Prof. K V S Hari is the Director, Centre for Brain Research on leave as a Professor in the Department of ECE, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He holds a PhD (Systems Science) from U C San Diego, an MTech (Radar and Communication Engineering) from IIT Delhi and a B.E (ECE) from Osmania University College of Engineering, He has been a visiting faculty at Stanford University and Affiliate Professor at KTH- Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm. His research interests are in Signal Processing and Deep Learning with applications to 5G wireless communications, dual function radar and communication systems, autonomous navigation, neuroscience, and affordable MRI systems.

He is a co-author of the IEEE 802.16 standard on wireless channel models and has conducted drone-ground wireless channel modelling experiments. He was part of the UK-India Future Networks Initiative (UKI-FNI) and led the British Telecom India Research Centre (BTIRC), IISc. He served as the Chair, Standardisation Committee, Telecom Standards Development Society, India. He co-founded a company, ESQUBE Communication Solutions Pvt. Ltd. in 2002.

He was an Editor of EURASIP’s Signal Processing and is currently the Editor-in-Chief (Electrical Sciences) of Sadhana, the journal of the Indian Academy of Sciences published by Springer. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering, Indian National Science Academy and IEEE. He was on the Board of Governors, IEEE Signal Processing Society as VP-Membership(2020-22). More details at http://ece.iisc.ac.in/~hari

Dr. Shama Bhat completed his doctoral thesis from the Department of Biochemistry, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore in 1979. His thesis work was on the regulation of Cholesterol Biosynthesis. After completion of the Ph. D., he moved to the Department of Microbiology, University of Connecticut Health Centre, Farmington, USA, where he worked on the regulation of Myelin synthesis. Here, his discovery on the requirement of non-oligodendrocyte signals for the development of myelin was published in several international journals. In 1983 he joined the faculty of the department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, where he continued to work on the regulation of myelin synthesis, which is the main factor in the problems associated with Multiple Sclerosis, a degenerative disease of the human brain. At this time the AIDS related complications were started to become a major issue. Dr. Bhat noticed that the later stages of AIDS related dementia and the Multiple Sclerosis related dementia are similar and started to work on the AIDS related projects. At this time, it was shown that the HIV virus enters the white blood cells through CD4 receptor, and the brain cells do not have CD4 receptors. Dr. Bhat and his associates have shown that Galactosyl ceramide, a specific lipid molecule in the myelin and oligodendrocyte, mediates the entry of HIV into the brain cells. This major discovery was published in Science and several other journals.

In 1994, Dr. Bhat decided to come back to India and with the help of a few NRI friends, set up Bhat Biotech India (P) Ltd. The mission was to set up a company to provide quality healthcare products at affordable price and serve the people and provide employment. He chose Diagnostic kits and reagents and Biotech products as the means to achieve the goal. In 1996 the first product, Pregnancy test, was launched and thereafter more than 100 products were added to the portfolio. They include HIV, Hepatitis, Malaria, Chikungunya, Cancer markers, Dengue, cardiac markers, syphilis, etc. Started with only five people, Bhat Biotech today employs more than 350 people directly and more than 300 people indirectly. When the Covid pandemic spread all over the world, Bhat Biotech was at the forefront in providing diagnostic kits and reagents for Covid. Dr. Bhat derives immense pleasure in providing employment to so many people. Bhat has assembled a good team of scientists for the innovation on Biotech and diagnostic fronts. The R&D team now has developed more than 80 products and going very strong with more and more innovative products. The Chikungunya test is the first one in the world. We will be the first one to launch the snake venom rapid test, test for the detection of silkworm parasite and Haemophilia rapid test kits shortly.

Production of antigens in animals and E. coli cells are used for the production of kits for the detection of HIV, Malaria, Syphilis, etc. We have a group devoted to the development of monoclonal antibodies, FBA fragments and humanized antibodies. We also have initiated work on humanization of antibodies for eventual therapeutic applications as well as in the production of HVR fragments of antibodies in diagnosis.

We have a group that works on building instrumentation. We have built a PCR machine completely indigenously for the first time in India.

As a social concern, Dr. Bhat has set up a Navachethana Retirement Township in Puttur, DK, exclusively for the retired people. This houses more than 120 families and provides all the services required for elderly people.

In addition to the products, Dr. Bhat has realised the need for hands on training for the Biotech students and started training programs for Biotech students. Bhat Biotech is the approved training centre for DBT. Many students from the Biotech collages and Engineering collages attend the training programs. Several students are registered with Manipal University for Ph.D. through Bhat Biotech. Bhat Biotech is an approved centre by Manipal University for Ph. D.

Vivek Wadhwa is an academic, entrepreneur, and author of five best-selling books: From Incremental to Exponential; Your Happiness Was Hacked; The Driver in the Driverless Car; Innovating Women; and The Immigrant Exodus.

He has been a globally syndicated columnist for The Washington Post and has held appointments as Distinguished Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program, Carnegie Mellon University, and Emory University; adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon and Duke University; fellow at Stanford Law School and UC Berkeley; and head of faculty at Singularity University.

Vivek is based in Silicon Valley and researches, speaks, and writes about advancing technologies that are transforming our world. These advances – in fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, computing, synthetic biology, 3D printing, medicine, and nanomaterials – are making it possible for small teams to do what was once possible only for governments and large corporations to do: solve the grand challenges in education, water, food, shelter, health, and security.

Shanti Mohan is the founder of LetsVenture and trica - a global marketplace that enhances transparency and access for private market investors, helping over 700 companies raise close to 200M in funding. The platform has investors from 60 countries, including HNI's, family offices and institutions. A second-time entrepreneur, Shanti previously built an embedded systems startup in the early 2000s. She actively contributes to ecosystem development through policy work at state and central levels. She is also an active angel investor having invested in over 50+ startups.

Beyond her business ventures, Mohan founded MyPragati, a non-profit focused on education and employment in a village in Darjeeling.

Prof. K.L. Krishna ardently pursued his teaching and research interests in the fields of Applied Econometrics, Industrial Economics, Economics of Productivity and Regional Inequality and Empirics of Trade. Prof. Krishna has edited/co-edited five books, of which Econometric Applications in India (1997) is still used by all those econometricians engaged in model building to study the major fields of economics. As a teacher of Economics at the Delhi School of Economics, he taught Econometrics and Industrial Economics for over six decades which made him so dear to the student fraternity. He has guided 24 Ph.D. scholars and 20 MPhil students.