Speakers

Prof. D Balasubramanian Dr. D.Balasubramanium is currently working as a director at The L.V.Prasad Eye Hospital, Hyderabad. He has worked as the Director of CCMB, and has been a Professor & Dean at The University of Hyderabad. His research interests include Molecular and Cellular Approaches to Understand and Treat Diseases of the Eye. He has published more than 145 papers and authored three books. He was awarded the "Padma Shri" - a national honor by the President of India in 2002. He was also awarded The “Chevalier de l’Ordre National de Merite” - a national honor by the President of France in 2002 and has received several other awards.

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Dr. Neeraj Raj Dr. Neeraj Raj is synonymous with Multimedia and Animation in Hyderabad since the late 1980’s. As a creative Gold-medalist doctor, he has forayed into various fields – medicine, painting, photography, cartooning, multimedia and animation, each of which he pursues with unbound passion. He has combined these areas of expertise to capture and spread knowledge in his medical domain with a vision to "Transform Healthcare Education" and create a new cadre of healthcare professionals who can serve the needs of rural India. He is a gold medalist in Anatomy, Pathology and General Medicine and the Best Outgoing Student from Osmania Medical College. He has exhibited Oil and Watercolor creations in single and group shows. He contributes as a Cartoonist for major News Papers like The Sunday Chronicle and Indian Express. His Cartoons were exhibited at the World Humour Conference. His Innovation combines Medicine, New media and I.T. to explore new paradigms in Medical Education to address the pain points in the current healthcare education system. He is the founder of MEdRC EduTech, DNMS, Sriven MultiTech, Webtoons Inc. The MEdRC’s mission was cited as an example of innovation in specialized Upgradation of education in UNESCO's global report "Developments and Trends in the Application of ICT in Education". He was a special invitee to address the Steering Council Meeting of the International Virtual Medical School (IVIMEDS) at Amsterdam in 2007. He conducted a workshop on "The Future of Medical Education" in the University of Alexandria, Egypt in 2008. His awards include The Vaidyashree Award for outstanding contributions to medical education. He is a serving member of the Intel World Ahead Consortium for Digital Health and member of the K-Hub Winners' Club of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad.

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Notion Ink Notion Ink is a firm that works on the development of innovative products in the information, communication and entertainment space. Notion Ink feels the need of devices which re-defines the concept of mobility and user-experience, and are working towards bringing convergence to the masses at a faster rate. Notion Ink is developing a Tablet that is based on an unnanounced NVIDIA Tegra T20 chipset supporting 1080p Full HD video playback, has integrated WiFi, Bluetooth and UMTS/HSDPA, the first confirmed device to use the Pixel Qi transflective display. Innovators at Notion Ink are going to present their latest innovation in Smart Pads.

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Dr Sunitha Krishnan Dr Sunitha Krishnan is a rare breed of individual who has committed her life as a fulltime volunteer in Prajwala. A mental health professional, she has done extensive research and is essentially a field practitioner. She has been instrumental in rescuing hundreds of children from severely abusive conditions and restoring childhood to them. Dr. Sunitha Krishnan is making it possible for India's government and citizen organizations to jointly manage a range of protective and rehabilitative services for children who have been trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation. For her efforts in anti-trafficking she has been awarded The Stree Shakthi Puraskar, The Perdita Huston Human Rights Award and the World Of Children Award.

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Karuna Gopal Karuna Gopal is the President of Foundation for Futuristic Cities – an urban advisory services organization whose mission is to make Indian Cities Economically Vibrant, Equitable and Responsive. She contributed to the City Development & Renewal Strategies of five JNNURM Mission cities in India. She worked on city reform projects of DFID (UK), USAID and the World Bank. Based on the theme “Globalizing Indian Cities” she developed knowledge products & policy guidance documents to accelerate Urban Transformation. Believing that instruments aimed at cosmetic changes rarely rectify the systemic problems of Indian Cities and questioning the very paradigm on which they rely on - she launched the CITIZENS for CITY initiative. Scalable, replicable and an innovation in the Indian Urban landscape, it is meant to usher governance reforms. She was a faculty / mentor for ASCI/WBI (World Bank Institute) Certification program on Urban Management. She gets invited to speak on Governance Reforms and Leadership for programs meant for Policy Makers and Bureaucrats. She addressed and chaired seminars organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), Ministry of Science & Technology (GOI) , Centre for Good Governance ( CGG) , Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), Indian Institute of Management (IIM-A), Indian School of Business (ISB), The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and corporate houses like Infosys, ITC etc. Prior to the urban foray, she was the Founder President of Confluence Consulting, a Strategy Consulting firm. She says that her attraction to challenging assignments is because of personal challenges – her cardiac arrest and suspected brain damage at 14, auto immune disease at 19, losing parents to cancer and renal failure while growing up, an autistic and epileptic 17 yr old son who is her best friend and source of inspiration.

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Yasmina McCarthy M. Yasmina McCarty is the Co-founder and CEO of GreenMango. She leads the company’s day-to-day operations including sales, marketing, HR and finance. Before creating and launching GreenMango, Yasmina was a Senior Associate at Women's World Banking where she designed and led the company's program to apply traditional marketing practices to the nonprofit sector. She conducted customer researches, developed marketing strategies and improved customer service with microfinance organizations around the world, including India, Pakistan, Kenya, Colombia, Brazil, Jordan, Mexico and Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has spoken at prestigious industry events, conducted trainings for senior executives and has authored a publication on her work. Before entering the field of microfinance, she was an Account Manager at a top advertising agency, Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, developing campaigns and corporate brands for clients such as eBay. Yasmina graduated cum laude from Northwestern University and holds a MBA from Columbia Business School and London Business School. GreenMango is the largest online platform in India for informal businesses to connect with their customers. Since beginning operations in Hyderabad India in 2008, GreenMango has experienced rapid growth and great market demand. Today, GreenMango has over 30,000 listings of carpenters, tailors, plumbers, etc. and is adding hundreds of new service providers every day. GreenMango is launching its services in other cities in India this year. GreenMango was founded by Nandini P.Narula, a technology expert and M. Yasmina McCarty, a marketing specialist, who she first met while working together in microfinance. The GreenMango concept has been recognized as a business making a social impact with the receipt of the 2007 Cartier Women’s Initiative Asian Laureate, the prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship 2008 and the 2009 TEDIndia fellowship

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Syed Maqbool Ahmed Syed Maqbool Ahmed is the Principal Scientific Officer, Central Instruments Laboratory, University of Hyderabad. He is a Ph.D from Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad. He was an associate professor at Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar and a Research Associate at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA. He was a scientist at ISRO Vikram Sarabhai Space Center, Thiruvananthapuram. Mr. Ahmed has headed a team of five, which designed Chandra’s Altitudinal Composition Explorer (CHACE) for Chandrayaan I. He was a visiting scientist at Swiss Federal Institute, Switzerland.

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Kanthi Kannan Ms. Kanthimathi Kannan started the Right to Walk campaign in 2005 with her own neighborhood in Mehdipatnam, Hyderabad. She is a member of the Forum for a Better Hyderabad, an NGO involved in the betterment of the City. She is also in constant touch with other NGOs that operate to alleviate different problems that plague the City such as the Confederation of Voluntary Associations (COVA), the Forum for Sustainable Development, Apna Watan and The Concerned Citizens.

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Vasudeva Varma Vasudeva Varma is a faculty member at International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad Since 2002. Prior to joining IIIT Hyderabad, he was the president of MediaCognition India Pvt. Ltd and Chief Architect at MediaCognition Inc. (Cupertino, CA). Earlier he was the director of Engineering and research at InfoDream Corporation, Santa Clara, CA. He also worked for Citicorp and Muze Inc. in New York as senior consultant. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Computer and Information Sciences, University of Hyderabad in 1996. He has five patent applications and several publications in journals and conferences. In 2004, he obtained young scientist award and grant from Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, for his proposal on personalized search engines. In 2007, he was given Research Faculty Award by AOL Labs. His research interests include search (information retrieval), information extraction, information access, knowledge management, cloud computing and software engineering. He is heading the Search and Information Extraction Lab and Software Engineering Research Lab at IIIT Hyderabad.

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Sharat Chandra Sharat Chandra is the founder of Butterfly Fields, which believes in learning by doing. He is an IIT and IIM graduate, who ventured into entrepreneurship with a new thought of educating kids with a different teaching methodology. He has started of with conducting workshops during holidays and later expanded it to a yearlong curriculum. The programs comprise of various kinds of activities and experiences, which are specifically designed to make the child understand the underlying concepts or principles and at the same time enjoy it. At Butterfly Fields, the child is placed in an atmosphere where he is made to work in a team, is challenged to take decisions, asked to gather information, posed with questions and encouraged to think laterally. Butterfly fields was featured in "Beyond Profit" - May/June 2009, Issue: 10 New Ideas that could Change the World. They have established a Mini-Science Museum cum Science Center at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad, which was visited, and much appreciated by NASA Scientists. He has published a paper "7 steps towards being an effective science teacher" in the Indian Science Congress, 2005. He has produced and directed a short children's film on Organic Foods. Currently Butterfly Fields is working with over 25 schools and had reached out to over 15,000 kids and it has operations in Hyderabad, Vishakhapatnam, Chennai, Bangalore, Cupertino (California) and Warangal.

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Sarath Guttikunda Dr. Sarath Guttikunda is a TEDIndia 2009 fellow, founder of UrbanEmissions.Info in New Delhi, India, and developer of the SIM-air (Simple Interactive Models for Better Air Quality) tools, dedicated for sharing information on air pollution and climate change issues among the cities of the developing countries. He is an artist, teacher, and a world traveler, and believes in spreading information and keeping it simple enough to bridge the gap between science and common knowledge. A cartoon series on environmental issues was started in 2008, targeted at high school students and public bodies. He is an IIT graduate, guest lectures at IIT Delhi, and an Affiliate Assistant Professor at Desert Research Institute, Reno, USA.

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Raj Sekhar Raj is a cement technologist and has worked with Big 4 and other Global companies in the field of Engineering, IT & Business consulting. He has worked in various industries and has travelled widely helping customers with business solutions. Raj Shekher Janapareddy – is one of the founders of Hobby Hub - “A One stop Destination for Hobbies”. Hobby Hub is created to nurture hobbies and connect with nature with a vision to: Drive your passion & creativity Go Green Care and Share. Hobby Hub has different hobby themes at one place viz. - Green Zone: Herbal / Spice / Kitchen Garden , Vertical Gardening, Bonsais, Exotic Plants and Orchids Pet Zone: Rabbits, Hamsters, Guinea Pigs, Mice, Birds and small pets Aqua Zone: Tropical, Marine, Invertebrates, Aquariums and Ponds Creative Zone: Pottery, Arts & Crafts, Aeromodelling and more. The idea is to destress from the rat race, enjoy life, pursue what you love, imbibe creativity & develop a rounded personality.

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Nagesh Kukunoor Nagesh Kukunoor is a noted actor and a much sought after director in the Bollywood Industry. Nagesh Kukunoor did his Chemical Engineering from Osmania University and his masters from Georgia, Atlanta and worked as an environmental consultant in the U.S. He gave up his lucrative career to purshis dream of making movies. He has redefined Indian cinema by making successful films like 'Hyderabad Blues' on a shoestring budget. His attempt in film making has triggered hosts of other filmmaker to attempt making films of that genre. Nagesh has worked on movies like Iqbal, 3 Deewarein and Dor, which have received many awards and critical acclaim.

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Ananda Shankar Jayant Dr. Ananda Shankar Jayant is a breathtaking dancer, brilliant choreographer and an erudite scholar. She is one of the renowned dancers of the country who imbues technique and grammar with a sparkling quality, bristling with life. Hailed as an intelligent and thinking dancer with contemporary sensibility, she with her grace, vivacity and inner luminescence draws the viewer into the inner spaces that she paints, leaving the audience deeply touched. Ananda is a consummate artiste combining the skills of a performing artiste, teacher, choreographer and researcher, a rare combination further entwined with the her successful administrative skills. Ananda Shankar and her Institution, Shankarananda Kalakshetra have come to be accepted as the very home of South Indian art forms.

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Smitha Madhav Smitha Madhav is a gifted singer and dancer. She is a fine danseuse with several solo performances and ballets to her credit. She has a melodious voice coupled with tremendous depth and expression. Smitha has given numerous performances in music and dance recitals in India and abroad. In addition to being trained as a performer by her distinguished Gurus, Smitha has also sought to acquire a strong theoretical foundation in Bharatanatyam dance and Carnatic Music. Smitha has maintained an outstanding academic record throughout school and college. She is a gold medalist in law and has received the Pratibha scholarship from the government of Andhra Pradesh for 5 consecutive years. Smitha has been awarded the Bala Chaitanya Award for outstanding performance in Bharatanatyam by Aradhana Cultural Association. She was awarded the Ugadi Purashkar Award by the Madras Telugu Academy and the Kala Shravanthi Award by Annamacharya Vignana Peetham in recognition of her excellence in Music and Dance. She also received the Women’s Achievers Award, from the Government of Andhra Pradesh.

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Iqbal Patni Iqbal Patni is a noted poet known for using simple words and pleasing rhythm to communicate his thoughts effectively to the audiences. He developed his own style of recital, which coupled with his sensuous voice brings out positive emotions and euphoria in the audience. Iqbal Patni has penned numerous songs and scripted and narrated many events. His poetic talent has been appreciated and applied by some renowned names in the entertainment industry like A.R Rahman, Illayaraja, Anaida, Talat Aziz and Raj Kumar Rizvi. Iqbal Patni created a Unique Concept “Tasveer Ki Aawaz” (The voice of Images) by fusing the imagery of Artists with his poetic verses. The presentation of Tasveer Ki Aawaz has mesmerized audiences and affectively produced a new dimension where diverse Arts compliment each other. Popular fashion designers like Manish Malhotra, Wendell Rodricks, Gitanjali Kashyap, Krishna Mehta, Satya Paul and Vinita Pittei have showcased their collection using this concept of blending Poetry with Fashion.