

Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional authority responsible for conducting National and State level elections in India. ECI conducts the largest electoral exercise in the world, namely, the General Elections of India where over 900 million voters exercise their franchise. ECI proactively uses technology for conducting elections and ensuring that they are free, fair, transparent and inclusive. With enterprises and governments around the world implementing Blockchain Technology for various applications, ECI wishes to explore if this technology can be leveraged for providing a secure facility for “remote voting” to migrants who have temporarily relocated due to employment, education or other reasons. This webinar has been planned to discuss the possibility of using Blockchain Technology for “remote voting” and to understand its implementation challenges.
Please mail your suggestions, queries and feedback regarding the webinar or Blockchain-enabled remote voting to rvc20@tnega.org
Election Commission of India (ECI) is a constitutional authority responsible
for conducting National and State level elections in India. ECI conducts the
largest electoral exercise in the world, namely, the General Elections of India
where over 900 million voters exercise their franchise
Blockchain technology ensures that transparency, security and auditability are achieved for transaction data without sacrificing privacy of users. This makes it a suitable candidate for implementing secure remote voting facilities for the new Indian.
Shri Sushil Chandra assumed charge as Election Commissioner of India on 15th February 2019. He belongs to the 1980 Batch of the Indian Revenue Service (IRS). Prior to his appointment as Election Commissioner of India, Shri Chandra was posted as the Chairman, Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) which is the Apex Body looking after the work of Policy Administration and implementation of Direct Taxes in India. He had been heading CBDT since November, 2016. Shri Chandra served for 38 years in the Indian Revenue Service before assuming charge as Election Commissioner of India.
Shri Chandra has a rich and varied experience in various areas of taxation, having held sensitive posts in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi. He has worked in the areas of litigation, compliance management and International Taxation. His forte has been in the field of Investigation where he spent considerable time as Director of Investigation and Director General of Investigation, Mumbai and Gujarat, respectively followed by his stint as Member (Investigation), CBDT.
Shri Chandra was at the forefront of the Government’s fight against black money as he spearheaded the Department’s action against tax evasion in the wake of demonetization. He actively strengthened the Government's clampdown on benami transactions by executing the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act, 1988. During his tenure as Chairman, CBDT, he also led from the front while playing an active role in the unearthing of illegal money used during the Assembly Elections. He signed various treaties with other countries for automatic exchange of information between the countries. He also represented India in various International Conferences on International Taxation, Tax Crimes and use of technology in taxation. While at the helm of affairs, he was the person who signed the treaty between India and Switzerland which was critical for automatic exchange of information between the two countries.
Under his stewardship the Department made extensive use of data mining and analytics for carrying out investigations into dubious transactions and tax evasion matters in a non-intrusive manner through ‘Operation Clean Money’. An avid proponent of the use of technology Shri Chandra has also taken the lead in rolling out the e-assessment process where scrutiny assessments are being made without any physical interface between the tax payer and the tax department. With the increased use of technology and data mining, he was instrumental in increasing the number of taxpayers by 24% (F.Y. 2017-18)
Born on 15th May, 1957, he did his B-Tech from Roorkee University and also holds a degree in LLB from DAV College, Dehradun. He has also undergone various trainings at IMF, IIM Bengaluru and Wharton on management. Before joining IRS, he was in the Indian Engineering Service.
Professor K. VijayRaghavan is the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, succeeding Dr. R. Chidambaram on April 3, 2018 and the Chairperson of Prime Minister’s Science, Technology & Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC). He was Secretary, Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India from January 28, 2013 to February 2, 2018.
The Principal Scientific Adviser works with all arms of the Government, with our States, our citizens, national and international agencies. The goal is that the benefits of science, technology and innovation solutions reach the most needy, for the sustainable development of India and for the well being of our planet.
VijayRaghavan is also a Distinguished Professor at the National Centre of Biological Sciences (NCBS), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Bangalore (TIFR) and was the NCBS Director till 2013. He studied Chemical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, was a Senior Research Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. His research is on nerves and muscles and how complex behaviour emerges during animal development.
VijayRaghavan is a Fellow of the Indian Science Academies, the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK) and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2013.
Sandra’s mission is to help those most vulnerable and financially excluded, by harnessing technology for social and economic good. She holds directorships on industry boards and companies including Global Digital Finance (GDF), BitGive Foundation, and SendFriend, as well as angel invests in several emerging tech start-ups across blockchain, robotics, and digital assets. She has cofounded tech startups, one focusing on helping rural farmers to provide price transparency in agriculture sector, GRO Markets, and another, removing business frictions for independent artists and the gig economy, Proof of Art.
Initially, a founding Board member, Sandra was appointed to CEO of the Global Blockchain Business Council (GBBC) March 2018, a Swiss non-profit focusing on education, advocacy & partnership across over 50 countries. She was appointed and serves on the NYS Digital Currency Task Force, the US Department of State Speakers’ Bureau for blockchain / security, the EU Blockchain Observatory & Forum: Use Cases & Transition Scenarios Working Group, the NYC Blockchain Center, the AIFC’s Fintech Advisory Council of Kazakhstan, the Global Blockchain Policy Council (GBPC), founded by bipartisan South Korean Congress, and the World Economic Forum (WEF) Digital Currency Governance Working Group.
From introvert to avid communicator, Sandra keynotes and educates global audiences across industry and government sectors, including Milken Institute, UK House of Lords – Economic Affairs, US Congress – House Financial Services, SXSW, CFA Society, UVA Darden, JPM EMEA Global Markets, Singapore FinTech, Dreamforce, Banco Central do Brasil, Bloomberg, Necker Island Blockchain Summit, US Department of State, US Department of Commerce, select members of Congress, and The Economist.
Previously, she served as a former Treasurer and founding board director of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) and founding member of the Post Trade Distributed Ledger Group (PTDL), founding member of Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger. Sandra was also founder and former Executive Director, Digitization Head, CME Group, where she was responsible for the company’s digital asset and blockchain/distributed ledger technology (DLT) initiatives, including CME CF Bitcoin futures & index pricing products and post trade solutions. Previously, she served as Head of Foreign Exchange (FX) & Metals Research and Product Development.
Ro led the EMEA M&A FX and interest rates derivatives advisory group at Morgan Stanley London and worked at Deutsche Bank London as a FX structurer. Ro holds a M.B.A. in Finance from London Business School, studied Computer Science at Columbia University, School of Continuing Studies and earned a double B.A. Degree in History and Studies in the Environment from Yale University.
Monique Bachner is an Independent Director and Board Advisor, sitting on several Boards and Advisory Boards and running her own law practice. She is co-chair on the INATBA Blockchain Governance and Standardisation Working Groups.
In addition to being the Chief Governance Officer of thinkBLOCKtank, she serves as a Board member of ILA (the Luxembourg Institute of Directors). She is the also the co-founder and on the board of LëtzBlock (the Luxembourg Blockchain and DLT Association). Monique is active in several international working groups related to governance, ethics, digitization, decentralization, and regulations.
Having started her career as a corporate lawyer at Magic Circle firms, she now assists boards with legal, regulatory and governance matters, and the creation of their governance, innovation and digital transformation strategies. Her particular expertise is in the intersection of ethical, governance and regulatory frameworks.
She is a frequent speaker at conferences and training programmes around the world.
Dr. Rajendra Kumar is a senior officer in the Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S.) and is currently working as the Additional Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Government of India. Previously he was the Principal Secretary/Industries Commissioner and Director of Industries and Commerce in the Government of Tamil Nadu. He is an International economic development professional, public policy, ICT for development and e-Governance specialist with over 27 years of experience in the Indian Administrative Service (I.A.S.) in senior positions in public policy and administration at both state and federal levels. His areas of interest include economic development policy and planning, information and communication technologies and development, e-governance, climate change and development, and urban and regional planning and development.His specialties are Economic development policy and planning, information and communication technologies and development, e-governance, urban and regional planning and development, climate change and development, public policy and administration
Prior to his stint as the Principal Secretary/Industries Commissioner and Director of Industries and Commerce, he was the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT). As the CMD of ELCOT, he led the ICT infrastructure, e-governance, ICT procurement and IT industry promotion activities within the state.
Earlier, he has worked as the Joint Secretary (e-Governance) in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. He has led the entire Digital India, e-governance and technology development for Indian languages initiatives at the national level and has been responsible for the overall conceptualization and implementation of the flagship Digital India Programme and the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP) of the Government of India.
He has conceptualized and implemented several major e-governance initiatives in the country. These include the new Digital Locker initiative aimed at providing a private space on a public cloud to all residents for storing and sharing government issued documents, the new Mobile Seva project aimed at bringing all government services on the mobile platform, E-Pramaan for electronic authentication of all users of e-governance services, and localization aimed at promoting the usage of Indian languages in e-governance and mobile based services.
Dr. Kumar has received a number of academic and professional awards at national and international levels during his career. He has received the UN Public Service Award in 2014 for the Mobile Seva project conceptualized and implemented by him. Dr. Kumar holds a Ph.D. in international economic development and regional planning and an MCP from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, an M.Tech in Management and Systems from the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, and a B.Tech in Civil Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur. He has published a book and several articles in international journals.
Prof. Moona heads the Indian Institute of Technology, Bhilai(IIT Bhilai), which is one of the six new IITs established by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.
Prof. Moona is also a Professor of Computer Science at IIT Kanpur and has supervised several postgraduate theses. He along with his students and colleagues, has authored 10 patents, several research papers and books.
He had been instrumental in defining applications such as smart card driving license, vehicle registration, e-passport, electronic toll collection, mobility card, etc. The research area of Prof. Rajat Moona spans over embedded computing, computer security, VLSI design and Operating Systems.
In the past Prof. Moona was the Director of the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in capacity of Director General. Prof. Moona is recipient of several awards and recognitions, including Indo-US Science and Technology Fellowship, Poonam and Prabhu Goel Chair Professorship, VASVIK Award for the year 2010, IESA Techno-visionary Award 2014, fellowship of Maharashtra Academy of Sciences 2015 and National award of Election Commission of India 2016 for the best electoral practices.
Prof. Rajat Moona is an active member of the technical committee of Election Commission of India for EVMs and has been instrumental in defining the EVMs and VVPAT. He has also been instrumental in defining national voter service portal and national electoral search for the voters.
Bhaskar Ramamurthi obtained his B.Tech in Electronics Engineering from IIT Madras in 1980 and his M.S. and Ph.D degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1982 and 1985 respectively. He was awarded the University of California Regents Fellowship during his doctoral studies. After obtaining his doctorate, he worked at AT&T Bell Labs for two years before joining the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Madras in 1986, where he is now the director. He served as the Dean of Planning at IIT Madras before taking over the role of director in September 2011.
His research interests are on topics in modulation and coding for mobile communications, wireless communication networks and design and implementation of wireless local loop systems. He is one of the founding members of the Telecommunications and Computer Networking Group (TeNeT) group at IIT Madras. He is the principal architect of corDECT wireless local loop system and Broadband corDECT Wireless DSL System, widely deployed in India and 15 countries. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering since 2000. He was elected as a Fellow of IEEE, effective from January 2015
Mr Poola has close to 30 years of diverse experience in the IT technologies, e-platforms, and computer science technology markets. Mr Poola has also extensive expertise in board level integration, large infrastructure development and risk management. He is experienced in outsourced resource management and exercised it throughout the years in involvement in various innovation and technology companies located both in Europe and United States (he has lived and worked in Silicon Valley, US from 1993 till 2007).
Gustav Poola holds a Master of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from Tallinn University of Technology (1984) and his PhD program is pending. He has received SCRUM Master Certificate from SCRUM Alliance in Norway, Data Protection Officer (DPO) from Maastricht University in Belgium, and Money Laundering Risk in Private Banking Certificate from UK based International Compliance Association.
Mr Poola belongs to Society of System Engineers in Estonia. He is a co-author of several patents and thematic scientific research papers published internationally.
Ramesh Ramadoss is the Technical Director at the InterWork Alliance. He isa co-chair of the IEEE Blockchain Initiative.He leads the IEEE Blockchain Standards Committee. He also leads the IEEE Blockchain Technical Community and was instrumental in launching 32 IEEE Blockchain Groups all over the world. Currently, he serves as a Regional Advisor for the IEEE Standards Association.
He received his Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree from Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, Tamilnadu, India in 1998, and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, USA in 2003.
Between 2003 and 2007, he was employed as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Auburn University, Alabama, USA. In 2008, he moved to Silicon Valley and has over a decade of industrial experience in technology companies.
He has conducted projects for DARPA, NASA, US Army, US Air Force, Sandia National Labs, and Motorola Labs. He is the author or co-author of 1 book, 3 book chapters and 55 research papers (Google Scholar Citations: 895). He has delivered talks at over 70 international conferences in 40 countries.
He has been a member of IEEE since 1999. He was elevated to the grade of IEEE Senior Member in 2013. In 2017, he served as the chair of the IEEE Santa Clara Valley Section, which is the world's largest IEEE Section with 12,000 members located in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Dr. C. Mohan is an Honorary Advisor to the Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency (TNeGA) in India. He retired in June 2020 from being an IBM Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center in Silicon Valley. He was an IBM
researcher for 38.5 years in the database, blockchain and related areas, impacting numerous IBM and
non-IBM products, the research and academic communities, and standards, especially with his invention
of the well-known ARIES family of database locking and recovery algorithms, and the Presumed Abort
distributed commit protocol. This IBM (1997), ACM (2002) and IEEE (2002) Fellow has also served as the
IBM India Chief Scientist (2006-2009). In addition to receiving the ACM SIGMOD Edgar F. Codd
Innovations Award (1996), the VLDB 10 Year Best Paper Award (1999) and numerous IBM awards,
Mohan was elected to the US and Indian National Academies of Engineering (2009) and named an IBM
Master Inventor (1997). This Distinguished Alumnus of IIT Madras (1977) received his PhD at the
University of Texas at Austin (1981). He is an inventor of 50 patents. During the last many years, he
focused on Blockchain, Big Data and HTAP technologies ( http://bit.ly/CMbcDB , http://bit.ly/CMgMDS ).
Since 2017, he has been an evangelist of permissioned blockchains and the myth buster of
permissionless blockchains. In late 2019, he became an Honorary Advisor to TNeGA of Chennai for its
blockchain and other projects. Since 2016, Mohan has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor of China’s
prestigious Tsinghua University. He has served on the advisory board of IEEE Spectrum, and on
numerous conference and journal boards. Mohan is a frequent speaker in North America, Europe and
Asia. He has given talks in 43 countries. He is very active on social media and has a huge network of
followers. More information can be found in the Wikipedia page at http://bit.ly/CMwIkP and resume at
http://bit.ly/CMoRes
Carlos Kuchkovsky is passionate about how exponential technologies are redefining society, business, and economics by allowing reliable interaction models. He began programming mobile multiplayer games, where he learned the importance of design and the user experience, incentive models and the complexity of creating distributed systems.
He transitioned from a consultant-based practice to BBVA, where he has had the privilege of living the journey of transformation, as BBVA moves from a traditional financial institution to a global digital bank. He continues to be enthusiastic about the journey to digital, with the purpose of generating prosperity in society. When travel permits, he also shares experiences, ideas and opinions in various business schools and universities as a visiting professor.
He is currently obsessed with the convergence of society, economics and technology and how the latter is setting the pace. He has collaborated in the creation of several startups around Fintech, IoT, and new governance models that support how advances in technology and help s people make smarter decisions.
Marta serves as the Director of Ecosystem at Hyperledger. Marta studied in Warsaw and Berlin, obtaining a double Masters and a PhD in Computer Science. Her professional career started with Security and Privacy in the Telekom space. In 2015 she drunk the Kool Aid and joined Blockckstream, one of the more significant Bitcoin companies. As part of her role in Hyperledger Marta evangelizes technology and Open Source at conferences around the world and helps enterprises with applying permissioned Blockchains to their use-cases. Marta is passionate about how Blockchain can help in non traditional spaces, such as identity, last mile aid and education delivery and sustainability. Leading the public speaking and outreach at Hyperledger, she has given numerous interviews, both written and in visual media. Marta also formed the W3C Blockchain community Group and Trustee and a Chair of the Sovrin Technical Governing Board, and part of the Cambridge Blockchain Society Committee.
Ismael Arribas was born in Valladolid, Kingdom of Spain in 19th May 1975. He studied at Nuestra Señora de Lourdes. His entrepreneurial soul led him to combine his studies in his chosen profession, “Law as compliance”, and his passion for business. After his studies at the University of Valladolid and University Santo Domingo de Soto, he worked with Citigroup as Regional Director for bank cards within the corporate banking vertical of Citibank Spain. It was during this time that the foundation of Kunfud® was laid.
In 2006, Kunfud® was founded, it was patented and trademarked as a Security Mercantile Agency that manages Corporate Security Control of companies. The trademark legally registers all modes of corporate administration as well as providing security protection for companies´ commercial domestic and international activities.In 2010 Kunfud® was legally certified until 2021.
Mr Arribas is an accredited expert for “Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies” at different Standardization Bodies like ISO, CEN-CENENLEC and ITU-T.
His expertise lies within the domain of independent International Compliance.
In 2017 He was appointed as President for the Spanish Chapter within the Government Blockchain Association (https://www.gbaglobal.org). He is also the Chairman of the Standard Committee at Alastria (alastria.io) and a Founding member of INATBA. He is also a member of the Advisory Board at Madrid Startup Community Community Forum
He is also the creator of Codex Kunfud® , the security mercantile concept, its certification and implementation. Codex Kunfud is a non-published code for security mercantile application found within the Good Governance of the company´s Boards of Directors.
As a Global entrepreneur he travels to absorb the richness of the different cultures and being proactive for the better planet.
Born on 23.11.1959, Prof V.N. Shukla has about 38 years of Experience in Electronic & IT research, Project Planning and software Development. Shukla has performed various assignments in NLP Digital Library and large database Management System. His work in machine translation system in well known. He was member secretary of National Committee on Language Technology chaired by Minister Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.
Presently, he is Senior Consultant to Election Commission of India after superannuating as Director(IT). During his tenure he has implemented IT solutions in Electoral Roll Management, Knowledge Management, NVSP, ERO Net, ETPBS etc. He has been able to streamline database of 918 million voters of India and provided e- services with a powerful search engine. He was also a member of National Committee on e-voting and alternative voting for Non Residential Electors, Military professionals and Govt officials deputed outside India to enable them to vote through internet .He was also managing EVM .He was responsible for managing multilingual dynamic portal for dissemination of trends and results on counting day, which observed 16 billion hits. He ideated ERONet project and got it implemented for Electoral Roll Officers across the country on National Data base of Electoral Roll. HE was actively involved in implementing National Voter Service Portal (NVSP) for single window Electoral Services to citizens of India.
He is life member of India Society of Technical Education, Fellow member of IETE, Member CSI and Member IEEE.
Abhishek Singh is an officer of the 1995 batch of IAS with diverse experience of administration, managing law and order, implementing development programs, and of policy formulation at Central Government with regard to use of Technology for improving Governance.
He is presently posted as CEO MyGov with additional charge of CEO NeGD.
He served as Secretary, Agricultural Scientist Recruitment Board, Government of India from June 2019 to Sep 2019.
From 2017 to 2019 he was with Government of Nagaland as Principal Secretary to Chief Minister with additional charges of Principal Secretary Urban Development and Principal Secretary Personnel & Administrative Reforms. He was also Home Commissioner Nagaland in 2018.
From 2014 to 2017, he was the Executive Director in Food Corporation of India. He coordinated implementation of initiatives relating to Information Technology, Engineering and Storage. He also held additional charge of Executive Director (North Zone) & CVO FCI.
He did my Masters in Public Administration from Harvard Kennedy School of Government as a Mason fellow in May 2013. He did his B Tech and M.Tech from IIT Kanpur.
He has worked in Nagaland (1995-2001 & 2006-2009) and Uttar Pradesh (2001-05) and has been responsible for implementing development schemes at grass root level, ensuring law and order as also for collecting revenues for the State. His field experience ranges from constructing roads and irrigation canals, building schools and hospitals to managing droughts, floods and communal riots.
He has also worked in close coordination with international and multilateral agencies like DFID, UNICEF and WHO for Child’s Environment Project in Budaun, (2001-02) and Pulse Polio Eradication Programme in Uttar Pradesh (2001-05). He has conducted Elections to Indian Parliament, State Assembly as also Local bodies which are amongst the most complex.
He has the experience of working with Ministers, Chief Minister and Governor of the State for policy formulation and implementation. He has implemented Developmental and Welfare programmes at District level with special emphasis on Poverty Alleviation Programmes and delivery of Educational and Health services.
Mr Santosh K Misra is the Commissioner e-Governance, Govt of Tamil Nadu and the CEO of Tamil Nadu e-Governance Agency(TNeGA). He completed his BTech from IIT Kanpur in 1993. He did his Masters in Engineering from the University of Minnesota and joined Bell Labs in 1995. While working with Bell Labs he submitted three patents in his name.
Under his guidance the TNeGA team is using emerging technologies such as Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Internet Of Things and Drones to revolutionalize governance and provide more efficient and secure services to the 80 million residents of Tamil Nadu, India. The Tamil Nadu State Family Database, the Tamil Nadu Statewide Blockchain Backbone and Predictive Services Delivery Platform are few notable projects that are being implemented under him. TNeGA also operates and maintains the e-Sevai platform and Common Service Centers in Tamil Nadu that cater to the residents of Tamil Nadu and provide more than 200 government department services online.
Additionally he is the Vice-Chairman of PMG, Fintech Center of Excellence, Chennai which was established as a joint venture between Govt of India and Govt of TN. He sits on the Board of Governors of the ICT Academy of Tamil Nadu, the Board of Directors of the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, the Board of Directors of the TAC-TV Corporation of Tamil Nadu and he is the Monitoring Officer of Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu.
Mr RS Gopalan is currently working as the Deputy Director General (DDG), Regional Office (Bengaluru) of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). The UIDAI issues and manages Aadhaar, the world’s largest biometric database. So far 1.28 billion people have been issued unique identification numbers, called Aadhaar numbers.
His office looks after the interests of about 160 million people in the three southernmost States of india, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and two Union Territories, Puduchery and Lakshadweep. His responsibilities include supervising more than 7,000 centers in these States, overseeing software updates, resolving complicated grievances and interfacing with the User Agencies and State Governments.
Previous to his stint with UIDAI, he was the Director, Agriculture and Food Production, Govt. of Odisha. In this capacity he designed Biju Krushak Kalyan Yojana (BKKY), a mass health insurance scheme for the farmer families of Odisha; The scheme was built from scratch, including software and smartcard specifications in five months, and biometric smart cards for 5.2 million families (25 million individuals) were issued in four months. (Dec 2013 – Mar 14). On average the government spent $ 15 m a year and the claims were more than 80%.
Also, during his tenure as the Director, Agriculture and Food Production, Govt. of Odisha, he and his team collected more than 800 indigenous rice varieties, cultivated, classified and registered them following a rigorous scientific process, with the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPV&FRA) of India. He also collaborated with the Central Rice Research Institute for this task, and mapped the characteristic genes of these varieties and built a gene bank to store these varieties for the next 30 years; He was awarded by the PPV&FR Authority for this extraordinarily challenging task. Due to his actions, the farmers of Odisha own the legal rights for one of the world’s largest collection of indigenous rice seeds.
Rajesh is a part of leadership council at TechMahindra and have dual responsibility of 1. Business head of Cybersecurity for Asia Pacific, Japan and India tasked with growing our cybersecurity business in these emerging markets by evangelising cutting edge solutions to clients across various industry verticals to protect their businesses and mission critical processes from ever changing and increasing attacks and threat landscape and 2. Global practice leader of Blockchain where I am responsible for bringing in required thought leadership, solutions & architect to advocate blockchain led business transformation to clients.
Under his leadership, a team of over 25 Blockchain architects and coders, built the world’s largest Blockchain network empowering 350 Mn+ subscribers to safeguard them from Unsolicited Commercial Calls and Texts. Lattice80 has recently listed Rajesh as one of the top 100 Blockchain Influencers in the world in recognition of his contributions over the last 5 years. In addition to Blockchain, Rajesh also heads business for ESRM in APAC and India.
He has 21+ years of experience in Telecom, Payments & BPM domains. He has been involved with two start-ups - one at Tata’s and another at Quattro, played a pivotal role in implementing several Organic and Inorganic initiatives resulting in quick growth at these companies.
At Quatrro, Rajesh led Marketing, Strategy, New Product Development, M&A initiatives pertaining to Payments Processing, Fraud & Risk Management, Finance & Accounts, Retail Technical Support, Mortgage, and Mid-Market Services. He was also responsible for incubating a Payments company that became a globally accredited Third Party Processor of Visa, MasterCard and nationally accredited 3rd Party Processor of NPCI.
He was instrumental in forming Blockchain Special Interest Group (SIG) under the aegis of Nasscom and currently is the Chair. He is a member of Blockchain Steering Committee at IIM Ahmedabad and World Economic Forum Expert Network.
Rajesh is an alumnus of Columbia Business School and School of Business & Accounting at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning. He is also the Co-Chair of Columbia Business School Alumni Club in India. He is a visiting faculty at School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL) India and Manhattan College of Business, New York, USA.
Driven by his life motto “Help Ever, Hurt Never”, Rajesh has mentored several Entrepreneurs through Fintech Startupbootcamp, NASSCOM 10K Start up Program and Joyful Frog Digital Incubator (JFDI Singapore), Corporate Executives through Everwise, USA and MBA Students at SOIL over the years.
He is an avid cyclist, holds the title of Randonneur from Paris for cycling 208+ kms in under 10 hours.
Dr. Pandurang Kamat is CTO - Research and Innovation at Persistent Systems. He helps Persistent and its customers unlock business value through technology and innovation. Prior to Persistent, he was the director of analytics at IAC Search and Media and has also worked at Bell Labs and HP Labs, building secure communications and digital media products. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Rutgers University, New Jersey.
While a practicing Advocate, Supreme Court of India, Dr. Pavan Duggal has made an immense
impact with an international reputation as an Expert and Authority on Cyber Law, Cyber Security
Law, Artificial Intelligence Law & E-commerce law.
Dr. Duggal has been acknowledged as one of the top 4 Cyber Lawyers around the world.
WDD [World Domain Day] recognizes him as one of the top 10 Cyber Lawyers around the world.
Dr. Pavan Duggal, is the Founder & Chairman of International Commission on Cyber Security
Law. He is also the President of Cyberlaws.Net and has been working in the pioneering area of
Cyber Law, Cyber Security Law & Mobile Law.
Pavan is also heading the Artificial Intelligence Law Hub and Blockchain Law Epicentre. He is
the Founder-cum-Honorary Chancellor of Cyberlaw University.
His empanelment as a consultant to UNCTAD and UNESCAP on Cyber Law and Cyber Crime
respectively, membership of the AFACT Legal Working Group of the UN / CEFAT, consulting
as an expert with the Council Of Europe on Cyber Crime, inclusion in the Board of Experts of
European Commission’s Dr. E-commerce and his work as an expert authority on a Cyber Law
primer for E-ASEAN Task Force and as a reviewer for Asian Development Bank speaks volumes
of his worldwide acceptance as an authority. Pavan is the President of Cyberlaw Asia, Asia’s
pioneering organization committed to the passing of dynamic cyber laws in the Asian continent.
Dr Duggal is also a member of the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center Panel of Neutrals.
Dr. Pavan Duggal, in association with International Telecommunications Union, conducted two
Training cum Sensitization Programmes for the elected Judges and Officers of the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, Netherlands on 23rd May, 2019.
As an internationally renowned Cyber law and Cyber security subject expert, at the world stage
during the High-Level Policy Statement delivered by him at the World Summit on Information
Society (WSIS) organized by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO,
UNCTAD & UNDP in Geneva, Switzerland from 25th May – 29th May, 2015. Pavan Duggal has
recommended the need for coming up with an International Convention on Cyberlaw &Cyber
Security.
As a thought leader, Dr. Duggal has suggested that India requires a new legislation that is wholly
dedicated to cyber security.
Pavan, as an international expert and authority, conducts 37 different online courses at Cyberlaw
University, which have been subscribed by more than 19,700 students from 168 countries,
speaking 46 national langauges with excellent ratings.
Pavan is a member of the Board of Globethics.net, global network of persons and institutions
interested in various fields of applied ethics.
Ms. N. S. Nappinai, Supreme Court Advocate and founder of Cyber Saathi™, is a senior and renowned lawyer with about 29 years of experience, specializing in Constitutional, Criminal, IPR and cyberlaws. Ms. Nappinai is Advisor – Maharashtra Cyber Police. She represented the Government of Kerala in a seminal litigation on data protection.
She is Amicus Curiae before Supreme Court in Prajwala vs. Union of India to formulate methodologies to remove child sexual abuse material and violent videos of offences against women from online platforms.
Ms. Nappinai is part of Government Committees dealing with various policy issues on cyberlaws. Ms. Nappinai has presented before the Lok Sabha Parliamentary Committee on Women Empowerment, on Cyber Safety online (2020); She has presented before the National Cyber Security Center, part of the Prime Minister’s Office on India’s proposed National Cyber Security Policy 2020 – 2025; on Government Committees, as Expert, on (i). Cryptocurrencies & Blockchain; (ii). Amendments to Information Technology Act, 2000 (“IT Act”); & (iii). Electronic Evidence. She contributed extensively to the drafting of India’s Commercial Courts Act, 2015. Nappinai was an Expert Member, Tamil Nadu “State Child Policy Committee” – 2015 – 2016, for formulating the cyber security aspects under the State Child Policy.
An alumna of Stanford CDDRL, Chevening UK and IVLP USA, Nappinai trains judges, police, Armed forces and intelligence agencies at National and State Academies. She is a sought-after speaker at National and International Conferences. She has given an inspirational Tedx talk on “Being Fearless & Showing Up”. Nappinai is a prolific writer, who oft contributes on leading publications and has authored the seminal book on cyberlaws titled “Technology Laws Decoded”. Her books on Cyber Safety and Emerging Technologies is forthcoming in 2020.
Tanvi Ratna is an advisor with premium, global and interdisciplinary experience in blockchain and policymaking. She has first-hand expertise in the blockchain regulatory environments of the world’s leading blockchain hubs. Previously, she was Blockchain lead at EY where she has handled government and enterprise projects, and for her work in blockchain policy was awarded a prestigious fellowship at the New America Foundation, Washington D.C. She has had a long career of policy work for leading global decision-makers, the US Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill, and several ministries and state governments, handling policy design, execution and liaison in live complex policy environments.
Her analyses have been featured in leading media houses such as Al Jazeera, The Diplomat, CoinTelegraph, Economic Times, Mint and others. She holds a Bachelors in engineering from Georgia Tech and a Masters in Public Policy from Georgetown University and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.
Professor Trilochan Sastry (Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MBA IIM Ahmedabad, B.Tech. IIT Delhi)
Chairman and founder of Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) that does Citizen Election Watches all over the country since December 2002 with over 1200 NGOs, has won several public interest litigations (PIL) in the Supreme Court, and important RTI appeals on Political Parties. ADR has been conferred several National Awards including from CNN-IBN, NDTV, TOI, President of India.
Dean, Indian Institute of Management 2008-2011 and currently and Professor. Earlier Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, 1991 to February 2003.
Founder Secretary and CEO of Centre for Collective Development (CCD) which promotes cooperatives in dry land areas for small and marginal farmers since 2004.
Founder of Farmveda, a value added social venture giving all profits to farmers.
Visiting Scholar, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Spring 1995, Visiting Professor, International University of Japan, Niigata, Japan, Spring 1996, Visiting Professor, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, March 2000 to December 2000, Visiting Scholar, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Jan-June 2001, Professor, Indian School of Business and Associate Dean (Research), July 2001 to January2002.
Member of the Board, IIM Bangalore 2006 2011. Awards: “Best Young Teacher” award for 1999 from the Association of Indian Management Schools (AIMS), “Outstanding Contribution to National Development” Award from IIT Delhi in 2005, Distinguished Alumnus Award, IIT Delhi, 2012, “Young Global Leader”, 2008 by the World Economic Forum. Member of the Bretton Woods Committee. Citizen Extraoridinaire of the Year Award from Bangalore Rotary Club. Has been a consultant to various Indian and International Agencies and Corporations. Member Governing Council for Innovation & Startups Committee - ASSOCHAM Karnataka State Council
Jitan Chandanani is IBM's Blockchain Leader for India and South Asia. In his role, he is responsible for helping clients enable the capability and strengths of blockchain in their current environment to drive business growth and future opportunities. Jitan is also involved with assisting industry groups within banking, insurance and telecom to form alliances and consortiums for Blockchain enabled use cases. Prior to IBM, Jitan was a Managing Director with KPMG LLP in New York, where he was responsible for building KPMG's Blockchain offerings and alliances with industry players. At KPMG, Jitan worked with top-tier clients such as Goldman Sachs, the Santander Group, Deutsche Bank AG, Citigroup (Smith Barney), HSBC, Bank of New York among others to realign business strategy and trading practices in response to customer demand and market environment changes.
Surya Prakash B S, is Fellow and Programme Director, since 2015 at DAKSH, a non-profit working on judicial reforms and governance. A chartered accountant and law graduate, he has handled tax and finance functions at large global IT MNCs.
Dr. Sanjay Bahl is currently the Director General at the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India.
He has over three and a half decades of experience in the ICT industry. His background includes broad and deep skills and knowledge encompassing unique experiences in technology, business, global trade, and policy in the private and public sectors along with academic, public policy and legal areas.
As resource person for UN-APCICT, Dr. Bahl has delivered the security and privacy training module of the Academy of ICT Essentials for government leaders.
He was the Global Chief Security Officer (CSO) for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and the CSO for Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt Ltd. He was the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for Hughes Tele.com (India) Ltd on secondment from TCS. While at PT Infotimur Sistimatama, Jakarta, and CMC Ltd, New Delhi, he developed, executed and managed large complex software and turnkey projects.
He has been a member of various Security committees at National and International level.
Jay is Co-Founder & CTO of Curl Analytics and has over 17+ years of experience in Banking and Financial Services Industry. In his previous stints, he has worked for global banking majors such Deutsche Bank, RBS, UBS, Citizens Bank & Société Générale.
Curl Analytics, works on Machine Learning, Blockchain & Drones Delivery.
Jay lead the “Easy Trading Connect” Blockchain initiative, that disrupted a multi trillion dollar industry using a small team of technologists adopting Blockchain. ”Easy Trading Connect” initiative led to the creation of two big Blockchain consortiums, VAKT & KOMGO. These start-ups are more than $200 M in valuation. He was closely associated with We. Trade consortium and a KYC initiative at Société Générale. He is closely engaged with various Blockchain consortiums.
His experience in understanding Blockchain & DLT and Enterprise IT puts him in good stead, as he understand the challenges of implementing them in Enterprises.
Jay has addressed various international forums on Blockchain & Emerging Technologies in UK, Switzerland, France, Singapore & India.
Jay is a part of World Economic Forum’s Blockchain Portfolio and is a core contributor to the WEF Blockchain Deployment Guide.
He is a part of LITD/29 of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) on Blockchain & Distributed Ledgers. He also contributes to TC 307 (ISO) on Blockchain.
Jay has addressed IIMs, IITs and host of other universities and various meetup events on Emerging Technologies. He has conducted many Webinars on Blockchain
He is passionate about mentoring students and startups who work on emerging technologies.
Gokul Alex is a Digital Transformation and Innovation Management expert with over 20 years of experience in designing world-class enterprise architectures for Government & Public Sector, Banking, Financial Services, Retail, Telecom, Healthcare, Energy & Utility, Electronics Industry sectors and building Digital Innovation Labs for Fortune 500 MNCs such as PwC, EY, IBM, UST Global, etc. He is an advisor to startups, think tanks, non-profits, and entrepreneurs across the globe in emerging technologies and exponential business models.
He is the founder of EPIC Knowledge Society, one of the largest emerging technology and exponential entrepreneurship-focused non-profit organization with roots in India and serving thousands of engineers and educators across the world. He has co-founded Data Privacy and Digital Identity focused platform BeyondIdentity. He is currently building privacy-preserving protocols and platforms as the CTO of BeyondIdentity. He has joined Spathion Labs as the Chief Innovation Officer focusing on FinTech and RegTech through the conference of cryptography, consensus algorithms, data science, and distributed ledgers. He is also a thought leader on Digital Technologies in the pioneering AI, Analytics and Automation Think Tank - 3AI. He is also guiding blockchain entrepreneurs across the world through the international venture capital platform Blockchain Founders Fund.
He is recognized as a global thought leader in FinTech, HealthTech, EduTech, RegTech, and AI, Analytics, Big Data, Blockchain, Cloud, Cybersecurity, Data Science, Design Thinking, IoT, Quantum Computing, Post Quantum Cryptography, etc. He has successfully implemented enterprise portals and content management systems for Citibank across 64 countries across the US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. His experience includes a career in IBM, PwC, EY, Sapient, Polaris, UST Global, etc.
He has published four patents and numerous articles across international magazines and portals. He is an IBM Certified IT Architect and IBM Redbooks Author. He has also authored a Book on Blockchain Security for BPB Publications. He has advised academic institutions such as the University of Kerala, University of Madras, Amity University, Vellore Institute of Technology, Jain University, etc. He has worked with MIT Media Lab on Open Access Algorithms and Quantum Computing.
He has introduced pioneering blockchain protocols such as Algorand, Aeternity, Elixxir, Horizen, Hashgraph, Tezos, ZCash, etc. in India. He is currently developing a new Public Blockchain Protocol for Data Integrity, Privacy, and Security known as Fusion Ledger using cutting edge cryptography and consensus algorithms. He has developed Blockchain-based Public Health Platforms for Blood Banks and COVID Care using Cryptographic Contact Tracing. He enjoys working across AI platforms such as IBM Watson, Tensorflow, PyTorch, SingularityNET, OpenCog and, Blockchain Platforms such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, IPFS, Zero-Knowledge Proofs, etc. and Quantum Computing Platforms such as IBM QIS, Google Cirq, Microsoft Q#, Rigetti QVM, Xanadu AI, etc. He is a member of international forums such as Cloud Security Alliance, Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, Wikimedia Foundation, and Hyperledger Foundation.
He is a B.Tech from the University of Kerala. He loves the creative convergence of Programming, Physics, Poetry, Psychology, and Philosophy.
Areas of Expertise :
Digital Transformation, Distributed Ledger Technology, Deep Learning, Data Science, Design Thinking, Innovation Labs, Innovation Consulting, Innovation Management, Enterprise Architecture, Enterprise Content Management, Quantum Computing, Post Quantum Cryptography, Data Privacy, Data Security.
Dr. Vinayaka Pandit leads Blockchain and Supply Chain Research at IBM India Research Labs. He also leads the IBM Research division strategy for Blockchain and Supply Chain solutions. He directs a comprehensive research agenda that spans blockchain platforms, interoperability, applications of blockchain to supply chain solutions, and privacy preserving collaborations on industry networks. Vinayaka has been with IBM Research since 1999 and has previously led research groups developing and applying techniques from algorithms, optimization, and machine learning to challenging real world problems in traditional industries like Oil & Gas, Metals & Mining. Vinayaka started his career as a researcher working in approximation algorithms. His research work resulted in state of the art results in facility locations, network design, and scheduling. He has applied techniques from algorithms and randomization to classic problems in data mining and machine learning problems. The work by his group has resulted in transformative advanced analytics solutions in industries like Oil & Gas, Metals and Mining