Anuraj Gambhir (Strategic Advisor, Innovation & Technology @ Steadworks Pvt Ltd.)

Anuraj Gambhir has worked in the mobile telecommunications industry for over two decades across several parts of the mobile value web and devices ecosystem on four continents – Australasia, North America, Europe & Asia. He has worked from hands-on technical roles to senior executive management positions and is regarded by many as an industry visionary. Companies he has worked for include: NASA/JPL, SingTel Optus, Logica/Aethos, T-Mobile, Orange, GSM Association, Sharp, Siemens, BenQ mobile, Spice Corp & currently as Director – Strategy & Innovation with Ericsson, based in India. He has spearheaded several innovations in the advanced as well as grassroot level mobile domain in mature and emerging markets.

Amitabh Singhal (Board Member, PIR.ORG)

Amitabh currently sits on the Board of .ORG, the Public Interest Registry, based in Reston, Virginia. He is the Director of Telxess Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd. and Vcon Services Ltd. He was a Founder and former President of Internet Service Providers Association of India. He also was a founder, Board Director and CEO of National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). He helped conceptualize and set up NIXI as a public private partnership between ISPAI and Department of Information Technology, Government of India and was involved in restructuring NIXI as an autonomous Registry and Regulator of the .IN Domain (Indian ccTLD), including its commercial launch, drafting and implementing the INDRP, and appointment of Registrars, etc. He is also associated with Internet Governance Group of the Department of IT. He represented and was the spokesperson of India’s ISP industry, since the time of inception to well over a decade. He contributed many articles over the years in various publications and journals, and was a speaker & presenter at various forums, including the IGF, INET and other national, regional and international forums. He helped shape public policies in the telecommunication sphere as a member of various governmental and industry committees, expert groups and panels.

Rajen Varada (Founder & Director, Technology For The People)

Rajen Varada is a ICT practioner since 1995 and continues to be actively engaged in designing and implementing pro? of concept solutions for rural development using technology and in particular ICT. He has beeen at the forefront of developing solutions for health, early childhood care,( sisu samrakshak) disaster,( SMS4help), district administration (Parishkaram) and mostrecently ‘Labnet” a migrant labour tracking and servces portal. Technology for the people and NGo of which he is the founder continues to research on ICTsolutions forthe social sector. Rajen has been the founding of movements like public sector software and actively supports community ownership of technology, from community radio, community Tv and open source use. He has worked in UNICEF as a project manager to design a health dissemination package for rural communities called ‘Sisu Samrakshak’. Which broke new ground in designing icons in collaboration with the rural communities. Mr. Rajen subsequently worked as Resource Person of the United Nations Solution Exchange ICT for development Unit.

Subho Ray (President, IAMAI)

Currently he is working as the president of Internet & Mobile Association India (IAMAI). In his current role, has been instrumental in some crucial steps for the development of the digital industry. The main among these are instituting an accreditation process for interactive agencies, a credit recovery process for online publishers, organizing and getting recognition forthe mobile value added services industry and for opening up the pre-paid instruments industry. Under Mr Subho Ray’s leadership, IAMAI has also been recognized as the leaderin all Internet and mobile value added services research in India. IAMAI has grown seven-fold in terms of membership and has been at the forefront of the advocacy for ecommerce, online advertisement, ICT for SMEs, internet penetration and an equitable business regime for mobile value added services industry.Before joining IAMAI, Subho was director for the ICT vertical at the Confederation of Indian Industry (India’s largest industry body) in New Delhi where he worked since 1998 with a 2 year stint at the Confederation’s London once.

Soumya Sarkar (News Editor, Mint)

Soumya Sarkaris News Editorin Mint, a sister publication of the Hindustan Times published in partnership with the Wall Street Journal. He has been working in Media and Communications for over two decades and was previously with the The Times of India, The Indian Express Group, the Telegraph and the Down to Earth magazine. He has also worked as development and communications consultant with organizations that include the World Bank and the Aga Khan Development Network. Besides working in the areas of environment, rural livelihoods, energy and water resources, Soumya is keenly interested in science and technology issues.

Desi S Valli (ED & COO, Net 4 India)

Desi S Valli is one among the most successful Internet executives in India. He started his professional careerin a small start-up organization in Delhi, his initial interest in network design and integration gave him a chance to get involved in modern, developing technologies, and speci?cally Internet technologies. His contribution to the Networking industry gave him an opportunity to join Net4 India Ltd, as a founding member, in the year1999. Today, Net4, a BSE listed Company, is one of India’s leading players in IP Communications Services providing a wide range of quality, customer-focused and reliable Internetrelated services. He is the secretary of the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI). He is a member of Technical advisory committee of NIXI (National Internet Exchange of India, which is a government funded company with a mandate for optimally utilizing the Internet infrastructure within the country). Through his expertise and exposure to internal ICT markets, he is an active participant in the discussion forums of TRAI, on its policy formation processes.

Shriyananda Rathnayake (Project Manager, ICTA-Sri Lanka)

Shriyananda Rathnayake “Shri” is responsible for Formulate and implement strategies to contribute to the overall goal of the e-Society Programme of ICT Agency of Sri Lanka to promote the innovative use of ICT to meet the social and economic needs of the most vulnerable communities in Sri Lanka; to develop approaches to scale up successful applications; and to empower civil society with affordable access to information, communication, and relevant local content. As Project Manager & Content Manager of ICTA and an important member of its e-Society team, Shri has been responsible for conceptualizing and monitoring several projects which have made a strong impact on Sri Lankan rural society. Among them are projects which have helped access to Information, Livelihood, Education and Health. In doing so, Shri has come up with novel methods of collecting and disseminating content and has been responsible for promoting the use of local language Unicode and enhancing and improving the quality of local language content on the web.

Sushil Pandey (ICT Practitioner, ICIMOD-Nepal)

Sushil Pandey is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Specialist and leads the information technology (IT) team in ICIMOD’s Information and Knowledge Management (IKM) Programme. He has 16 years of experience in the area of ICT, and his current responsibilities include the management of the enterprise-wide computing and electronic communications environment; planning, designing and implementing information systems; systems integration; and interface with mutually reinforcing systems and technology like enterprise resource planning (ERP) and knowledge management. Mr Pandey has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Regional Engineering College, Trichy, South India. Prior to joining ICIMOD, he worked as a Systems Analyst at the Regional Computer Centre of AIT and as a Systems Developer in a project on management information systems at the Ministry of Finance, Nepal through Public Administration Service, a US-based consulting company. From 2002 to 2008, Mr Pandey served as a distinguished member of the Panel of Authors on Digital Review of Asia Pacific and produced biennial reviews on ICT in Nepal and the region.

Debdas Sen (Executive Director-Consulting, PwC India)

Debdas is the leader of much of the Technology Practice in PwC, which is the largest part of the consulting business in India. He is also responsible for the offshore operations of PwC India , which is based in Kolkata. Debdas is a B.Tech (Hons.) from IIT Kharagpur in Electronics and Communication Engineering, and is also the leader of the Business Intelligence business of PwC India. He has been a consultant to many top tier retail and consumer products and goods organizations in India and globally. He has delivered speeches across the world on various subjects including Performance Management.

Dr. Sheetal Amte (Chief Development Officer, Maharogi Sewa Samiti, Warora, Anandwan)

Dr Amte is a Medical Doctor with Masters degree in Social Entrepreneurship from TISS, Mumbai. She has rich experience in healthcare and nonprofit management with a focus on livelihood generation and rehabilitation of people with disabilities.Interested in creative communications and photography, she wishes to develop creative communication tools for promoting community entrepreneurship, livelihood generation and also for preventive healthcare. Her specialties are Creative Communications, Livelihood Promotion, Photography, Social Marketing , Project Planning and Management, Documenting innovations and entrepreneurial case studies, Business Plan Formulation ,Innovations in Corporate Social Responsibility.

Bikas Kr. Singh (Head-Corporate Affairs, Lenovo India Pvt. Ltd.)

Bikas is a Physics graduate from Delhi University and has a Law Degree from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University. He also has a Masters Degree in International Business from Delhi School of Economics. Bikas is a reputed Public policy expert with diverse experience in FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry) for 10 years. He has also worked with the Commercial Section of Danish Embassy and Carlsberg prior to joining Lenovo as its Head of Government Affairs. In Lenovo, Bikas has been instrumental in establishing Lenovo’s image as a global, compliant company and as a thought leader in Indian IT hardware industry. He is in-charge for Government Policies, Regulatory issues, corporate affairs as well as Lenovo’s CSR initiative. He is the Co-Chair for the FICCI Sub-Group on government policies in the ICTE Committee, member of the CII National Committee on ICT and also member of MAIT Executive Committee.

V K Madhavan (Former Director, Chirag)

Madhavan was appointed the Executive director of Chirag in 2004. Prior to this, Madhavan had worked in Delhi with The Hunger Project, Action Aid and as an independent consultant prior to which he worked for 8 years in Bikaner district of Western Rajasthan with Urmul Trust and Urmul Setu Sansthan. Madhavan holds a Masters in Politics (International Studies) from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Pranshu Singhal (Head-Sustainability, Nokia India Private Limited)

Pranshu has an engineering degree in Environmental Engineering. Then he moved to Sweden to pursue a Masters in Environmental Science. After his masters, Pranshu moved to the U.S. to pursue a few more specialized courses and have been working in the field ever since. Pranshu Singhal is currently working as the Head- Sustainability at Nokia India Private Limited. He has been working with Nokia in multiple focus areas for more than a decade and is currently focusing on issues like sustainable consumption and e-waste management for the company in India.

Nandita Rao (Lawyer and Activist)

She is a lawyer and activist, who has been practicing at the Delhi High Court and Supreme Court of India since 1998. She has been associated with the Delhi High Court legal Services Authority and with NGO’S including CHILDLINE ( a national helpline for children), Swanchetan ( an NGO that works on women’s mental health issues) and the Lawyers Collective ( Civil Liberties Unit- which has worked extensively on cases arising from the Gujarat Genocide in 2002). Nandita completed her LLB from Symbiosis Societies Law College Pune and her LLM (Development) from School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London, UK as a Chevening Scholar. Apart from writing on current legal issues, including the Bhopal Verdict and judicial delay in National Dailies including the Asian Age, her publication include ; “The mirage of justice and International Law (case study of Gujarat)” presentation at the International Law Association Conference, entitled “Tower of Babel” 2006, London, UK. Directory of Supreme Court & High Court Judgments on issues of Women and Children ( Co- Editor) Manual – Copy rights and patentrights fortribal and traditional Artists for Social Action Forum for Manav Adhikar.

Vijay S Shimpukade (Regional Manager, Intel Technology India Pvt Ltd.)

Vijay Shimpukade is the Regional Manager for West and Central India at Intel Technology India Pvt Ltd. responsible for Enterprise business. Vijay has around 20 years of experience with International success in various management and leadership roles in India, USA and Africa including Sales, Strategic planning, Program Management, Business Development, leading critical Business units, Technical lead and pre-Sales support. Vijay has spearheaded multiple critical corporate initiatives for efficiency drive across the globe including USA, APAC, Europe, Russia and Israel. Vijay interfaces across all organizational levels and contributes to highly successful teams. Vijay is an Engineering Graduate and has MS in Technology Management from NJ, USA.

Vineeta Dixit (Principal Consultant, NeGP-DIT)

Vineeta has over 22 years of experience in India and UK. She has worked in the areas of technology, education and governance. In the last 10 years I have transitioned from mainstream corporate life to ICT for Development (ICT4D) and public policy initiatives. She is currently Principal Consultant – Citizen Engagement for the $ 10 Bn National e-Governance Plan of Government of India. She has Masters in Social Policy & Development from London School of Economics and a Masters in Business Administration from The Business School, Jammu University, India. Her specialties are – Strategic consulting, Programme Management, Resource Management, Citizen Engagement, Impact Assessment

Neelam Chhiber (Member of Governing Council, NASE)

Neelam Chhiber is the co-founder of Industree, a social enterprise that connects rural producers to urban markets. Industree, with investment from Future Group, India’s largest retail chain, built a part producer owned retail brand called Mother Earth. Neelam is an Industrial Designer from National Institute of Design and alumnus of Social impact International, as well as Global Social Benefit Incubator ,Santa Clara University, USA. She believes that the strong marketing platform that Mother Earth will provide for food, fashion and home will drive producer incomes upwards, increase potential of ownership in their own enterprises, which in turn will drive efficiency.

Nikhil Pahwa (Editor & Publisher, Medianama)

Nikhil Pahwa is the Founder and Editor of MediaNama.com, India’s premier source of news and analysis of the Telecom and Digital Media in India. He has been involved with online communities for eleven years, five of which have been as a journalist providing perspective on the evolving digital content and services ecosystem in India. Prior to founding MediaNama in 2008, he was the Editor of ContentSutra, now a part of the GigaOm Network of telecom and digital media focused publications.

Rajnesh singh (Internet Society)

Rajnesh Singh is Regional Director of the Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau at the Internet Society where he oversees projects, initiatives and activities across the Internet Society’s functional and programmatic areas in the Asia and Pacific region, including Public Policy, Capacity Building and Internet Standards and Technology.

Rajen Varada (Founder & Director, Technology For The People)

Rajen Varada is a ICT practioner since 1995 and continues to be actively engaged in designing and implementing pro? of concept solutions for rural development using technology and in particular ICT. He has beeen at the forefront of developing solutions for health, early childhood care,( sisu samrakshak) disaster,( SMS4help), district administration (Parishkaram) and mostrecently ‘Labnet” a migrant labour tracking and servces portal.

Amir Ullah Khan (Deputy Director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation)

Amir Ullah Khan is an economist working at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as Deputy Director, Strategy. He has worked as a Researcher for the Ministry of Finance, Government of India and the UNDP at Project LARGE (Legal Adjustments and Reforms for Globalizing the Economy). He was then the Academic Head at the Indian School of Finance & Management after which he worked with Encyclopedia Britannica as Executive Director & Editor. He teaches a course on Indian Economic Policy at the Indian School of Business,Hyderabad and at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi.

Madan Mohan Rao (Research Project Director, Mobile Monday)

He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology at Bombay and completed his advanced studies from University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is M.S. in computer science and a Ph.D. in communications. He works as a consultant and author from Bangalore, in knowledge management and new media. He was formerly the Communications Director at the United Nations Inter Press Service bureau in New York, and vice president at IndiaWorld Communications in Bombay. He is the Research Projects Director of Mobile Monday and co-founder of the Bangalore K-Community.

Chitranganie Mubarak (Senior Programme manager, ICTA)

Chitranganie Mubarak is the Senior Programme Head of the e-Society Programme of the ICTA. She has a great passion for ICT4D and plays a key role in facilitating access to ICT amongst the most vulnerable groups in Sri Lanka thereby ensuring a more balanced access to information within Sri Lankan society and reducing the ICT development divide between urban and rural areas. Chitranganie has spear-headed several key ICT initiatives in Sri Lanka while implementing over 250 community based ICT for development project.

Sushil Pandey (ICT Practitioner, ICIMOD-Nepal)

Sushil Pandey is an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Specialist and leads the information technology (IT) unit in ICIMOD’s Integrated Knowledge Management (IKM) Programme. He has 16 years of experience in the area of ICT and ICT for knowledge management and development. Sushil has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the Regional Engineering College, Trichy, South India. Prior to joining ICIMOD, he worked as a Systems Analyst at the Regional Computer Centre of AIT and earlier with an ADB project on Management Information System in Nepal.

Amitabh Singhal (Board Member, PIR.ORG)

Amitabh currently sits on the Board of .ORG, the Public Interest Registry, based in Reston, Virginia. He is the Director of Telxess Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd. and Vcon Services Ltd. He was a Founder and former President of Internet Service Providers Association of India. He also was a founder, Board Director and CEO of National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). He helped conceptualize and set up NIXI as a public private partnership between ISPAI and Department of Information Technology, Government of India and was involved in restructuring NIXI as an autonomous Registry and Regulator of the .IN Domain (Indian ccTLD), including its commercial launch, drafting and implementing the INDRP, and appointment of Registrars, etc. He is also associated with Internet Governance Group of the Department of IT.

Bikky Khosla (CEO, Tradeindia.com)

Mr. Bikky Khosla is the first-generation entrepreneur who revolutionised the Indian dotcom industry in trade, connecting buyers and sellers from across the globe, facilitating easy and smooth business. With a lofty vision of serving the trade community of India, Mr. Khosla conceptualized Infocom Network Ltd. in 1991.In the nineties the dotcom industry saw a boom swaying in the trade community under its grip. Mr. Khosla decided to deliver something extra to the trade community and this marked the beginning of India’s first B2B portal – tradeindia.com. The portal provided a platform to buyers and sellers across the world irrespective of distance, size and position of exporters, importers and service providers in diverse arenas.Today, apart from being the CEO of Tradeindia.com, Mr Khosla is also the Chairman of ASSOCHAM’s expert committee on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Pankaj Sethi (Director, Thirdvue Consulting)

Pankaj Sethi advises in the areas of Telecom and New Media. His present company Third Vue Consulting works with large Telecom clients on defining and driving their disruptive growth areas. It also advises high potential startups and early growth companies, in building their strategic and business growth models. Previously Mr. Pankaj Sethi served as the President of Corporate Services at TATA Teleservices Ltd. Mr. Sethi served at Mukta Arts Limited and holds PGDM.