INAUGURAL SPEAKER

B.N.SURESH

MARCH 1  |  BARN HALL  |  5:30 PM  

Dr Byrana Nagappa Suresh is an Indian aerospace scientist, known for his contribution to the development of Indian launch vehicles and Space Capsule Recovery Experiments (SCRE). He also served as the founding Director of Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST), Thiruvananthapuram and is the president of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) located at New Delhi. He serves as an Honorary distinguished Professor at ISRO HQ where he received the title of 'Vikram Sarabhai Distinguished Professor'. He is the chairman of the Research Board for Aeronautical Development Establishment, DRDO, at Bangalore, and also served as an associate editor of the book – From Fishing Hamlet To Red Planet – a study on the history of Indian Space Research Organisation. He was selected as Chairman of the prestigious United Nations Scientific and Technical Committee for the year 2006 from the Asia Pacific Countries. Currently, he is the chancellor of Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology.

GUEST LECTURES

#1 AJAY BHATT
MARCH 2  |  BARN HALL  |  6:15 PM

Ajay Bhatt is an Indian - American computer architect. With a rich experience of over 28 years, he has contributed immensely to the digital world by being the co - inventor of the USB. He has also helped develop and define many other widely used technologies like the AGP, PCI Express, Platform Power Management Architecture and various chipset improvements. He joined Intel in 1990, as a senior staff architect on the chipset architecture team and has been working there ever since. In 2002, he won an Achievement in Excellence Award for his distribution of the PCI express. He was invited to different universities for giving lectures and was in the list of ‘The 50 Most Influential Global Indians!’ of GQ India magazine’s July 2010’s issue.

#2 BHARGAVI NUVVULA

MARCH 4  |  EEE AUDI  |  2:00PM 

Bhargavi Nuvvula, the Vice President of American Express Technology, India is a senior technology leader with over 23 years of industry experience. She joined American Express in November 2016. In her most recent role at Amazon, she led development teams responsible for shipment tracking, transportation message processing platform and container management services. Prior to that, she served as a Director at Microsoft. She also worked as Practice Director, Life Sciences at Satyam Computers, architect at Verizon and Senior Software Engineer at Texas Instruments. She has a strong focus on encouraging women in technology and launched “digigirlz” while at Microsoft. She was also a part of the Amazon Campus Mentoring Series for women in engineering. Bhargavi holds a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from Texas A&M University and is pursuing her PhD in Computer Science.

#3 Dr CASEY HANDMER

MARCH 2  |  EEE AUDI  |  11:00 AM

 
Dr Casey Handmer, a world renowned levitation engineer, practices his trade in Pasadena, California. Having graduated from California Institute of Technology, he went on to do his Post Doctorate degree at the prestigious institution. He has published numerous research articles in a number of fields, including theoretical optics and computational general relativity, as well as orbital mechanics, exohydrology, and high dimensional optimisation. He has myriad honors to his name, ranging from Malcolm Turki Memorial Award to being a part of Team Voyager on the Caltech Space Challenge. Rated as a Top Writer on Quora, he is interested in the topics of culture, innovation and technology. He has also worked as a space scientist at the NASA Frontier Development Lab, working on improving geomagnetic storm prediction. Theoretical AstroPhysics Including Relativity and Cosmology (TAPIR) at CalTech is another one of his affiliations, where he regularly delivers lectures.

#4 Dr ROBERT METCALFE

MARCH 4  | EEE AUDI | 4:00 PM

Dr Robert Metcalfe, the co-inventor of the Ethernet, is a renowned Electrical engineer, technology executive and venture capitalist. He founded 3Com and formulated the famed Metcalfe's Law. He is a general partner of Polaris Venture Partners and is the Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of Innovation at The University of Texas, Austin.
He attended the prestigious MIT and Harvard University, having been interested in the fields of mathematics and computer science. He then joined Xerox's Palo Alto Research center, where he was inspired to invent the Ethernet in 1973.
Dr Metcalfe also served as the CEO and publisher from 1991 to 1996 of InfoWorld and continued to publish columns until the year 2000. He later shifted gears to enter the world of venture capital. In 2007, he was inducted into the famed 'National Inventors Hall of Fame'.

#5 Dr A S RAMASASTRI

MARCH 4 | EEE AUDI | 11:00 AM

Formerly the Chief General Manager-in-charge of the Department of Information Technology at Reserve Bank of India, Dr Ramasastri is currently the Director of the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology. He has spearheaded projects in the areas relevant to banking, like cyber security, analytics, cloud computing and payment systems, which have resulted in monumental growth of the Institute. He was also instrumental in setting up CIO (Indian Banks' Chief Information Officers Forum), CAO (Chief Analytics Officers Forum), and in elevating the status of the IDRBT to that of SIRO. He is the chairman of the IFTAS, the company promoted by IDRBT in 2015 to provide technological services to banking and financial sectors. He has also pioneered the launch of the IDRBT journal of Banking Technology in 2017 and is presently the Editor-in-Chief of the same. During his tenure at the RBI, he lead many important projects including the implementation of the Next Generation RTGS (Real-time gross settlement), adoption of international and ISO 20022, conceptualising and guiding of banks on Automated Data, and preparation of IT Vision of RBI for 2011-17. His initiatives of XBRL and ADF (Automated Data Flow) have been globally recognised for which he received the “Award of Excellence” from XBRL International.

#6 Dr KEVIN GRAZIER

MARCH 3 | BARN HALL | 8:00 PM

Dr Kevin R. Grazier is an American planetary scientist known for his work on the Cassini/Huygens Mission to Saturn and Titan where he had the dual roles of Science Planning Engineer and Investigation Scientist for the Imaging Science Subsystem instrument. He has over two dozen technical publications in planetary science, astrobiology, numerical analysis, computer science, and spacecraft operations journals.
Dr Grazier is also known for being the science consultant for several television series and movies, most notably the series Defiance, Battlestar Galactica, and Eureka, and the films Gravity and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Also an author, Grazier has written and edited several popular science books. While at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Grazier won numerous JPL and NASA technical and software awards, including two NASA Space Act Awards, two NASA Tech Brief Awards, a NASA New Technology Award, and a Multimission Ground Systems Office Achievement Award. From 1995 until 2011 he was a planetarium lecturer at Griffith Observatory, and performed over 700 planetarium shows. Dr Grazier has also done guest appearance in various TV shows such as The Universe, Alien Encounter etc.

#7 Mrs MEHER PUDUMJEE

MARCH 2 | EEE AUDI | 2:00 PM

Serving as the Chairperson of Thermax Ltd. since 2004, Mrs. Meher Pudumjee is an expert on energy and environment. Having served as an independent Director of Crompton Greaves, she is influential in the field of green energy efficiency all over the country. She is an active member of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Family Business Forum and Young Indians. Holding a Masters Degree in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, Mrs. Pudumjee has managed to uplift Thermax to greater heights than ever seen before. Even before First Energy, Pudumjee has been driving Thermax to move into alternative energy solutions. She also professes concern about society and the environment with uncommon zeal.

#8 SHIVSHANKAR MENON

MARCH 3 | EEE AUDI | 2:30 PM

The 4th National Security Advisor of India and a man of discipline, Shivshankar Menon has always been an inspiration to the aspiring IFS officers of the country. Hailing from Ottapalam, he belongs to a family of diplomats. He has worked in the Department of Atomic Energy as the advisor to  Atomic Energy Commission. He also served as the Foreign Secretary of the country as well as the Indian High Commissioner to  Pakistan and Sri Lanka and ambassador to China and Israel. A major milestone in his career was the Indo-US Nuclear Deal, wherein he convinced the NSG nations to get a clean waiver for nuclear supplies to India.

#9 RAMAMOORTHY RAMESH

MARCH 2| EEE AUDI | 4 PM

A Materials scientist and Professor at the University of California Berkeley in the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, and Physics, Prof. Ramamoorthy Ramesh has contributed to the synthesis, assembly and understanding of complex functional oxides. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1987 and is currently the Purnendu Chatterjee Chair Professor in Materials Science and Physics. From 1989-1995, at Bellcore, he initiated research in several key areas of oxide electronics, including ferroelectric nonvolatile memories. In 1994, in collaboration with S. Jin (Lucent Technologies), he initiated research into manganite thin films and they coined the term, Colossal Magnetoresistive (CMR) Oxides. At Berkeley, he continues to pursue key scientific and technological problems in complex multifunctional oxide thin films, nanostructures and heterostructures.