fisher Rosemount, now Emerson Process Management Systems. Shri Maulik is also the Honorary Consul General of Austria in Mumbai.

Dr Hemant Kanakia Founder Maker Bhavan Foundation, USA

Dr Hemant Kanakia is a founder of Maker Bhavan Foundation, charity organization established in California, USA to support programs aimed at making India’s engineering colleges among the best in the world. Dr Kanakia is a serial entrepreneur based in Florida, USA. Since 2010, he has made angel investments in 20 early-stage companies in India ranging across education, technology and healthcare sectors. Dr Kanakia was founder and CEO of Torrent Networking Technology (acquired by Ericsson for $500 M) and co-founder of Photuris (acquired by Meriton) and Gemplex, inc. (acquired by Tata Telesystems). Prior to starting Torrent, he worked at the research arm of AT&T Bell Laboratories. Dr Kanakia is an ex-member of the Board of Trustees at Case Western Reserve University and Virginia Polytechnic. He was President of Washington DC chapter of TiE and a member of the global board of trustees of TiE. Dr Kanakia holds an undergraduate degree from Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, a M S from Case Western Reserve University, and a Ph D in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Shri Parimalbhai Karani Real Estate Developer, Ahmedabad

Shri Parimalbhai Karani ia an Ahmedabad-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, Shri Karani has been a steadfast well-wisher of IIT Gandhinagar. An alumnus of the 1975 Civil Engineering batch of IIT Bombay, he has devoted his career to shaping the built environment through his expertise in the construction industry.

Prof Ratnesh Kumar Barbara and James R. Palmer Professorship in Electrical and Computer Engineering Iowa State University, USA

Prof Ratnesh Kumar is currently Barbara and James R. Palmer Professor, and prior to this, Ruth and Murray J. Harpole Professor, in Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Iowa State University, where he is also a Professor of Computer Science. Ratnesh received B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, in 1987, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, Texas, in 1989 and 1991, respectively. Prof Kumar is an elected Fellow of the IEEE for distinguished contributions to discrete event system modeling, control, diagnosis and applications, and also an elected Fellow of the AAAS for distinguished contributions to discrete-event and cyberphysical systems, embedded software, and agri-, bio- and environmental sensors, and energy harvesting. He is recipient of the Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research and David R. Boylan Eminent Faculty Award for Research from Iowa State University, and also the Distinguished Alumni Award from Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, India. He was a recipient of the Microelectronics and Computer Development (MCD) Fellowship and Best PhD Dissertation from the University of Texas at Austin, and was awarded the Lalit Narain Das Memorial Gold Medal for the Best EE Student and the Ratan Swarup Memorial Gold Medal for the Best All-rounder Student from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, India. He is a recipient of the NSF Research Initiation Award, Summer Fellowship from NASA-Ames and Idaho National Lab, and Sabbatical Fellowships from Applied Research Lab, United Technologies Research Center, and Air Force Research Lab.

Prof Richard K Miller President Emeritus, Professor of Mechanical Engineering Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, USA

Prof Richard Miller earned his B.S at the University of California, Davis, his S.M. from MIT, and Ph.D from the California Institute of Technology, USA. Prof Miller was appointed as Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1975-79) and Professor and Associate Dean of Engineering at the University of Southern California (1979-92). Prof Miller was appointed President and first employee of Olin College of Engineering in 1999; in June 2020 he became President Emeritus. He then served as the Jerome C. Hunsaker Visiting Professor of Aerospace Systems at MIT (2020-2021). Prof Miller is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, The Royal Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Inventors, and a Member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). He is co-recipient of the NAE Bernard M. Gordon Prize for Innovation in Engineering and Technology Education twice—in 2013 and again in 2022. Prof Miller also received the 2017 Brock International Prize in Education, and the 2011 Marlowe Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. In 2014, he received the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award and in 2002 he received the Distinguished Engineering Alumnus Award from the University of California at Davis. Prof Miller has served as Chair of the Board on Higher Education and Workforce of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine and as Chair of the Engineering Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation.

Dr Darshan Pandya Retired IT Consultant, USA

Dr Darshan Pandya completed his BSc (Eng) (Hons) and PhD in Chemical Engineering and later an MSc in Operational Research and Management Studies from Imperial College, London. An avid traveller, he has visited forty-five countries and lived in five. After working in British Petroleum in London, he taught Operational Research and Statistics at the National University of Singapore for three years before switching to the IT industry and working in the USA and Canada until his retirement in 2015.

Prof Govidan Parayil Dean and Professor, Patel College of Global Sustainability and Professor, School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies University of South Florida, USA

Prof Govindan Parayil earned his Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, Va. (1990), his M.A. in Applied Economics from American University, Washington, DC (1985), an M.S. in Science, Technology and Policy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. (1983), and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the National Institute of Technology Calicut, India (1978) (formerly Regional Engineering College Calicut). He was a Rockefeller Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Environmental Change at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Since 2017, Prof Parayil has been serving as Dean and Professor of the Dr. Kiran Patel College of Global Sustainability at the University of South Florida (USF). At USF he also holds a concurrent appointment as a tenured full professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Global Studies. He was Vice-Rector of United Nations University (UNU), Tokyo, Japan (2008-2014) and Director of UNU Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (2009-2013) while on leave from the University of Oslo, Norway, where he was Professor of Science, Technology and Innovation (2004-2015). He was an Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Information and Communications Management, National University of Singapore, and an Assistant Professor in the Division of Social Sciences at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He has authored, edited and co-edited six books and published more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles, as well as numerous book chapters. A leading expert in the field of global sustainability with particular interest in energy and climate change, Prof Parayil follows an interdisciplinary approach to sustainability – from describing problems using knowledge and analytical tools from engineering, management and social sciences to finding innovative solutions that are user-focused and market-driven.

Dr Sunil Parekh Chairman Consumer Education and Research Centre (CERC)

Dr Sunil R Parekh is currently Chairman of Consumer Education and Research Centre (CERC). Dr Parekh obtained his B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Delhi. He is a man of truly diverse interests and has vastly contributed to varied fields, including industry, social sectors, public policy, academia, entrepreneurship, culture, start-ups & research publications. He is also a fellow of the Indian Council of Arbitration. Dr Parekh is a senior member at Zydus Group (Pharma), Jubilant Group (Diversified), Boards of iCreate, GVFL Ltd., CSIR NEIST @Jorhat. He was an invited speaker delegate at COP27 UNFCCC Conference on Climate Change, Egypt. He has a wide domain experience gained over 50 years spanning both manufacturing & agriculture, in India & abroad. He had also set up & successfully managed several projects in India & Africa including Africa’s largest integrated Oil & Flour Mill. Dr Parekh is deeply connected with the startup entrepreneurial ecosystem. He founded techXchange in 2018, an India UK partnership to support startup exchange for raising money & exploring new markets. He is involved deeply with several NGOs & is on the Boards of various universities; and has published two major contributions on Gujarat’s industrial development with OUP (Oxford) & ORF (Brookings affiliate). Dr Parekh has been recognised twice in the Top 100 Top Eminent personalities of Gujarat, Awarded the prestigious OCND Award by his Alma Mater IIT Delhi in 2014 & ET ICON of the year in 2018. Dr Parekh is the Founder Chairman of PANIIT GAA. He was awarded a Doctorate of Literature Honoris Causa in 2023 in recognition of his lifelong achievements in diverse fields.

Shri Jignesh Patel President IIT Gandhinagar Foundation, USA

Shri Jignesh Patel received an M.S. in Industrial Administration from Purdue University in 1993, a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Bombay in 1992, and holds a CFA designation. Shri Patel established an investment platform Charioteer Capital in 2018 to make diversified private investments in sectors such as commercial properties and startup ventures. His venture portfolio includes 15+ companies in various domains, typically at the seed level. Prior to that, he was a Senior Managing Director at C-III Capital Partners – a $4 Billion NYC based real estate investment company where he was responsible for investments in opportunistic commercial real estate securities such as CMBS and CRE CLOs. For three years prior to C-III, Jignesh managed National Australia Bank’s (“NAB”) approx. $1 billion CMBS, CRE CDO, and commercial real estate loan and swap portfolio in the US and UK. Previous to NAB, Shri Patel was a member of the CMBS trading desk at Bear Stearns and J.P.Morgan for eight years. He was responsible for secondary trading of commercial real estate backed securities. He also headed the structuring group, where he led the structuring of over $30 billion of transactions. Shri Patel is an active participant in various nonprofit organizations: He is President of Pratham NY Tri-State, President of IIT Gandhinagar Foundation, and a board member of TiE NY. He was previously on the board of IIT Bombay Heritage Foundation.

Prof Surendra Prasad Former Director Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi

Prof Surendra Prasad received the BTech (Hons) from IIT Kharagpur in 1969 and the M.Tech and Ph.D in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi in 1971 and 1974, respectively. He has served at IIT Delhi for more than five decades, having held a number of academic and administrative responsibilities, including as the Director from 2005 to 2011. He received numerous recognitions for teaching and research, including among others, the Vikram Sarabhai Research Award in Electronics and Telecommunications in 1987, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Engineering Sciences in 1988, the Om Prakash Bhasin Prize for research in Electronics and Communications in 1994, the VASVIK Award for Information Technology in 2006, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Systems Society of India in 2011, the Professor S.N.Mitra Memorial Award of INAE in 2021, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award of IIT Kharagpur. He was honored with an Honorary Doctorate by Loughborough University, U.K., in 2007. Since his superannuation, he has held positions of an Emeritus Professor, Honorary Professor and INSA Senior Scientist at IIT Delhi. Prof Prasad has been the Chairman of the National Board of Accreditation, a member of the Governing Body of CSIR and CSIR Society, Government of India, and numerous boards of IIT’s, IIIT’s, NIT’s, and other engineering institutions. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Science.

Prof Deepak Phatak Emeritus Professor, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay

Prof Deepak Phatak received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from SGSITS Indore in 1969, and his MTech and PhD from IIT Bombay. Prof Phatak, a recipient of Padma Shri award, has been associated with IIT Bombay since 1971. He was the first Dean of Resources of the Institute. He set up the Affordable Solutions Lab (ASL) at IIT Bombay in 2000 and held the ‘Subrao M. Nilekani’ Chair from 2000-2013. He initiated interactive distance education program and business incubation activities at IIT Bombay. He has served on the boards of several companies and institutions, including IDBI Bank, Bank of Baroda, IDRBT, NIA, PSL, IGNOU, IITGN IIT Indore and NIT Agartala. He is a recipient of the ‘Excellence in Teaching’ award and the ‘Industrial Impact Research Award’ from IIT Bombay. He was elected Fellow of the Computer Society of India (CSI) in 1999, and Fellow of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE) in 2000. He was listed among the ‘Fifty Most Influential Indians’ by Business Week in 2009. He was conferred Lifetime Achievement Award by Skoch Foundation in 2003, by Data Quest in 2008, by ‘Dewang Mehta Business School Awards’ in 2010, by Interop in 2014, by IIT Bombay in 2014 and by CSI in 2018.

Prof Muttukrishnan Rajarajan Professor of Security Engineering & Director Institute for Cyber Security City, University of London, UK

Prof Muttukrishnan Rajarajan received his BEng and PhD degrees from City University of London in 1994 and 1999 respectively. From 1999 he worked at City University of London as a Research Fellow. In August 2000 he moved to CMG as a Telecommunications Consultant. After a few years in the industry Raj is now a Professor of Security Engineering and the Deputy Head of Engineering. He is currently the Director of the Institute for Cyber Security at City University of London and carries out research in the areas of privacy preserving data management, Internet of Things privacy, network intrusion detection, cloud security, digital identity and post quantum cryptography (PQC). Prof Raj has received funding from EPSRC, Royal Academy of Engineering, European Commission, Innovate UK, British Council and industry to carry out research in cyber security. He has supervised several PhDs and has graduated more than 40 PhD students in the area of Cyber Security and continues to supervise a good number of students in the area of Cloud Security, Privacy, quantum security, and blockchain. He is also the Programme Director for the MSc in Financial Technology and Systems. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, a member of IET and a Fellow of the Charted institute of information security. Raj is the co-founder of Cyber London which is the cyber cluster for London endorsed by the UK Government. Raj is also a non-exec director for many innovative security cyber security companies and has delivered many industry and government keynote talks across the world on the topics of digital identity and internet of things security. Raj also holds several patents in cyber security related areas and has published more than 400 papers in top journals and conferences.

Shri B V R Mohan Reddy Founder Cyient, Hyderabad

Dr. B V R Mohan Reddy is a pioneering technocrat, visionary entrepreneur, and nation builder who has played a defining role in placing India on the global engineering and technology services map. In 1991, he founded Cyient with a vision to deliver world-class engineering solutions from India to global markets. Under his leadership, Cyient became a billion-dollar global engineering and digital transformation company, also expanding into the Cyient Group across ER&D services, electronics manufacturing, and fabless semiconductor design, with over 16,000 associates worldwide. A passionate advocate for education and institutional excellence, Dr. Reddy serves as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of IIT Hyderabad, IIT Roorkee, and NIT Warangal. He has also contributed significantly to shaping India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, championing outcome-based education and strong industry-academia collaboration. Dr. Reddy has played a pivotal role in strengthening India’s innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. As the Founding Director of T-Hub and former Chairman of NASSCOM, he has helped create platforms that foster innovation, support startups, and drive technology-led growth. Through the Cyient Foundation and his family foundation, he has improved hundreds of thousands of lives by advancing school education, digital literacy, women’s empowerment, and rural development. A Padma Shri awardee (2017), he has been conferred multiple Honorary Doctorates and his memoir, Engineered in India, a national bestseller, reflects his inspiring entrepreneurial journey and commitment to nation-building.

Prof Dheeraj Sanghi Dean of Student Affairs Ashoka University, New Delhi

Prof Dheeraj Sanghi is the Dean of Student Affairs at Ashoka University. He has over three decades of academic, administrative, and leadership experience in higher education. He earned his BTech in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kanpur, and went on to complete his MS and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park, USA. Prior to joining Ashoka, he served as Vice Chancellor of JK Lakshmipat University, Jaipur. He has held several senior leadership positions, including Director at Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh; Director at LNMIIT Jaipur; Dean at IIIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur; and Professor of Computer Science at IIT Kanpur for over 25 years. He has consulted with several industries. He is acknowledged as a thought leader in academia and known for his student-centric approach to implementing best practices in academic systems. He publishes a popular blog on higher education which has had more than 2 million hits so far. He has visited more than 100 academic institutions in India where he has talked about curriculum design, examinations, teaching/learning processes, and career planning.

Shri Piyush Shah Former Executive Vice Chairman Hitachi Hi-Rel Power Electronics Pvt Ltd., Ahmedabad

Shri Piyush B Shah holds Bachelor of Technology (Electrical Engineering) from IIT Bombay (1975 Batch) was the founder of “Hi-Rel” (Hi-Rel Electronics (P) Ltd.) started in 1983. “Hi-Rel” was the pioneer in the field of Power Electronics, being almost the “First in India” to collaborate with Western and Japanese Companies, (Such as Rockwell Automation, Cyberex-Danaher, Vacon, Hitachi) and manufacture cost effective products for the Indian market. The main customer segments were Oil and Gas, Steel, Cement, Utilities, Textile and Synthetic Fibre. Shri Shah was the Managing Director of the enterprise from 1983 to 2018. The enterprise is now known as Hitachi Hi-Rel Power Electronics (P) Ltd. Shri Shah is passionately pursuing new ventures in the field of Automation, Renewable Energy, Energy Management and Battery Solutions. He is actively involved with IIT Gandhinagar, being a member of the Endowment Committee. He was the chairman of CII, Gujarat in 2012-13 and was a member of various Western Region and National committees. He is a Senior Member of IEEE. He has been associated with Nirma Institute of Technology since the beginning of the Institute, 25 years ago. Shri Shah was an Executive Council Member of Indian Electrical & Electronics Manufacturers' Association (IEEMA) in the year 2011-12.

Shri Bipin Shah Principal Advisor, Chips & High-tech Advisors Former CEO Kovair, USA

Shri Bipin Shah obtained his BEE (Hons) from Jadavpur University, Kolkata and a MSEE from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Shri Shah is recently retired CEO of Kovair Software, and a founder of Chips and High-tech Advisory based in Lafayette California. His entrepreneurial activities have included three startups commencing with Altera Corporation – a successful programmable logic chip company, CEO of Invox Technology a voice recording chip company and CEO of Kovair Software, an Enterprise Software Products company. He has been an angel investor and a board member in several startups through his General Partnership in an early-stage venture fund - INC3 Ventures. Shri Shah's professional career started at Fairchild Semiconductor in California where he grew his career in Product Engineering, Quality, Reliability and Business Unit Management roles. He then became part of a chip startup Altera, where he was VP – Operations for over 10 years and President of Altera Japan for 3.5 years. He currently is advising 3 startups, one in AI Chips domain, one in Cyber Security and another in Enterprise Software. He is an Advisor at Si Catalyst, the largest incubator globally for semiconductor startups in the SF Bay Area and a Member of the SemiX Management Team at IIT Bombay for the past year. His social and philanthropic activities have included the co-founding of TiE in Silicon Valley, co-founding of Ekal Vidyalaya Foundation USA for rural literacy in India, co-founding of IIT Gandhinagar Foundation, USA, and being one of the Board of Advisors to the President of California Polytechnic at Pomona, Calif for a decade. He has been Construction Committee Chair for the building of Jain Bhawan in Milpitas, Calif and Jain Center’s President, Board member and Chair emeritus.

Dr. Chandrima Shaha Senior Scientist of the Indian National Science Academy at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata

Dr. Chandrima Shaha is an academician and biologist at the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata. She is the immediate past President of the Indian National Science Academy and, formerly, Director and Professor of Eminence at the National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi. Her research explores fundamental questions surrounding the process of cell death. Dr. Shaha is an elected fellow of the World Academy of Sciences, the Indian Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the West Bengal Academy of Science and Technology. She also served as Vice-President of International Affairs for the Indian National Science Academy and as a Council Member for all three National Academies. Currently, she serves on the Governing Council of both the Bose Institute and the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee at the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, as well as the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata. Additionally, she chairs the Research Advisory Board of the National Council of Science Museums. In the past, Prof. Shaha was member to the International Consortium on Male Contraception, New York, the Steering Committee for the Task Force on Regulation of Male Fertility of the World Health Organization in Geneva, and chaired the Biotechnology-based Program for Women at the Department of Biotechnology. Her honours span decades and include the Shakuntala Amir Chand Award of the Indian Council of Medical Research (1992), the Ranbaxy Science Foundation Award for Basic Sciences (2010), and the J.C. Bose National Fellowship (2011) and (2017). Additional recognitions from the Science Academies include the Darshan Ranganathan Memorial Award (2010), Archana Sharma Memorial Award (2013), and the Chandrakala Hora Memorial Medal (2013). The Sunday Standard bestowed on her the Devi Award for Excellence in Science (2015). She also received the Om Prakash Bhasin Award (2015), the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Medal of INSA (2019), the Lifetime Achievement Award of Biopharma Honors (2021), the J.C. Bose Distinguished Chair of the National Academy of Sciences (2021), and the SP Ray-Chaudhuri Memorial Award for life sciences (2023).

Mr Saurya Prakash Sinha Product Lead, Stripe, Bengaluru

Mr Saurya Prakash Sinha received his BTech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Gandhinagar in 2013. He was earlier co-founder of Recko, which was acquired by Stripe. Recently he left Stripe, and has been actively investing in tech start-ups through his family office.

Prof Arun Somani Distinguished Professor of Elect. & Comp. Eng., and Senior Associate Dean for Research, College of Engineering, Iowa State University

Prof Arun Somani received a B.E. (Hons.) degree in Electronics Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani in 1973, an M. Tech. in Computer Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi in 1979 and an MSEE in Electrical Engineering from McGill University in 1983. In 1985, after completing his Ph.D. at McGill University, he joined the faculty of Electrical & Computer Engineering Department at University of Washington, serving as assistant professor from 1985 to 1990, associate professor from 1990 to 1995 and professor till 1997. In 1997, he joined the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Iowa State University. He served as David C. Nicholas Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1997 to 2002, Jerry R. Junkins Endowed Chair Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 2002 to 2014, Director of Information Infrastructure Institute from 2002 to 2015 and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department from 2003 to 2010. He is serving as Anson Marston Distinguished Professor since 2007, Senior Associate Dean for Research of College of Engineering since 2013, and Philip and Virginia Sproul Professor since 2014, all at Iowa State University. During 2010–2011, Prof Somani served as Ram Rajindra Malhotra Professor at Indian Institute of Technology. He also served as an honorary distinguished professor at National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (Taiwan Tech) 2010-2015 and a visiting professor at Gujarat Technological University. Prof Somani also served as a Fulbright Specialist from 2019 to 2024.

Prof Nitish V Thakor Professor of Biomedical Engineering Johns Hopkins University, USA

Prof Nitish Thakor received his undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay. He earned M.S. in Biomedical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prof Thakor is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Neurology at Johns Hopkins University. Prof. Thakor directs the Laboratory for Neuroengineering and serves as the director of the NIH Training Grant in Neuroengineering. He served as the founding Director of the Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology (SINAPSE) from 2008 to 2022. Prof Thakor teaches Medical Instrumentation and Neural and Rehabilitation Engineering, and his research focuses on neuroengineering (technologies for brain sensing, diagnostic monitoring, brain machine interface, control of upper and lower limb neuroprosthesis). He is an author/co-author of more than 500 refereed publications (H-index 107) and the author of the Major Reference Work Handbook of Neuroengineering. He promotes entrepreneurial activity among students (co-founded 3 companies) and is actively engaged in international scientific programs and collaborative exchanges with various Universities, including his role as a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow at the Technical University of Munich. Prof Thakor is a recipient of a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, IEEE, Founding Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, Fellow of International Federation of Medical and Biological Engineering and is an elected member of the National Academy of Inventors. Prof Thakor is a Distinguished Alumnus and Distinguished Service Alumnus of IIT Bombay.

Prof. Nitin Kumar Tripathi Executive Director-Special Degree Programs Professor of Geoinformatics | Remote Sensing and GIS, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

Prof Nitin Tripathi is the Director of Special Degree Programmes at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand, and is a Professor of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems there. he received his PhD and MTech in Remote Sensing from IIT Kanpur in 1994 and 1987, respectively, and BTech in Civil Engineering from NIT Warangal in 1984. Previously, he served as the Dean, School of Engineering and Technology, Director, Academic Quality, Leader ICT, and Coordinator of Remote Sensing and GIS at AIT. Before joining AIT, he worked at IIT Kanpur as a lecturer and assistant professor (1989-94). He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Geoinformatics and is a life member of Association for Geoinformation Technology and Indian Society of Remote Sensing. Prof Tripathi has authored over 100 peer-reviewed papers in the area of geoinformatics applications for health, forest, environment, and marine and coastal zone monitoring, and has guided nearly 100 masters and 25 doctoral students. He is a recipient of the DAE Young Scientists Award (1994), AICTE Career Award (1996), and Osaka City University Distinguished Researcher Award (2007), as well as the Distinguished Alumni Award from NIT Warangal (2006).

Prof Satish K Tripathi President State University of New York, Buffalo, USA

An internationally distinguished researcher and higher education leader, Prof Tripathi, PhD, is the University at Buffalo’s 15th president. Prof Tripathi, who served as UB’s provost from 2004-2011, was dean of the Bourns College of Engineering at the University of California, Riverside, from 1997-2004. Previously, he spent 19 years as professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, including seven years as department Chair. In 2024, Prof Tripathi was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A fellow of IEEE and AAAS, he has published more than 200 scholarly papers and supervised more than 30 doctoral and postdoctoral students. He served on editorial boards of many international scholarly journals and program committees of numerous international conferences. Prof Tripathi graduated at the top of his class from Banaras Hindu University (BHU). He holds a master’s degree and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Toronto, as well as master’s degrees in statistics from the University of Alberta and BHU. He received the Distinguished Alumni Award from BHU and honorary doctorates from Maharaja Surajmal Brij University, the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, and Brock University in Canada. Prof. Tripathi serves on the College Football Playoff Board of Managers. Previously, he was chair of the Mid-American Conference Council of Presidents and Internet 2. He also served on the boards of the Association of American Universities, the NCAA Division I, the NCAA Board of Governors, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.