Industry Day 2020

Dr. Shubhashis Sengupta is the Managing Director and Fellow of Accenture Technology Labs and the Head of AI R&D at Accenture Technology Labs, Bangalore. He also leads Accenture Labs Co-Research program with marquee clients. His area of specialization is around large scale distributed systems, Software Engineering, and AI-based (NLP and Machine Learning) systems. Prior to joining Accenture, he was with Oracle Corp and Infosys Technologies. Dr. Sengupta has consulted extensively in multiple domains. Dr. Sengupta has over 50 journal and peer-reviewed conference papers, 25 granted patents and 35+ patent applications to his credit. He has a PhD in Systems, Algorithms, Strategic Management from Indian Institute of Management Calcutta specializing in applying AI algorithms on Combinatorial Optimization. He is a Senior member of ACM and Senior Member of IEEE Computer Society. He is a founding member of AAAI India Chapter. He has been in the program committee and review board of several conferences and journals including IEEE Spectrum and IEEE Transactions in Cloud Computing, Association of Computational Linguistics, etc. Dr. Sengupta can be reached at shubhashis.sengupta[at]accenture.com.

Dr. Sonde started his early career working as a scientist in the country’s top research institution, Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC). He topped the entire batch of scientists and engineers and was awarded Dr. Homi Bhabha Gold Medal. He was awarded for his contribution to nuclear energy and science a Gold Medal during the Golden Jubilee Award by then Prime Minister. After 23 years of working in Atomic Energy, he was invited to join as Executive Director in the country’s premier power generator, National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC). During his stint at NTPC, he created a new institution, “Energy Technologies,” which is now rechristened as NETRA to develop technologies in the thermal coal sector.
In his current assignment as Executive Vice President and a member of the Executive Council of Thermax, his main thrust of activities is bringing innovation and enhance knowledge in all the existing technologies within Thermax while also involved in the developing new technologies in the field of energy, environment and water. The current thrust of his developments is on Fuel Cell, Battery, Hydrogen in Energy and CDI (Capacitive Deionization) in Water. He has been awarded the Dr. M. Vishweswarayya Gold Medal for standing first in the University of Mysore, Dr. Homi Bhabha Gold Medal during the Golden Jubilee celebrations of BARC in the year 2006 by Hon’ble Prime Minister for his outstanding contribution in the nuclear field, Dr. Doraswami IIChE Medal and Gold Medal from the Indian Nuclear Society (INS).

Title of Plenary Talk:
What & Why did India miss technology leadership since our independence and how do we get there? Compelling need for Industry-Academia-Government linkages using a new model of collaboration viz. twin wheel spin theory“- A case study in HTPEM fuel cell development by Thermax & CSIR - IIT GN.

Dr. Manish Gupta is the Director of Google Research India, a new AI research lab recently announced by Google. He holds an additional appointment as Infosys Foundation Chair Professor at IIIT Bangalore. Previously, Manish has led VideoKen, a video technology startup, and the research centers for Xerox and IBM in India. As a Senior Manager at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, Manish led the team developing system software for the Blue Gene/L supercomputer. IBM was awarded a National Medal of Technology and Innovation for Blue Gene by US President Barack Obama in 2009. Manish holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He has co-authored about 75 papers, with more than 7,000 citations in Google Scholar (and an h-index of 45), and has been granted 19 US patents. While at IBM, Manish received two Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards, an Outstanding Innovation Award and the Lou Gerstner Team Award for Client Excellence. Manish is a Fellow of ACM and the Indian National Academy of Engineering, and a recipient of a Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Delhi.

Dr. Aloknath De is Corporate Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Samsung R&D Institute India-Bangalore. Dr. De has over thirty years of industrial and research experiences including BEL, Nortel (Montreal), Hughes and with ST-Ericsson where he was R&D Director and Country Manager. During 2005-11, he has served as Visiting/Adjunct Professorship with IIT-Roorkee and IIT-Delhi. He holds B.Tech. from IIT, Kharagpur; M.E. from IISc, Bangalore; and Ph.D. from McGill University, Montreal. He is a recipient of ‘Alexander Graham Bell Prize’ in Canada. He has received ‘IETE Memorial Awards’ in 2003 and 2008 for distinguished contributions in Electronics and Communications. In 2015, he also received Zinnov Tech Role model (Sr Technologist), IDC Insights Award for Innovation in Telecom and has been considered as one of ‘Most Influential CIO/CTOs of India’. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Fellow of IE, IETE and Indian National Academy of Engg (INAE). He is also cited in Marquis’ Who’s Who in the World (2016).

Dr. Debashish Bhattacharjee is the Vice President - New Materials Business, Tata Steel. He joined Tata Steel in 1996 after completing his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, and carried out post doctoral research with Rolls Royce University Technology Centre in Cambridge. Between 1996 and 2001 he worked in R&D, Process Metallurgy Group and Technical Services Flat Products. After a second post doctoral at the University of Birmingham between 2001 and 2002, he returned to Tata Steel as Chief R&D and took up his current responsibilities in 2003. Dr Bhattacharjee has more than 30 international publications and has 5 patents, along with his colleagues, from his work in Tata Steel in the areas of products, coatings and hydrogen harvesting. He was awarded the Metallurgist of Year Award by the Ministry of Steel in 2004. He is also an AICTE-INAE Distinguished Visiting Professor at Bengal Engineering and Science University. Recently, the Institution of Engineers awarded him a plaque in recognition of his contribution to the field of Metallurgy and Materials Science.