Andy has over 40 years’ experience in enterprise and automation solutions.  He is a recognized authority on business strategies and is a frequent speaker at executive conferences around the world.  Andy founded ARC through which his vision and influence has advanced the art of manufacturing.

Vikas is Vice President of the Technology Center of Excellence, Hydrocarbon Business, headquartered in Navi Mumbai.  He has over 26 years’ industry experience, covering the gamut from refinery, petrochemicals, IT/automation, and technology consulting.   With his experience and expertise he has held different portfolios, such as Project Manager, Techno functional Consultant, Technical Advisor, Delivery Lead, Automation Engineer, and Operations/Technical Services Engineer.  Vikas is a graduate in Petrochemical Engineering, Pune University and has a postgraduate Diploma in Supply Chain Management from IIT, Delhi.  He is currently working on his MBA.

Himanshu presently heads Technology for Birla Carbon, India Center.  He has 37 years of work experience in fertilizer, petrochemicals, chemicals, co-gen, and fiber manufacturing facilities and R&D.  Himanshu has worked abroad (UK, Mexico, USA, Thailand, and Egypt) for close to 25 years.  His many accomplishments include being the first person in India to install a DCS for a fertilizer plant and he received the Exceptional Contribution Award from Kumar Mangalam Birla in 2005.  Himanshu holds a B.E. from Gujarat University.

Niranjan is responsible for building and strengthening the design and engineering ecosystem and capabilities in India.  He has over 23 years of general management and leadership experience and was an entrepreneur prior to joining NASSCOM.  His extensive work experience in the IT industry comprises of developing and executing operational strategies with a strong focus on developing customer-centric solutions.  He promotes a collaborative approach by bringing in a cross-section of stakeholders including the industry, government, start-ups, and academia to execute programs at NASSCOM.  Niranjan is a post graduate in Information Technology.

In addition to his General Manager position, M.K. Srivastava also heads the C&I Department at NTPC. He has 30 years’ experience in power plant C&I engineering and has spearheaded the development of many guidelines, policies, and procedures.  He has contributed in the development of intelligent cable engineering and ICS software for which NTPC has the copyright.  With his guidance, many new initiatives like digitalization and complete water management have been undertaken.  He has authored papers for national and international conferences and is the President-elect of the International Society of Automation (ISA), Delhi Chapter. He holds a B.E in Control & Instrumentation from N.I.T. Surat.

Sunil has over 25 years of experience with HPCL. He joined as an engineer at HPCL’s Instrumentation Department, Mumbai Refinery in 1991.  Since then he has handled various assignments in quality control, maintenance, administration, system design, training, facility commissioning, etc.  He headed the instrumentation team looking after refinery maintenance, played an active role in formulation of the HPCL–Mittal joint venture, and was instrumental in centralizing procurement across HPCL. He holds a BE (Electronics & Communication) and an Executive MBA.

Parthasarathy joined Vikram Sarabhai Space Center (VSSC) a lead center of ISRO at Trivandrum in 1982 and was involved in multiple activities, such as design and development of cross system software for onboard computers for launch vehicles, review of design of on-board software, software for quality control automation for mechanical fabrication, etc.  He moved to ISRO headquarters in 2003 and has been involved in IT security policy formulation and ISRO software engineering standards.  Antrix is the commercial wing of ISRO, responsible for implementation of ERP and secured IT infrastructure.  He holds an M.Tech in Computer Science from IIT, Madras. 

Sivaram has worked in automation in various sectors, including power T&D, power plant automation, and communications.  He has considerable experience in distributed systems, SCADA, DCS, and microcontroller applications.  He has worked on software for redundancy systems, and managed large projects both in the public sector and private fields.  He has nearly forty years of work experience and is a key contributor to the National policy for Industrie 4.0.  He is a graduate in Electronics Engineering from IIT-Madras.

Chandrashekar has helped create several industry firsts and cutting-edge software technologies, which have been deployed in Fortune 500/Global 1000 companies worldwide. He is a mentor and advisor to a few startups as well.  The company’s TPM-Trak products help manufacturing companies improve their shop-floor productivity and profits. In the last six years, TPM-Trak products have won six major awards, including Siemens, CMTI-PMT, FIE, Economic Times, PC Quest, NASSCOM PEM.  Chandrashekar holds a B.E. from Bangalore, and an MS from the State University of New York at Buffalo, USA.

For the past 30 years, Dr. Ashok has been working on the LCA project, primarily in the areas of materials development, especially research in smart material applications.  He has spearheaded the successful establishment of India's first and only one of three Shape memory Alloy plants in the world.  He has won four national level awards, and is the first metallurgist in DRDO to receive the Pathbreaking Research/Technology development award in 2011.  His qualifications include: B.E. Metallurgy (IISc), ME Mechanical (IISc), PhD (Delhi), LLb (Bangalore University), MBA (Delhi), DIM, DPM, ADIM.

After completing his graduation in Electrical Engineering from MREC, Jaipur (now MNIT), Vivek worked at Instrumentation Limited, Kota from 1988-2006.  He has been with DCM Shriram since December 2006 as Head-Instrumentation for all eight plants at the Kota complex - Power, Fertilizer, Cement, Chlor Alkali, Calcium Carbide, PVC, Fenesta Building Systems, and Shriram Axiall.  He was honored with the Distinguished Instrumentation Professional Award-2016, India by ISA (International Society of Automation) in 2016 at the Automation India Week at Mumbai.

Chethan has held this post for the last 10 years, primarily driving world class quality and excellence initiatives across all Kalyani group companies, bringing a high degree of customer centricity in the organization.  He has 30 years of experience in various areas such as R&D, engineering, quality assurance, manufacturing operations, operational excellence, and Six Sigma in steel, automotive, and general engineering industries.
He has a B.Tech from NIT Surathkal and a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from I.I.Sc, Bangalore.

juwi SEA is a fully owned subsidiary of juwi renewable energies.  It is headquartered in Singapore and the geographically distributed team manages engineering activities in the SEA region.  Sanoj has worked primarily in development of automation systems and solutions using PLCs and SCADA for the manufacturing industries, including watch manufacturing, auto component manufacturing, and solar PV manufacturing.  He was associated with development of the thin film PV manufacturing systems and thereafter in several solar PV installations, design, and maintenance in India and APAC.  Sanoj holds a B.E. (Electrical Engineering) from RVCE, Bangalore. 

Ace Micromatic is India's leader in real-time manufacturing intelligence products - TPM-Trak.  AceMicromatic MIT is part of the AceMicromatic Group, India’s largest manufacturer of high tech CNC machines and automation products.  With his rich global experience at large MNCs, Madhusudan brings a global perspective to innovation and product engineering.  He holds a B.E. in Mechanical Engineering, and an M.Tech in Computer Engineering from REC Suratkal.

Praful has 11 years of experience in industrial and systems engineering, manufacturing engineering, project management in automotive MNCs and the auto component industry.  He holds a B.E. in Production Engineering, and M.Tech from IIT Kharagpur.