November 16-19
Keynotes
Advisor to Prime Minister, India
Sam Pitroda
Mr. Sam Pitroda is an internationally respected development thinker, telecom inventor and entrepreneur who has spent 44 years in Information and Communications Technology and related human and national developments.
Credited with having laid the foundation for and ushered India’s technology and telecommunications revolution in the 1980s, Mr. Pitroda has been a leading campaigner to help bridge the global digital divide.
During his tenure as Advisor to Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the 1980s Mr. Pitroda headed six technology missions related to telecommunications, water, literacy, immunization Dairy and oil seeds. He was also the founder and first chairman of India’s Telecom Commission.
Mr. Pitroda was Chairman of India’s National Knowledge Commission (2005-2009), an advisory body to the Prime Minister of India, set up to provide a blueprint of reform of the knowledge related institutions and infrastructure in the country. The Commission has offered a series of recommendations on various aspects of the knowledge paradigm to help India meet the challenges of the 21st century.
He has recently been appointed as Advisor to the Prime Minister of India on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations.
He holds close to 100 worldwide patents and has published and lectured widely in the US, Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Don Williams
Vice President Service Provider Technology, Cisco
Don Williams, a software industry veteran with more than 23 years of experience, is vice president of Service Provider Technology Group – India. In his role as SPTG-India’s leader, Don is responsible for $4.5 billion to $5 billion dollars of product revenue annually from both fully owned and partner products respectively and manages over 1300 Cisco staff and partner engineers. Cisco Systems designs, manufactures, and sells Internet Protocol-based networking and other products relating to the communications and information technology industry worldwide.
Mr. Williams has responsibility for defining, executing and facilitating the pervasive adoption of Cisco's IOS software technology, services and products which enable innovation and growth in Cisco's comprehensive product lines and solutions.
Mr. Williams chairs the Chief Development Office - Customer Escalations Board and has developed numerous strategies for improving the Next Generation Customer Experience within Cisco. In the past year, his methods has decreased the defect backlog by more than 50%, decreased defect incoming rates by 50%, increased product support and test productivity by more than 70%, and has made great inroads into the development and delivery of quality products delivered at Cisco.
John Sweitzer
Distinguished Engineer, IBM
John Sweitzer is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and a member of IBM’s Academy of Technology with more than 28 years of experience developing architectures for large complex software systems. At the time,he leads IBM Software Group’s outside-in design initiative, a subset of outside-in development that addresses design practices that impact the consumability and business relevance of integrated software products. Previously John was the chief architect for IBM’s Autonomic Computing initiative, and prior to that, chief architect for the Tivoli systems management brand. John was a founding member of the DMTF standards committee for the Common Information Model, authored a book about that model, has several external publications, and holds numerous patents.
Vice President and Head SET Labs, Infosys
Subu Goparaju
Subrahmanyam (Subu) Goparaju is a Vice President and Head of Software Engineering and Technology Labs (SETLabs), the Technology Research and Innovation unit of Infosys. He also oversees the performance of the Microsoft Technology Center and the IP Cell of Infosys.
Subu started his career with Infosys, in 1988, as a Software Engineer. He played various Software Project management and Services Delivery management roles before starting SETLabs in the year 1999. He started the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) in 2003. MTC is focused on researching into emerging Microsoft technologies and platforms to build new services and solutions. He started the Intellectual Property Cell (IP Cell) of Infosys in 2005 and is responsible for the Intellectual Property Management of the organization.
Subu is a member of the ACM-India (Association for Computing Machinery) Council which is responsible for the penetration of ACM in India. He is also a member of the CII-Karnataka Innovation Forum and is on the advisory boards of Center for Global Innovation at the USC (University of Southern California) Marshall School of Business and IITB-Monash University Research Academy.
Subu holds a B.E. degree from National Institute of Technology, Surathkal, India (formerly known as KREC-Surathkal).
M.P. Ravindra
Dr. M.P. Ravindra, has 35 years of experience working in academia, government and industry. He was a researcher at the Indian Institute of Science prior to joining NIC and working for the big three Indian IT firms: Wipro, HCL Tech and Infosys. He has held a variety of senior management positions and is the currently Advisor Education and Research, Infosys. He was elected Infosys Fellow for his contributions to IT field.
As Senior Vice President and head Education and Research, he has built a scalable infrastructure for technology competence, now noted as one of the best corporate universities world wide. He helped created 9 academies aligned to the business and led the development of a comprehensive competency framework with a worldwide assessment infrastructure. These have led to stronger processes and systems for efficiency in academic operations at Infosys.
Ravindra speaks on the national and international forum with over a 100 speaking engagments on education and training. He co-chairs the AIB IT studies, is a member of the governing council of DOEACC, a member of the task force on engineering education of NKC, and board member of IUCEE. He was responsible for forming the Industry Institute Interaction program called "Campus Connect", that reaches over 500 engineering colleges and 20,000 engineering students in India who have gained from its programs.
Dr. M.P. Ravindra received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, in 1974.
