Fourteenth Leadership Conclave

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 14 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 7000 participants have undergone CMI’s flagship program “Finding the Leader in You” or FLY in over 160 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 been a Guest Professor at IITGN for the past 6 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.

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 an engineer by training and is currently Professor and the Head of Sustainable Energy Engineering (Founding) at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. He has founded several sustainability-related entities and actions at IIT Kanpur since 2020, including the Department of Sustainable Energy Engineering, Kesavan Center for Energy Policy and Climate Solutions, and Kotak School of Sustainability, securing external funding of over 125 Cr. Prof Garg research is on different aspects of clean energy and sustainability, with current interests in solar photovoltaics, energy harvesting, hydrogen, recycling, decarbonization, NetZero, and energy policy matters, with over 200 research publications. For his research, he has worked with several universities and companies, nationally and internationally, with executed projects of 20+ Crores as PI and co-PI. Prof Garg research has given rise to 30+ Masters and 15+ PhD theses. He is also a passionate teacher with a few courses on MOOC platform which are globally accessible. He has conducted several national-level exercises to develop a well-rounded materials engineering curriculum that has resulted in a few initiatives in IITs/NITs and IISc. He is a regular speaker and panellist on several forums related to sustainability. He passionately advocates sustainable living and sustainable practices for a better world and for adopting a collaborative approach for the same. In his free time, he loves to trek in Himalayas.

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.

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

Prof Nuno Guimaraes 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 Guimaraes 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 Distinguished Professor Computer Science and Engineering, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Delhi

Prof Pankaj Jalote is currently a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Delhi. He was the founding Director of IIIT-Delhi from 2008-2018. Earlier, he has also been an Assistant Professor at University of Maryland College Park, Professor and Head of Computer Science Department at IIT Kanpur, and Chair Professor at IIT Delhi, he has also been Vice President at Infosys for two years, Visiting Researcher at Microsoft in Redmond for one year, and Interim Vice Chancellor of Delhi Technological University (DTU) for six months. 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 five books, some of which have been translated in Chinese, Japanese, Korean etc, and the Indian edition of his text on Software Engineering was adjudged the bestselling book by the publisher. His main area of interest is Software Engineering and Higher Education. He has served on the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Intl. Journal on Empirical Software Engineering, and IEEE Trans. on Services Computing. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and INAE and a Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Kanpur.

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.

Prof Shekhar Mande Distinguished Honorary Professor IIT Gandhinagar

Prof Shekhar Mande received his M.Sc in Physics from the University of Nagpur in 1984 and PhD in Molecular Biophysics, from IISc Bangalore in 1991. Following his PhD, he worked as a Postdoctoral researcher at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen in the Netherlands. He has served on many national and international committees, including the scientific advisory committee of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, Trieste, Italy; Management Council of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai; member of the Council of Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; member of the Management Councils of the Solapur University and the Savitribai Phule Pune University; member of the Governing Body of the Indo-French Centre for Promotion of Advanced Research (CEFIPRA), etc. Prof Mande is currently Distinguished Professor at the Bioinformatics Centre, Savitribai Phule Pune University, the position which is generously funded by Dr. Anand Deshpande. He is an elected Fellow of all three Science academies, namely, National Science Academy of India, Allahabad; Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore and Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi. He has been recognized by many awards, mainly the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Biological Sciences in 2005. He served as the Director General of CSIR and Secretary of DSIR, Govt of India during October 2018- April 2022.

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 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 Samir Mittal Chief Technology Officer Micron Technology, USA

Dr Samir Mittal leads AI in Silicon Systems Design and Advanced Memory Systems development at Micron Technology which comprises the following functions: DRAM module development, CXL product development, Mixed signal silicon development, Design automation, Product yield engineering, Competitive analysis, Global lab infrastructure, and Custom software development. Dr Mittal guides Micron’s university engagements for systems and design. He is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council for College of Engineering at The Ohio State University. As an executive champion of the Micron’s Center of Excellence at Georgia Institute of Technology, he serves on the advisory board of the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering. Dr Mittal is currently spearheading efforts to build a strategic relationship between Micron and IIT Gandhinagar. Prior to Micron, Dr Mittal founded SCUTI AI, a startup focused on next generation data center infrastructure for deep learning applications. Dr Mittal and the SCUTI team transitioned to Micron designing and developing data center persistent memory (3DXP) products where they launched the world’s fastest SSD in record time. Prior to SCUTI AI, he was VP of Engineering at SanDisk leading the industry transition to an All-Flash data center with full stack solutions. Dr Mittal also held senior leadership roles at Qumu Corporation delivering secure cloud services video products, and at Seagate Technology in hard disk drive-based storage products. Dr Mittal earned a doctorate from The Ohio State University, specializing in control systems and signal processing. He has been recognized by the university with the E.G. Bailey award for entrepreneurship as an outstanding alumnus.

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.

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.

Shri Samir Patel Chief Strategy Officer, StarIC, USA

Shri Samir Patel has a Bachelor of Technology degree in Electrical and Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay and Master of Science degree in EECS from UC Santa Barbara. He is currently serving as the Chief Strategy Officer at StarIC since February 2022. Prior to that, he held the position of Chief Executive Officer at Blue Cheetah Analog Design, Inc. from August 2021 to December 2021. Before that, he served as the Chief Strategy Officer at HCL Technologies from February 2020 to July 2021. Shri Patel also has a significant tenure at Sankalp Semiconductor Pvt Ltd, where he held multiple roles including CEO from April 2013 to July 2021, and President from January 2009 to March 2013. Shri Patel served as the COO at Ripplex from February 2007 to September 2008. Early in his career, Shri Patel worked as a Senior Vice President at Rambus Inc. He started his professional journey as a Circuit Design Engineer at National Semiconductor in 1983. He worked at Catalyst Semiconductor and Sun Microsystems before joining Rambus in 1991.

Prof Deepak Phatak Faculty Emeritus, 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. Prof Phatak 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 Supreet Saini Professor, Chemical Engineering & Fellow, Wellcome Trust/DBT (India Alliance) Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Prof Supreet Saini obtained his BTech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Delhi in 2005 and PhD in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 2010. Prof Saini is a Professor & a DBT/Wellcome Trust (India Alliance) Fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Bombay. Prior to joining IIT Bombay, he was an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at IIT Gandhinagar (2010-2012), where he also headed the Faculty Recruitment Committee among other responsibilities. He is the recipient of the Young Engineer Award 2017 (Indian National Academy of Engineering) and the Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award 2011 (Department of Biotechnology). His research interests include understanding how chance, determinism, and history shape evolutionary trajectories of populations and communities.

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

Shri Piyush B Shah, 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.

Prof Chandrima Shaha J C Bose Chair Distinguished Professor Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata

Prof Chandrima Shaha received her MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Calcutta followed by postdoctoral training at the Kansas University Medical Center and The Population Council at Rockefeller University, New York. Prof Shaha is the former Director and Professor of Eminence, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, and the immediate past President of the Indian National Science Academy. Her research interest revolves around the phenomenon of cell death and her laboratory has contributed substantially to the understanding of cell death in unicellular organisms. Amongst the several prestigious awards, she is the recipient of the Ranbaxy Award for Basic Sciences and the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar medal of INSA. She was a JC Bose National Fellow, Govt. of India and is an elected Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Trieste, Italy; Indian National Science Academy (INSA), Delhi; Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore; National Academy of Sciences, Allahabad; West Bengal Academy of Sciences, Kolkata. Prof Shaha served/serving as a Member of the Council of all four Academies of Sciences of India and is on the committee for TWAS Awards. She is currently a Member of the Governing Council, Indian Association of Cultivation of Science, Bose Institute, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. She is a member of the ‘Scientific Advisory Committee’ of the National Institute of Plant Genome Research, Delhi and the National Institute of Oceanography, Goa. Formerly, Prof Shaha served on the ‘International Consortium on Male Contraception’, in New York; and the ‘Steering Committee for the Task Force on Regulation of Male Fertility’ of the World Health Organization, Geneva. She was Chair of ‘Biotechnology based program for Women’, Department of Biotechnology.

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 Shyam Sunder James L. Frank Professor Emeritus of Accounting, Economics, and Finance, Yale School of Management Yale University, USA

Prof Shyam Sunder received his engineering education at IIT-Kh and Indian Railways Institute of Mech. & Elect. Engg. at Jamalpur, and his MS and PhD in Industrial Administration from Carnegie Mellon University. He is the James L. Frank Professor Emeritus of Accounting, Economics, and Finance at the Yale School of Management and Professor in the Department of Economics, having earlier served on faculties of the University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon and California Institute of Technology . He is a renowned accounting theorist and experimental economist. His research contributions include financial reporting, information in security markets, statistical theory of valuation, and design of electronic markets. He is a pioneer in the fields of experimental finance and experimental macroeconomics. Prof Sunder has won many awards for his research that includes ten books and more than 236 articles in the leading journals of accounting, economics and finance, as well as in popular media. Prof Sunder’s current research includes the problem of structuring U.S. and international accounting and auditing institutions to obtain a judicious and efficient balance between regulatory oversight and market competition. He is a past president of the American Accounting Association, former director of the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at Yale, distinguished fellow of the Center for Study of Science and Technology Policy in Bengaluru, a fellow of Yale Humanities Center, and research fellow of Research Institute of Economics and Business Administration, Kobe University.

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 and earned both M.S. in and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Prof Thakor is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He also has an appointment in the Johns Hopkins Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Prof Thakor directs the Laboratory for Neuroengineering and is also the director of the NIH Training Grant on Neuroengineering. He also served as the founding Director of Singapore Institute for Neurotechnology (SINAPSE) from 2008-2022. Prof Thakor teaches Medical Instrumentation and Rehabilitation Engineering, and his research focuses on neuroengineering (technologies for brain monitoring, brain machine interface, neurally controlled upper limb prosthesis). He is an author/co-author of more than 450 refereed publications and a Major Reference Work Handbook of Neuroengineering. He is actively engaged in international scientific programs, collaborative exchanges with various Universities. 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. Dr. Thakor is a Distinguished Alumnus and Distinguished Service Alumnus of IIT Bombay.

Prof. Nitin Kumar Tripathi Vice President of Academic Affairs, Executive Director-Special Degree Program, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

Prof Nitin Tripathi 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. Prof Tripathi is the Executive Director of Special Degree Programmes at Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand, and is a Professor of Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems there. 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 232 peer-reviewed papers, Books, Book Chapters in the area of Geoinformatics applications for health, forest, environment, and marine and coastal zone monitoring, and has guided nearly 175 masters and 49 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 is co-chair of the Association of American Universities (AAU) Task Force on Expanding U.S.-India University Partnerships, and he 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 AAU, the NCAA Division I, the NCAA Board of Governors, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.