Hi Tech Networking

At the recently held Hi Tech Pune, we
came across some really great people and companies, and it was
heartening to see the Pune innovators come together on a platform
being built by Pune Vyaspeeth under the leadership of Shri Suresh
Kalmadi. As a industry observer and active participant of building
the tech community, I get to attend several events including those of
Nasscom, CSI and several large national and international organizers,
but never have I seen such a fantastic congregation of

Technologists, Scientists, Creative
Professionals, Animators, Government Policy Makers, Politicians,
Academicians, Investors, Entrepreneurs, Senior Executivies,
Innovators, Authors, Media and Students coming together. It was a
fantastic diverse fusion and it had the most passionate speakers both
from India and Overseas. Hats off to Shri Kalmadi and his team for
their attempt to showcase Pune as the ultimate destination for
Innovation led inclusive Growth.

Some of the key people we met and who
we plan to bring to you ongoingly on our ITVidya.com platform are

Mr. Suresh Kalmadi, MP and Chairman,
Pune Vyaspeeth : A man with tremendous foresight and energy has a
very diverse background and experience as fighter pilot, politician,
minister of railways, organizer of large sports events, entrepreneur
with interests in automobile, hardware and restaurant business,
organizer of cultural events like Pune International Film Festival.

Shri Jyotiraditya Scindia : A brilliant
young politician who mesmerised the audience with his oratory skills,
deep understanding of Indian history and culture, understanding of
technology and business, and the importance of innovation. He urged
and asked help from all to make the best use of his remaining 8
months as Minister of State for Communications & Information
Technology, Govt. of India. Jyotiraditya studied B.A. in Economics
from Harvard University, Cambridge and did his MBA from Stanford
University, Palo Alto. He is also the director of Scindia Investments
Pvt. Ltd. advising on private equity investment in real estate,
leisure and hospitality.

Dr. R.A.Mashelkar : What can be said
about this great man who is currently the President of Global
Research alliance, a network of publicly funded R&D institutes
from Asia-Pacific, Europe and USA with over 60,000 scientists. Dr.
Mashelkar is the flag bearer of the innovation movement in India, and
is the chairman of National Innovation Foundation, Marico Innovation
Foundation and Reliance Innovation Council. He is also on board of
Directors of several reputed companies such as Reliance Industries
Ltd., Tata Motors Ltd., Hindustan Unilever Ltd., GeneMedix Life
Sciences Ltd., ICIC Knowledge Park, Thermax Ltd., KPIT Cummins
Infosystems Ltd., Piramal Life Sciences Ltd., Indigene
Pharmaceuticals Ltd. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards
of Microsoft (USA), Microsoft (India), VTT (Finland) etc. Twenty six
universities have honoured him with honorary doctorates which include
University of London, Salford, Pretoria, Wisconsin and Delhi.
President of India honoured Dr. Mashelkar with Padmashri ( 1991) and
with Padmabhushan (2000), which are two of the highest civilian
honours in recognition of his contribution to nation building.

Shri Ganesh Natarajan : Ganesh is the
Deputy Chairman, MD and Global CEO of Zensar Technologies Limited,
one of India's leading IT and Business Process Outsourcing firms with
operations in eighteen countries worldwide. Ganesh has been elected
Chairman of the National Association of Software and Services Company
( NASSCOM) for 2008-09. Ganesh is known to share his knowledge and is
a prolific writer and a reputed speaker. An alumnus of IIT Bombay and
Harvard Business School, he is a thought leader in Business Process
Reengineering and Knowledge Management.

Mr. William Haseltine : An absolute
genius we came across who is known for his pioneering work on cancer,
HIV/AIDS and genomics. He is the founder of Human Genome Services,
Inc and served as Chairman and CEO until 2004. Presently he is the
President of Haseltine Foundation for Medical Sciences and the Arts.
and also serves as an advisor to CMEA, a Venture Capital company, and
to several biotechnology and pharmaceutical company.

Prof. Sameer K. Brahmachari : Our own
genius who is now Secretary, Department of Science and Industrial
Research, Govt. of India and Director General, Council of Scientific
and Industrial Research, New Delhi, a chain of 37 laboratories across
India. Prof. Brahmachari is spearheading India's Functional Genomics
Programme and has dovetailed he genetic diversity of the Indian
population with the Indian core expertise in structural biology and
compuation to strategically position India on the global map of
Genomics and he also leads the Indian Genome Variation Consortium
project. Among the several pioneering thing done him and his team,
one project that stands out is his association with the Open Source
Drug Discovery Framework, which will harness the collective
intelligence and minds of Indian Scientists with a initial focus on
the Tuberculosis Bacilli.

Suman Bose : Suman Bose is the country
Director for Dassault Systemes PLM Business in India. Dassault is a
fantastic company with a passion for innovation. Their 7000+
employees constantly push forth the frontiers of creativity to offer
3D virtual environments that allow their customers to simulate and
test products and processes before even creating them. The company
prides in embracing diversity with employees being represented from
over 80 countries.

Mark D'Souza : Mark D'Souza is a senior
evangelist at Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd., his primary
focus is to enable the Academic community in India. He has been with
Microsoft for nearly 5 years and has also managed a portfolio of IT
applications as a Senior Lead Program Manager at the Business
Intelligence Center of Excellence, Microsoft IT India, Hyderabad.

Some other key people we met include

Pramod Chaudhari, Chairman, Praj
Industries Limited

Mr. Ravi Teja, Associate Vice President
and Practice Head – Enterprise Transformation Group

Dr. Sudershan K. Arora,
President-Clinical Research & Drug Development, Ranbaxy
Laboratories Limited.

Gerard J. Rego, VP and GM India Product
Development, Wharton Fellow 05, DV Fellow 06, Stanford University.

Vinay Sathe, Founder of Invrge and SoftSpin Services, they have done some really pioneering work in the space of mobile.

Dr. Prabudda Ganguli : CEO, Vision-IPR, offers services in management of IPR, Information Security and Knowledge Management.

Dr. Sai Kumar, CTO, Mphasis and EDS : Sai is passionate about Open Source and heads the SOA and Architecture Practises at Mphasis and is currently the Global CTO.

Ashish Kulkarni, CEO, BIG Animations (I) Pvt. Ltd. : Ashish is a mover and shaker in the Animation industry of India and has brought in works from several Hollywood studios to India. Committed to the cause of creating high quality professionals in India and deliver world class teams. Another passionate speaker and thought leader at Hi Tech.

Vaibhav Kumaresh, Director Vaibhav Studios, Mumbai set up Vaibhav studios to produce quality animation films in the field of commercials, shorts, television and feature length content. He gave a presentation on Making of Taare Zameen Par.

Jerzy Kular, Head of Animation - DSK Global Education & Research Pvt. Ltd.  

Saraswati Balgam-Vani, Founder Director of Rhythm & Hues India. Rhythm and Hues is an Academy Award winning film production studio specializing in visual effects and computer animation for feature films and television commercials.

Dr. Srinivasan Ramakrishnan : Director General, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing ( C-DAC )

Rohit Srivastwa, Well known security evangelist, having an expertise in hacking, cyber crime investigation and IT infrastructure management. He is founder of Clubhack, a community to provide a platform to the security experts across India.

It was also a pleasure to meet thought leaders in the gaming industry such as Salil Bhargava, CEO, Jump Games, working exclusively on mobile gaming, Anumukonda Ramesh, Chief Gaming Officer and Co-founder, Kreeda Games, Alok Kejriwal, Founder and CEO, Games 2 Win, Gireendra Kasmalkar, Founder, Director and CEO, Verisoft Infoservices Pvt. Ltd. , K.Rajesh Rao, CEO, Dhruva Interactive.

We also enjoyed meeting the panel of Education and Technology chaired by Dr. Ashok Kolaskar, Former Vice Chancellor , University of Pune , Dr. Arun Nigavekar, Raja Ramanna Fellow, Former Chairman, UGC, Former VC, Pune University, Founder Director NAAC, Senior Advisor, Science and Technology Park, University of Pune. Mr. Vivek Sawant, Managing Director, Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited, Pune.

We are missing out several names here, all in all, it was a most enriching event and we will continue to bring their thoughts to our members at ITVidya.com

Regards,

Ajay Sanghani

CEO, ITVidya.com

Cell : 098200 20753 / 09922930618