SAEINDIA Aerospace Conference On AatmaNirbhar Bharat in Aerospace and Defense

Event Details

India has huge potential to become the R&D and manufacturing hub for global Aerospace and Defense industry. Atmanirbhar Bharat is the forward-thinking vision of new India to become self-reliant. Government of India has taken initiatives like Make in India, Digital India and Skill India which help to develop new technologies, improve manufacturing infrastructure, processes and supply chain. With these initiatives and acts, there are many opportunities for domestic as well as foreign companies to invest in R&D and manufacturing in India and establish the competitive position in domestic as well as international market. However, the opportunities that are encouraged by policies are also accompanied by many challenges to create a sustainable ecosystem.

This conference discusses opportunities available, and challenges faced in fostering the growth towards Self-Reliant India in Aerospace and Defense sector. SAE Aerospace forum invites industry practitioners, academicians, researchers and students to actively participate in the conference and leverage this unique opportunity to learn from experts and exchange ideas.

Agenda

Speakers

Dr. Kota Harinarayana

SERB Distinguished Fellow, CSIR-NAL Former Chief Scientist & Program Director – Indian LCA of HAL

DR. Vijay Kumar Saraswat

Member at NITI Aayog

Umamaheswaran

Scientist/Engineer-OS and Scientific Secretary, ISRO

Dr C.M. Manjunatha

Dr. CM Manjunatha Chief Scientist and Head, Structural Integrity Division CSIR-NAL Bangalore

Gunjan Krishna

Commissioner, Department of Industries and Commerce, Government of Karnataka

Praveen P A

Director- Aerospace & Defence; Director - BFSI, Govt of Telangana

Thiru.B. Krishnamoorthy IOFS

Project Director, Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor, Government of Tamilnadu

Dr Bala Bharadvaj

Former Managing Director, Boeing Engineering & Technology Center in Bengaluru, India

Mrs. Rashmi Urdhwareshe

President, SAEINDIA

Dr.Naresh Palta

Chief Exec. Officer - Aerospace & Aviation - Maini Group

Manoj Jain

General Manager -EW & A, Bharat Electronics Limited

Ramakrishnan Parasuraman

Senior Director- Engines and Power systems, Honeywell

Savyasachi Srinivas

Executive Director-Engineering, Collins Aerospace

Vishal Sanghavi

COO, Tata Boeing Aerospace

Nikhil Joshi

Head, Eaton Aerospace Bangalore Plant

Aravind Melligeri

Chairman and CEO, Aequs

Sridhar Dharmarajan

Executive Vice President & Managing Director – India, Manufacturing Intelligence division of Hexagon & MSC Software, IndoPacific

D.R.Subramanyam

Founding Director, SLN Technologies

Srinath Ravichandran

Co-Founder & CEO, AgniKul Cosmos

Sunil Motwani

Country manager, MathWorks

Ankit Sahu

CEO and Founder, Objectify Technologies Pvt. Ltd

Dr.MK Padmanabhan

CEO, UCAL Technologies

Mr. T Suvarna Raju

Ex-Chairman & Managing Director Hindustan Aeronautics Limited

Prof B. Gurumoorthy

Professor, Dept of Mechanical Engineering, IISc

Amit Agarwal

Director Technical – India, ASEAN and ANZ, ANSYS

Panneerselvam Madanagopal

Vice President, Corporate Innovation, T-Hub

D.Uma Maheshwar

Site Chief Consulting Engineer at GE Aviation Engineering, India

Raghavan Muralidharan

General Manager (Engg.) at Tata Power Company, Strategic Electronics Division

Dr S N Sridhara

Vice Chancellor, HITS

Dr. Kota Harinarayana graduated from BHU in Mechanical Engineering, postgraduate in Aero Engineering at IISc, Bangalore, Ph.D. at IIT Bombay and holds a bachelor’s degree in law. As Programme Director and Chief Designer of Light Combat Aircraft, he successfully directed the project leading to flight testing and clearance for limited series production. Thanks to his efforts, India succeeded in developing a state-of-art, high technology fighter aircraft of world class. He is the Fellow of Aeronautical Society of India (former President of the Society), National academy of sciences and Indian National Academy of Engineering. He received distinguished alumnus award from Indian Institute of Science and from IIT Bombay . He was awarded National Aeronautics Prize and FIE Foundation Award. He received SBI-Pragna Puraskar, received the Dr. Y. Nayudamma Memorial Award. He received the DRDO Technology Leadership Award and was honoured with Padma Shri by Government of India in 2002. Indian National Academy of Engineering conferred up on him, the life time contribution award in engineering, for the year 2006. He was formerly Vice-Chancellor of University of Hyderabad, 2005, Chairman, Research Council, Centre for wind energy technology, Chennai, Distinguished Guest Professor, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT-Bombay, Indian Technical coordinator for India-Trento/Italy S&T program, Pratt & Whitney Chair professor at Univ of Hyderabad; Dr D S Kothari, DRDO Chair at ADA, Bangalore.

Dr. Vijay Kumar Saraswat retired as Secretary, DRDO, after more than four decades of Government service. He is ME from IISc Bangalore and Phd from Osmania University and a gifted scientist with vast experience in defence research in both basic and applied sciences.
During his illustrious career, Dr Saraswat, has been credited with indigenous development of (i) Missiles namely PRITHVI, DHANUSH, PRAHAAR and AGNI-5; (ii) Development of two-tiered Ballistic Missiles Defence (BMD) systems (iii) Initial Operational Clearance of Light Combat Aircraft TEJAS; and Nuclear Submarine INS Arihant.
As Secretary DRDO Dr. Saraswat played a pivotal role in: (i) establishment of the command, control, communication, storage, transportation and deployment infrastructure for strategic nuclear assets to support the nuclear doctrine; (ii) Flight Evaluation of long range sub-sonic cruise missile (iii) Long Range Radars for tracking incoming (enemy) Ballistic missiles, Command control and communication network, Command Centres with decision support system for defence of National Capital Region against enemies’ ballistic missile threat, (iv) Established Cyber Security Research and Development Centre for developing offensive and defensive technologies for cyber security.
As Homi Bhabha Chair Professor and Consultant to IOCL R&D, evolved a road map for development of Alternate Energy Systems viz. clean coal technologies, High Efficiency Concentrated Solar Power Systems, Bio-energy and Hydrogen based economy. Presently he is Chairman of Research Advisory council of IOCL R&D.
As Chairman NTPC R&D Advisory Council similar alternate energy technology development plan has been prepared with focus on clean coal technologies viz. Integrated Gasification and combined cycle system, Advanced ultra-super critical Thermal Power Plant to work on efficiencies better than 40% and highly reduced greenhouse emissions.
Initiated a programme for development of Silicon-Photonics technology by setting up Photonics Valley Corporation at Telengana. Govt. of Telengana initiative in collaboration with Photonics Inc USA. This will be a game changer for the next generation of networks like 5G and super computers.
As Chairman of Committee for development of Indian Microprocessor led a team to evolve the configuration of the M-Processor for IOT, Smart Cities and other ICT applications, laid out the strategy for development with DieTy, CDAC, IIT(M), IIT(B) and SCL Chandigarh. Two devices have already been developed in As Member, NITI Aayog, Initiated a programme to develop “Methanol Economy” for transportation, energy generation and production of chemicals, fertilizers etc. Production agencies, academic institutions and Petro-refineries have been brought on a common platform to leap frog in “Methanol Economy”. M-15 gasoline blend, methanol cook stove and methanol fueled propulsion for Inland Waterways and Methanol-fueled gensets are being introduced as part of “Methanol Economy” initiative in the country. R&D activity in gasification of High Ash content Indian coal has been initiated at Academia & Industry.
He is a recipient of many awards and most notable among them being Padma Shri (1998), Padma Bhushan (2013). He has been conferred Honorary Doctorate by more than 25 Universities the latest among them being Jamia Humdard (2018).

Shri Umamaheswaran R, Scientist/Engineer-OS and Scientific Secretary, ISRO, has made significant contribution to the system integration, checkout and avionics of ISRO’s launch vehicles viz PSLV, GSLV & GSLV-MkIII. He has been the Chief Designer (Integration) of major sub-assemblies including Equipment Bay of the Launch vehicle. Many of the mission critical circuits residing in the vehicle including the entire pyro chain for all the three launch vehicles has been designed by him. He completed B Tech in Electronics & Communication Engineering from College of Engineering, Trivandrum in 1985, MS in Software System from BITS, Pilani in 2007 and MA in Russian Language from Kerala University in 1996. He joined VSSC in 1987.
Over the years, he has evolved as a domain expert in the field of system electrical integration, checkout, ground station and avionics. He was also the Vehicle Director for the remarkably successful GSLV D5/GSAT-14 Mission with the indigenous cryo-stage.
He took over the assignment of Project Director, GSLV with effect from July 1, 2014. As Mission Director of the GSLV-D6, GSLV F05 & GSLV F09 Missions, he led the entire ISRO Team and successfully accomplished the missions. This has been the first hattric success of GSLV missions under a single project team. He also lead the Operational Launch Vehicle Team of Avionics Production, Hardware Production, Structural analysis and Control guidance to enable & successfully deliver the products for the increased frequency of PSLV, GSLV and GSLV Mk III missions.
Subsequently he was assigned with the charge of Deputy Director, Avionics with effect from 29th May, 2017. As DD, AVN, he lead a team of young enterprising Engineers, for the development of miniaturized avionics, performing the crucial role in making key decisions to overcome the various technical intricacies and mitigate developmental constraints in the realization of these systems. He also spearheaded the induction of Electro-Mechanical Actuation Systems in L40, GS2 & S200 EGC systems for the coming missions. From May 4th 2018 onward, he has taken charge as Associate Scientific Secretary, ISRO HQ and as Scientific Secretary, ISRO from August 1st onward. He has been awarded ISRO Individual Merit Award-2013, ISRO Team Awards-2006 for PSLV and in 2014 for GSLV and ISRO Outstanding Achievement Award for 2018. He also received the ASI-ISRO award for the year 2016. He is the life member of Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI), Systems Society of India (SSI), and Indian Society for Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering (ISAMPE). He is also the recipient of Honoris Causa from the Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai (2019). He is the National Vice President for Indian Society of Systems, Science and Engineering (ISSE) and the President of ISSE Bangalore Chapter. He became a corresponding member of International Academy of Astronautics in 2019.

Dr. CM Manjunatha is currently Chief Scientist and Head, Structural Integrity Division, CSIR-National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore, India. He obtained his B.E. (NITK) in 1988, M.E. (IISc.), in 1991 and Ph.D. (Cambridge Univ., UK) in 1995. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Imperial College, London, UK in 2008. He has over 20 years of experience and specialized in mechanical testing and evaluation of aerospace materials, damage tolerance evaluation, full scale static and fatigue tests, life extension of aging aircraft, polymer composites, nanocomposites etc. He has executed over 50 sponsored and research projects. He is a recipient of Gold medal for first rank in B.E. (1988), Cambridge-Nehru Scholarship (1991), ORS award from CVCP London (1991), UKIERI research fellowship (2008), NAL outstanding award for project execution (2013) and NAL Best innovation award (2017). He has about 200 publications to his credit in international journals and conferences.

Ms. Gunjan Krishna is a graduate in Economics (Hons) from Lady Shri
Ram College and Law from Campus Law Centre, Delhi University. She joined
Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in the year 2004. She has rich experience
of working with the State Governments and Government of India. She served
as Managing Director, Karnataka State Industrial & Infrastructure
Development Corporation Limited [KSIIDC], where she is responsible for
spearheading implementation of infrastructure projects including projects on
Public Private Partnership [PPP] basis. She also served as Commissioner for
Micro, Small and Medium Industries (MSME), where she was responsible for
promotion of MSMEs in the State. She is presently working as the
Commissioner for Industrial Development and Director of Industries &
Commerce. As Commissioner, she is responsible for attracting and facilitating
investments, promotion of exports and industrial growth of the State. She has
also written a book “From Bondage to Freedom : An Analysis of International
Legal Regime on Human Trafficking”.

Director with Government of Telangana heading Aerospace and Defence sector. Lead policy development, infrastructure planning, Skill development, Industry partnerships and Investment promotion initiatives for integrated ecosystem development. Additional charge as Director - Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI).

Previously, served in the private sector at Country Head, Chief Operating Officer and Business Head levels with HSBC, EFL, IL&FS, Inditrade, NCDEX and NCMSL ( Banking, Financial Services and Commodities Sector)

Credited with attracting mega investments, initiating skilling partnerships with global universities and bringing substantial visibility to Hyderabad A&D ecosystem. During my term, global OEMs including Boeing, GE Aviation, Lockheed Martin, UTC, RUAG, Pilatus, Safran, Rafael, ELBIT etc established and expanded their Manufacturing facilities, Technology centres and Skill Development centres in Hyderabad .
Initiated strategic partnerships with leading UK, French and US Aeronautical Universities. Cranfield University UK, Aerocampus Aquitaine France and Embry Riddle Aeronautical University USA are currently offering their world class courses in Hyderabad.

Work closely with MoD, MoCA, DoS and DPIIT hierarchy in Union Government on key projects. Currently pursuing key initiatives such as establishing a world class Aeronautical University, Defence Incubator, Space cluster and various Centre of Excellence projects in the State.

Received the Best State awards in 2020 and 2018 from the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation for the "State with most progressive outlook to Aviation and Aerospace Sector".

IIM Ahmedabad Alumnus and Chevening Gurukul Fellow from Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. (Public Policy and International Development).

• B. Krishnamoorthy IOFS has been appointed as Project Director, Tamil Nadu Defence Industrial Corridor, at the level of Additional Secretary in the Government of Tamil Nadu.

• He belongs to Civil Services 2002 batch and allotted to Indian Ordnance Factories Services. He served in different capacities in different units of Ordnance Factory Board , under Ministry of Defence such as Heavy vehicle factory, Avadi, Cordite factory, Aruvankadu in Tamil Nadu and Ordnance Factory Board New Delhi Office. He has vast experience in Administration, Defence land management, Defence production, Marketing and Exports.

• He has been awarded with ‘Ayudh Bhushan’ Award for year 2020 by ordnance Factories Board in recognition of outstanding and exemplary contribution towards innovation and excellence for the cause of Defence production.

• He also worked in Ministry of shipping as Director under Central deputation and contributed significantly for formulation, Evaluation and implementation of various projects of Sagarmala programmes, Inland waterways, and Cruise shipping and Coastal shipping projects in the Maritime sector.

• He represented the Government of India in various International Fora such as International Maritime Organisation (IMO), London, International Labour Organisation (ILO), Geneva, South Asian Subregional Economic Cooperation(SASEC) meetings held at Singapore and Tokyo. He has also attended various Port Development Courses at Antwerp and Busan,South korea,.etc

• He also held the position of Executive Director, Indian Ports Association, an apex body under Ministry of shipping and executed various Port Modernisation projects. ‘Indian Port community System’ which is one the projects executed by him, was received the National Digital India Award 2020 in the Exemplary Category by the Hon’ble president of India.

• His Education qualification included., MA (sociology), Mphil (sociology), Master Business Law, LLM and International Executive Development Programme in project Management from George Washington University (USA).

A globally recognized Aerospace Expert with more than four decades of experience, Dr. Bharadvaj holds solid academic credentials in Aerospace Engineering and Management - B.Tech. from IIT Madras (India); M.S. & Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta (USA), and an MBA from University of California, Irvine (USA).
During his distinguished career of 40+ years, operating both from the US and India, Dr. Bharadvaj has excelled as a Researcher, Technologist, Systems Thinker, Strategic Planner, Program Manager, and Inspirational Leader. He has held numerous leadership positions at Boeing, retiring recently as the Managing Director of Boeing’s India Engineering & Technology Center, the largest such Boeing Center outside the US.
Dr. Bharadvaj was also a member of the faculty of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering at Boston University for several years and an Adjunct Professor at other universities in the US.
Dr. Bharadvaj has been an active member of the broader technical community for many years and has contributed to the American Institute of Aeronautics & Astronautics (AIAA), NASSCOM, SAE International and SAEINDIA. He established the Aerospace segment within SAEINDIA in 2009 and has brought together various industry leaders in India to strengthen aerospace activities in SAEINDIA. He was President of SAEINDIA during 2018-2020 and is currently an Advisor to the Managing Committee and Chairman of the Building Committee.
Dr. Bharadvaj has been recognized with several prestigious awards for his many contributions over the years. Notable ones include:
• Team Excellence Award and Group Achievement Award from NASA (National Aeronautics & Space Administration) in the US.
• Quality Hero, Process Management Role Model, CEO Recognition, and Chairman’s Safety Award from The Boeing Company.
• Awards and recognition from a broad array of organizations such as Sigma-Xi Scientific Research Society, Beta-Gamma Sigma Business Honor Society, American Society of Engineers of Indian Origin, Industrial Engineering & Operations Management Forum, and most recently an “Honorary Doctor of Science” from Hindustan Institute of Technology & Science, Chennai, India.
He is an Associate Fellow of AIAA, and an Honorary Member of SAEINDIA. He is also an Invited Member of the Research Council of the National Aerospace Laboratories.
Dr. Bharadvaj is an active writer and speaker at various Industry, Academic and Government forums, and shares his knowledge and experiences with a wide audience.

Mrs. Rashmi Urdhwareshe retired as Director ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India, Pune) in June 2020. Having started her career as Trainee Engineer, Mrs. Urdhwareshe rose through the ranks to take the coveted position as Director of ARAI in year 2014. ARAI is the prestigious autonomous R&D and Homologation Institute located in Pune. During her illustrious tenure as Director, ARAI scaled new heights in technology, business excellence and R&D. Under her leadership Center of Excellence in E-Mobility, Homologation and Technology Centre and several key facilities were created to provide dedicated services to the automotive and other engineering sectors at national and international level.

Mrs. Urdhwareshe has a distinguished academic and professional career. She holds master’s degree in E&TC and several other professional qualifications such as Diploma in Corporate Directorship (from WCCG), Six Sigma Black Belt (from ASQ), etc. Her 37+ years of industrial experience and expertise includes wide range of subjects in automotive domain (like vehicular safety, Air quality and exhaust measurements, Standards/ Regulations, R&D and technology, Green mobility, Alternate fuels, Quality Systems and Business Excellence, etc.)

Mrs. Urdhwareshe has served as the Chair / Vice Chair of various national/ international bodies.

She is currently President of SAE India (Society of Automobile Engineers).
She is also Senior Advisor to Pune Knowledge Cluster (PKC), which is set up under the directions of Principal Scientific Advisor, Government of India.
With huge experience and wide expertise, Mrs. Rashmi has also taken up Advisory and Mentorship roles for Corporates, Educational/ Research programs and Government Agencies.

Mrs. Urdhwareshe is Co-author of Book on Total Quality Management.
She is a recipient of several awards in the areas of women Empowerment, Corporate Leadership, Engineering Excellence, E-mobility, Business Excellence, Quality Excellence and many more.
For her lifetime contributions towards development of Automotive Technology, she is honored with Nari Shakti Puraskar 2019, at the hands of Hon’ble President of India on 8th March 2020.

Mrs. Rashmi’s other interests are instrumental music, writing technical articles, reading and extensive travelling.

Dr. Naresh Palta, alumni of Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh, acquired Bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1969 and joined Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as a Management Trainee (Technical) in December 1969. He is also an alumni of the Air Force Technical College, Bangalore. He has also acquired a PhD in Management.

Dr. Palta had worked in a wide variety of fields in HAL. In senior leadership roles, he was Addl. General Manager- Mechanical Systems at Lucknow and General Manager of Avionics Divisions at Hyderabad and Korwa.

As Corporate Executive Director, which was Dr. Palta’s last appointment in HAL, he steered HAL’s thrust towards Customer Support and Quality Assurance, with highly acknowledged contributions to significantly enhance the aircraft fleet utilization by the Defence Services. He retired from HAL in November 2008.

From Dec 2008 onwards, Dr. Palta has been with the Bangalore based Maini Group, first for leading as CEO the newly formed dedicated aerospace SBU, and later from 2013 as Group CEO with responsibility for Aerospace and Aviation. Under his leadership, Maini Group has seen exponential growth in both aerospace and aviation sectors, in the diversified portfolio of eco-friendly people/equipment mobility platforms, material handling and high precision manufacture.

Professional affiliations of Dr. Palta are:
i. Life Fellow, Institution of Engineers (India)
ii. Life Member, Aeronautical Society of India.

His achievements also include a number of Papers, Publications and invited Talks in various forums. He is actively involved with many Professional and Industry bodies, some of which are:
i. Chairman, Empowered Committee for A & D Policies, (SIATI)
ii. Founding Member, Advisory Board, International School of Mgmt. Excellence, B’lore
iii. Director, Karnataka Aerospace Technology Center (KATC). 2019 – 2020-21
iv. Member, Aerospace Committee, BCIC, Bangalore
v. Director: Aerospace and Aviation Sector Skill Council (AASSC), 2020-21
vi. Chairperson: CII Karnataka Aerospace & Defence Panel 2020-21

Mr Manoj Jain joined BEL in August 1991 as probationary engineer after graduating in BE (Electronics) from REC Jaipur (MNIT) with Gold medal. He has made significant contribution in the development of Digital Multiplexers, Cross connects, CDOT Exchanges & Military Switches in D&Es, during his initial 8 years at BEL- Kotdwara.
In 1999, Mr Manoj moved to Central Research Laboratory (CRL), Bangalore and involved in developing technologies for Defence networks and Network & Bulk security Solutions. In Radar area he was involved in developing of VeXT, Scan Converter & Display using FPGA.
He took over as Chief Scientist (CRL-BG) from December 2017 to May 2019 overseeing Technological Developments in all Technical areas.
He took over as General Manager of Product Development & Innovation Centre (PDIC) from June 2019 to June 2021. During his tenure, PDIC established many new product/subsystem development required for BEL, thus ensuring continuous Innovation & value addition, leading to self-reliance.
Mr Manoj took over as the General Manager and Head of Electronic Warfare & Avionics SBU of BEL, Bangalore, in June 2021 overseeing all business operations and to provide thrust on strategic vision to this business vertical.
Mr Manoj has received various R&D awards, Key Contributor award, Raksha Mantri award and SODET Awards. He has published various technical papers, applied many patents and delivered talks to Defence users & DRDOs.

Ramakrishnan Parasuraman is a Senior Director of Engineering for Engines and Power Systems at Honeywell Technology Solutions, Bangalore, India. At Honeywell , he leads the engineering team for aerospace propulsion engines, auxiliary power units and aircraft electrical systems and components. He has over 25 years of progressive experience in the aerospace industry driving global product development and technology initiatives with a strong business acumen. He is responsible to deliver world class solutions from concept to full scale development for leading aerospace majors by leveraging innovation, execution, organizational excellence, and talent transformation. Prior to joining Honeywell, he was a Scientist and Deputy Project Director at National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore, India. He was part of the team which designed and developed SARAS, India’s first civil aircraft. At NAL, he was responsible for mechanical systems and the integration of aircraft leading to flight tests. He holds a Masters degree in Engineering, in Aviation Transport, from Riga Aviation University, Riga, Latvia. His areas of interests include systems design, multi disciplinary optimization, organizational development, and next gen technologies.

Savya Srinivas leads the Engineering organization in India for Collins Aerospace in Bangalore and Hyderabad locations. This includes the legacy UTAS Global Engineering Center (GEC) and legacy Rockwell Collins India Design Center (IDC). India is home to over 3000 engineers.
In his current role, Savya is responsible for overall strategy and operations of the sites that he leads. Savya leads the engineering teams that provide support to Collins Aerospace business units. His teams execute both regional and international programs that support both internal and external customers globally.
Savya possesses global work experience in Aerospace and Defense Corporations in United States and India with ability to lead cross-functional and geographically spread teams, where he has led the development of large-scale systems for mission critical applications in Aerospace, Aviation and other Engineering domains.
Savya started his career as a Systems Engineer at Lockheed Martin in the US and grew up the ranks to lead functional and program teams that supported the development and deployment of large scale ATM, and other mission critical systems. Subsequently, he moved to India and joined Thales where he became the Director of engineering supporting platforms in Avionics, Cabin Systems, ATM and IT. He joined Rockwell Collins in 2013 as the Director of the India Design Center supporting all business units of RC in multiple Avionics and Non-Avionics domains. He subsequently held the role of Senior Director of Asia Pacific Engineering, leading RC sites in India, Australia and Singapore.
Savya focuses on creating an environment that fosters innovation and capability expansion and is committed to adding increased value to the enterprise.
Savya holds a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University, a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from University of Arizona, and a master’s degree in
Technical Management from Johns Hopkins University.

Aravind Melligeri is the founder of Aequs Group. As the Chairman, he is laser focused on creating
long‐term value through innovative strategies; it has been a relentless, lifelong pursuit. Aravind’s
farsightedness and differentiated approach has led India to increase in‐country value add and gain a
competitive advantage.
Aravind believes that modern manufacturing is driven by two forces: continuous innovation and
uninhibited collaboration. Over the last decade, he has built a vertically integrated aerospace
ecosystem that drives scale and efficiency through co‐located capabilities delivering end‐to‐end value
streams. This unique ecosystem was awarded the prestigious “Global Airbus Innovation Award” in
2016 and recognized as first of its kind in the world. With Aravind’s resolute leadership and strategic
collaboration with global companies, Aequs quickly expanded its global footprint with operations in
India, North America, and Europe and today the company is a preferred partner for global OEMs.
His passion for building economic engines for India’s future led to Aequs’ diversification into the
consumer vertical in 2016. Today, Aequs is at the helm of developing and building India's first 400‐
acre toy manufacturing ecosystem in Koppal, Karnataka, and India’sfirstsector‐specific Durable Goods
Cluster in Hubballi. It is his vision to transform India into a global manufacturing hub.
Aravind holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the National Institute of
Technology, Karnataka, and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Pennsylvania State
University. He has been the recipient of the ‘Young Achiever Award’ by the Indo‐American Community
and ‘Super Entrepreneur 2019’ award by The Machinist (India) magazine.

Sridhar Dharmarajan (DS) is the Executive Vice President & Managing Director – India, Manufacturing Intelligence division, Hexagon. In his role, he is responsible for India sales operations of the Metrology and Production Software portfolios, as well as MSC Software and Q-DAS. He also oversees the MSC Software Indo-Pacific regional business operations across India, ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand.

He joined MSC Software Corporation in 2007 establishing the company’s first sales office in the Region. Over the past decade, he has built and retained high performing teams. He has been responsible for the company's market leadership and 10x growth. Before MSC Software Corporation, between 2002-2006, Mr. Dharmarajan was responsible for successfully setting up the MatrixOne operations in India.

He is also a successful entrepreneur who has set up two companies - Bluefont Technologies and Pixtel communications (Pixtel was sold to Mindtek, Taiwan) in the early 2000’s. It is during this time Mr. Dharmarajan acquired an in-depth knowledge of setting up and running a software company end-to-end. Mr. Dharmarajan started his career with Wipro Infotech. After leaving Wipro, he was handpicked to be a part of a core team to establish SDRC (now Siemens PLM) in India. During his eight-year tenure at SDRC, he was the recipient of numerous technical and sales excellence awards and played a vital role in the success of SDRC in the country.

Mr. Dharmarajan has completed his MS in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. He is based in Bangalore and calls the Garden City his home.

Mr D R Subramanyam is an Electronics and Communication Engineering graduate from
Karnatak University, India. He has a Diploma in International Masters in Practicing
Management (IMPM) from INSEAD, France and Post Graduate Dip in AI & ML from IIIT
Bangalore. Also he is a life time member of Aeronautical Society of India (AeSI) and Institute
of Directors.
He co-founded SLN Technologies Pvt Ltd, which is specialised in Electronics Systems Design
and Manufacture (ESDM) for Aerospace, Defence & Nuclear industry segment. His expertise
includes Electronic Systems Design and manufacture. He is Managing Director of SLN
Technologies and has over 35 years of industry experience.
He is invited member to the Board of Aerospace & Aviation Sector Skills Council (AASSC)
under National Skill Development Council (NSDC)
He is former Governing council member of Central Institute of Plastic Engineering and
Technology (CIPET), Department of Chemicals & Petrochemicals, Govt. of India.
D R Subramanyam is actively involved in the following industry and social organisations:
Elected member of CII Karnataka State Council from 2013 till now.
Chairman Empowered committee of MSME in ”Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies
and Industries (SIATI)”.
Vice Chairman & Governing Council Member of Aeronautical Society of India, Bangalore
Branch
Governing Council Member of Adamya Chetana and AnanthKumar Foundation (Not for
profit organizations)

Srinath is a Wall Street trader turned Aerospace Engineer with over 10 years of experience in Engineering, Finance and Project Management. He has a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from College of Engineering, Guindy and Masters degrees in Financial Engineering from Columbia University and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Srinath believes in using his multi disciplinary experience to solve large scale problems that humanity faces today. He is deeply passionate about space and started Agnikul with the simple idea that going to space shouldn't be the hardest part of living in and working from space. When he is not working on Agnikul related projects, he spends his time trying to write screenplays.

Sunil Motwani is Country Manager – Sales & Services, at MathWorks India office managing sales related activities for commercial customers in India. He has been at MathWorks since 2008 from the time it started operations in India. Prior to joining MathWorks, Sunil worked at Hewlett Packard & Agilent Technologies managing sales of test instruments for various industry segments in India including Aerospace & Defense, Communications, Semiconductor, Automotive and Industrial Automation. He has more than 25 years of experience in sales of technology products across various regions within India having been based at Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad & Bangalore during this time.
Sunil has a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics Engineering from Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology (VNIT), Nagpur and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Software Technology from National Centre of Software Technology ( NCST ), Mumbai.

Dr. M. K. Padmanabhan is a Technocrat with more than 35 years of experience in domains that span Enterprise creation and management, Education and Applied Research, Governance and Policy implementation. Presently, from 2016, he is the Director of Virginia Tech India Center for Research and Education, a Not-for-Profit entity duly Registered under Indian Companies Act.

During the period 2010-2016, he was involved in several initiatives that can broadly be classified as Education Management. In this period, he served a 3-year term as the Vice Chancellor (Pro Voce) of a large multi-disciplinary Education and Research University. The University has Departments in Engineering, Medical Sciences, Arts & Science and Management. During 2000-2010, Paddu founded Plexion Technologies, funded by JP Morgan, a Technology company dealing with Design and Manufacture of Aerospace systems. It has later been acquired by a large Global conglomerate in 2008 and he worked as its CEO for a further period of two years. Prior to this, Paddu spent nearly 20 years with Indian Space Research Organisation as Scientist/Engineer. During this period, he was deputed to NASA, USA for a period of 5 years to work as the Project Manager of an Indo US Spacelab 3 Program on board the Space Shuttle, Challenger.

Paddu has a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Paddu’s other interests and participation includes Community Development and has been part of several Rural upliftment Programs. Well connected with NGO’s, Rotary and Lions community in India, South East Asia and Japan, he enjoys working hands-on with local communities on projects relating to Poverty alleviation, Local Societal issues etc. He is also Founding member of a Skill Training Initiative of Govt of India.

Amit Agarwal leads the technical team of Ansys India, serving customers across India, ASEAN and ANZ.
He works closely with strategic customers across industries and has led many crucial campaigns for Ansys India including ones on customer retention, new and emerging products and the global campaigns on customer success stories and industry best practices. He has also initiated successful campaigns on academic relationships and key account development.
In his earlier role, Amit was instrumental in developing an industry focused sales and technical team at Fluent India serving India and South East Asia. He has worked closely with key academia, private and government organization and multinational design centres across industries in India.
With B. Tech., Aerospace Engineer from I.I.T. Bombay, Amit has been with Ansys for 25 years, having started his career with the former Fluent organization.

Uma Maheshwar is the Chief Consulting Engineer for 700+ member GE Aviation India engineering team at Bangalore. The team is involved in design & development of next generation propulsion systems, support of aircraft engine fleet and development of customized digital and engineering software. Uma has ~ 29years of experience in setting up & leading large organizations in Engineering, Research & Development sector.

Uma joined GE Aviation in 2001 and since then held many leadership positions in Aviation Engineering. He was instrumental in setting up & leading 200+ member world-class Advanced Technology teams at Bangalore for GE Aviation. Uma played key role in design & development of 7 new aircraft engine programs covering full life cycle engineering.

Prior to GE, Uma held positions with Larsen & Toubro (L&T) for 8years. During his association with L&T, Uma lead engineering of 25 mega plants for Oil& Gas, Fertilizer, Power, Petro-chemical, Defense, Nuclear sectors involving design, manufacturing, and commissioning. Uma has set up and lead Advanced Design & CAE team at L&T’s largest manufacturing plant-Hazira works. He was one of the Management Representative to set up Engineering Services Company for L&T.

Uma holds Aerospace MBA from Toulouse Business School- France and M.E in Mechanical Engineering. He has presented papers/publications/keynote sessions in 200+ National & International conferences. Uma was recognized with many awards and is a member of Global ASME Committee, SAE India Aerospace Board, NAFEMS India Board, NASSCOM Engineering, R&D Council, industry bodies and academic council.

R. Muralidharan, FNAE (Fellow - Indian National Academy of Engineering), Life Senior Member IEEE

CTO - Tata Advanced Systems Ltd., Mumbai

Member, Board of Directors, Wireless innovation Forum (SDR Forum V2.0)

Past Chair - IEEE India Council & Bombay Section

Past Vice Director - AP Board, IEEE Communications Society

Past Member - IEEE Communications Society Standards Board

Profile of Speaker:

R. Muralidharan, Fellow Indian National Academy of Engineering and Life Senior Member IEEE, is a Systems Engineering professional for 42 years and is currently CTO at Tata Advanced Systems Ltd., Mumbai, India. At TASL, he is responsible for Technology of mission critical real time solutions for Indian Defense. He is a CETian (1977 Tele) and 1979 batch post graduate in Electrical Engineering (Computer) from IIT Bombay, India. In 1987, the then Indian Prime Minister Mr Rajiv Gandhi had invited him to be a member of the Distinguished Young Scientists team.

Mr. Muralidharan, an IEEE volunteer for 44 years, is a Past chair of IEEE India Council and Bombay Section, He was an IEEE ComSoc Standards board member during 2008 to 2010. He was also an IEEE Computer Society distinguished lecturer for 3 years. Muralidharan was Vice Chair of the Wireless Innovation Forum (SDR Forum V2.0) for 5 years and has been actively involved with the Forum for the last 10 years in chairing technical sessions of Conferences, as member of TPC, presenting papers etc. Currently, he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Forum and he works in the Forum committees for International Tactical Radios, ICSM, etc. Earlier this year, his research paper, co-authored with Vincent Kovaril titled " AI Enabled Design Agent for Software Engineering" was accepted for presentation at American-CSE's The 19th International Conference on Software Engineering Research & Practice (SERP'21: July 26-29, 2021, USA) and publication in SPRINGER NATURE - Research Book Series: Transactions on Computational Science & Computational Intelligence.

Profile of Dr S N Sridhara

Dr. S.N. Sridhara, is an academician with an in-depth knowledge and profound skills set in teaching pedagogy, research, education and administration. His career experience spans around 33 years and, presently he is the Vice Chancellor of Hindustan Institute of Technology & Science (Deemed to be University), Padur, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Dr. Sridhara obtained his B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Bangalore University and Masters and Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru. He started his career as Professor at BMS College of Engineering, Bengaluru, (1987-2005) and during his stint he was involved in academic and co-curricular activities. As the Dean of Engineering at M.S. Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, (2005 – 2010), he contributed to enriching the curriculum, on par with the quality and standards of Coventry University, UK. He also worked as Principal and Director at K.S. School of Engineering and Management, Bengaluru (2010-2018), and during this span of 8 years of service he led the institute as the most sought-after technical education institute in South Bengaluru. He also held the post of Director of School of Engineering and Technology at Amity University, Gurugram, Haryana (2019-2020), during this term he trained the faculty to embrace Outcome Based Education (OBE) practices in design and delivery of curriculum and use of ICT tools in teaching and the effective use of Learning Management System (LMS). His contribution in all the institutions is unparalleled and most noteworthy.
He has been a pioneer in teaching and research with focus on thermal engineering, hybrid electric vehicle, aerospace propulsion, aeromodelling, green energy and experimental and computational fluid dynamics. He has a profound interest in research and has guided several scholars and published more than 150 research articles in peer reviewed journals and international conferences of repute. He has also authored text books for engineering students. He received research grants from DRDO and other research organisations and successfully completed the research and consultancy projects of industries to the tune of Rs. 1.00 crore.

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