Plenary Speakers

Dr. Smitha Srinivas

Economic Development Expert, NCBS-TIFR, Bengaluru

Focuses on technological change in economic development, with contributions to innovation and industrial policies, and systemic challenges at the intersection of industry, health, and ecology. A new project frames economic models of innovation and regulation in biodiversity, biomaterials, and bioremediation, with restructuring of petrochemical supply chains.

Mr. Vivek Kulkarni

CEO, Brickworks, Bengaluru

is the founder of Brickwork Group and has vast leadership experience in various government departments and in private business enterprises. He was the Information Technology & Biotechnology Secretary, Government of Karnataka. During his tenure, he was instrumental in branding Bangalore as the Silicon City of India, through his aggressive drive towards getting global IT companies to set up offices in Bangalore.

Prof. Sung-Soo Seol

Emeritus Professor, Hannam University, Korea

is the founder of Asian Society for Innovation and Policy (ASIP). He is an Emeritus Professor of Hannam University, Korea. He is also the founder of Korea Valuation Association(KVA) and Honorary Chair of Korea Technology Innovation Society(KOTIS)

Prof. Gayatri Saberwal

Dean - Academic Affairs, IBAB, Bengaluru

Obtained her PhD in the life sciences at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, and then did post-doctoral work at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York. She joined the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology, Bangalore, in 2001. At IBAB, she switched from being a biologist to being a policy researcher. She is currently focussed on the data held by large, public clinical trial registries, and what the data can or cannot tell us.

Dr. Varadharaju. J

VP-Human Resources, Flipkart, Bengaluru

is a seasoned global HR Leader with over 26 years of industry experience. His work in human capital development spans large structured, mature multinational corporations and global start-ups that are solving for scale.He has a triple master’s degree in Chemistry, HR, and Marketing Management. He has recently received the “Global TOP 25 HR Influencers Awards” by RefineEX and multiple awards.

Dr. Balasubramanya S

Mr. Arijit Dutt

Is presently General Manager in Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), the apex level development financial institution in India for promotion, financing and development of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the country. He is posted in SIDBI’s Venture Finance and Investment Vertical which manages the venture capital fund of fund operations of SIDBI as well as other initiatives such as venture debt for startups and innovation driven MSMEs. He has been with SIDBI for around 24 years. He is an MBA (Finance) & Certified Associate of the Indian Institute of Bankers.

Prof. Chang-Ryong Ko

Professor, Economics,
Hannam University, Korea

Prof. Angelina Yee Seow Voon

Professor and Director, APUTI, Malaysia

Began her career as an auditor and an accountant while she was working in Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom and Malaysia. She is currently a Professor and Director (Research and Enterprise) in APU. She is a chartered accountant and has obtained the ASEAN CPA recognition and was a council member of CPA Australia Malaysia Division for 2013-2015. She has also received the SME ICONS award in 2021.

Prof. Kiran Kumar Momaya

Chair Professor of Competitiveness, SJM SoM, IIT Bombay
Received the Ph.D. in competitiveness from the University of Toronto, Canada in 1996. Currently, he is a Chair Professor of Competitiveness with SJM School of Management, IIT Bombay. He serves on the Board of Directors of SINE, the IITB Tech-Biz incubator and IAMOT. He was President of the growing professional society the “Global Institute of Flexible Systems ManagemenT” (GIFT) during 2018-19.

Dr. Taslimarif Saiyyed

is the CEO and Director of C‐CAMP from 2009 till present. His initial training has been in neurosciences, where he received his PhD from Max‐Planck Institute for Brain Research, Germany from 2002‐2006 and followed it up by postdoctoral training at University of California San Francisco (UCSF) from 2006‐2009. At the same time, he also underwent training in management for Biotech and Innovation from QB3 at UC Santa Cruz, UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco from 2007‐2009.

Prof. (Dr) Sujit Bhattacharya

is Chief Scientist at CSIR-NIScPR, Professor in AcSIR, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Scientometric Research (www.jscires.org). He did his PhD from IIT-Delhi and MSc (Physics) from Delhi University. He has authored over 100 research papers in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings, co-authored/co-edited 8 Books, 20 Book Chapters and presented papers at various National and International conferences.

Dr. Vijay Venkataraman

Is a faculty member in the strategy area at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore and holds a PhD in Strategy & Innovation from Georgia Tech. Vijay is primarily interested in the area of innovation and works on a number of research projects related to platform ecosystems, regional ecosystems, sustainability, and digital transformation. Vijay has presented his research at a number of international conferences such as the Strategic Management Society Annual Conferences, Academy of Management Annual Meetings, CCC Doctoral Conference, and Platform Strategy Research Symposium.

Dr. Lakshmi Jagannathan

CEO, DERBI Foundation

A passionate startup ecosystem and incubation professional who firmly believes that ideas have to be nurtured, fostered to build businesses of tomorrow. A seasoned professional in the incubation ecosystem, her expertise is in establishing processes, metrics and scaling up the incubation activities. She has skill and expertise in drafting proposals for grants and support programs and had been the principal Coordinator for many funded projects from Government of India.

Dr. Jitendra Kumar

Managing Director, Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre

Holds a PhD degree in Biotechnology from Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, a prestigious national laboratory affiliated to Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi. Subsequently, he moved to University of Illinois at Chicago and Ohio State University, Columbus, OHIO (USA) as visiting Research Scholar.

Mr. D B Sreevatsa

Senior Director - R&D, Samsung, Bengaluru

With over 23 years of vast industry experience working as a Senior Director, Samsung R&D Institute India-Bangalore. He focuses on building strong culture of Innovation, Collaboration and E2E Execution. His contributions in research to commercialization , new features developed are realized in series of Galaxy Mobiles. His recent work involves envisioning & building OnDevice Intelligence platform to empower Innovations & daily life experiences for billions.

Mr. Sunil G Acharya

Vice President, IESA, Bengaluru

has Over 25 years of global Senior Leadership experience in leading Technology companies. He has been involved in Strategy planning, Driving Product Management , IT Operations, and business development at leading multinational technology companies such as intel & Boeing (Narus). Adept at managing and scaling large projects from proof of concept stage to revenue ramp.