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Guest Lectures

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                                                                       L Sivasankaran
 

Sivasankaran L- He has over 30 years’ experience in the I.T industry having worked in senior management positions at NVIDIA, Oracle, Sun Micro Systems and Silicon Graphics. He is passionate about transforming young minds and constantly engages with academia to help young students realize their power and purpose in life.  He is considered an exemplary leader who is able to transform vision into action. Do join us in welcoming him to Pragyan where he will speak on the topic of ‘standing out in the crowd with high quality job ready talent’.

Time: 4:30 pm, March 9 at eee auditorium

 

Mr.Dhananjayan Govind
 
 
 Mr.Dhananjayan Govind is the CEO of Home Entertainment Business and is involved in producing and marketing films in South Indian languages. He has done his MBA from Sydenham Institute of Management,SIMSREE,University of Mumbai. He is currently involved in managing the motion pictures business of UTV .He is one of the two founding members of Moser Baer entertainment which is the India’s largest home entertainment brand and is continuously innovating and re-defining the home entertainment market. Dhananjayan has immense experience in the paint and telecom industries, he has managed one of the large mobile operations of Airtel in Karnataka.
 
 He will be speaking to participants at Pragyan’14 about his experience in marketing and management and the growing sectors in the current industry. Get ready to charge your minds by learning first-hand about an exceptional business career at an interactive session with entrepreneur and marketing expert, G Dhananjayan.
 
Time: 2:30 pm, 9th March (Sunday)
 
Anirudh Sharma and Pragun Goyal
 
 
“We don’t care about what you did yesterday—we care about what you’re going to do tomorrow.”
 
The above maxim proves to be good for the innovators Anirudh Sharma and Pragun Goyal. Credited with the conception of Le Chal and Sohum, these young innovators are ‘serving the common mass’ in its truest sense.
 
Anirudh is a Masters student and research assistant at the Fluid Interfaces Group. His interests are new media, projected interfaces, mixed reality, wearable computing, assistive technologies and open-source.In 2011 Anirudh started the LeChal project- haptic shoes for the blind mobility which won him the MIT Tech Review TR35 ‘Innovator of the Year’ award. The invention spun into a startup, manufacturing the low-cost shoes for the visually impaired in India.
Pragun Goyal is a Masters student at the Responsive Environments research group at the MIT Media Lab. A Device to detect early hearing loss can save the child from speech disorder, impaired communication skilss and possibly mental illness and unemployment. Sohum is a non-invasive safe device based on advanced brainstem response acquisition technology in an appropriate way for the new born.
 
Le Chal, an unobtrusive navigation aid for the visually impaired and Sohum, a non-invasive safe device have the potential to touch and improve the quality of lives throughout the world.
 
Pragyan Guest Lectures presents the young minds behind this unique technological success story.
 
Timing - Sunday 9:30 am. Video Conference
 
 
V Ramgopal Rao
 
 
 Biosensors that can detect a cardiac arrest before it takes place, electronic sniffers that can detect traces of explosives like RDX, a locket that can slip into your pocket to monitor your ECG, cheap solar cells made of organic polymers- these are some of the amazing technologies that are being developed on home soil, at the Centre for Excellence in Nanoelectronics (CEN), IIT-Bombay. 
 
 Prof Ramgopalrao is a Principle Investigator at the CEN, which is a multi-disciplinary research project involving the departments of Chemistry, Physics, and Electrical Engineering of IIT, Bombay and IISc, Banglore. His research on nano-scale electronic and mechanical devices has been recognized the world over. 
 
 To quote Pradeep Khosla (renowned computer scientist and chancellor of UC, San Diego)- “His work has insightfully combined chemistry and mechanics with nanoelectronics, and we believe his work is the way of the future and will make a tremendous impact.” 
 
 Prof Rao is the Institute Chair Professor of Electrical Engineerinpg at IIT-B and is part of research collaborations with the Georgia Institute of Technology, USA, Applied Materials Corporation, NTU-Singapore, Cambridge University, UK, IBM, Intel and other international organizations of repute. He is 
also the recipient of The Infosys Prize 2013 for Engineering and Computer Science. 
 
 If you wish to learn more about the promising fields of nano- electronics and nanomaterials, you won’t get many better opportunities. Be there at EEE Audi on 7th
 
Time: 9:30 am,
7th March (Friday)
 
 
 
T V Narendran
 
 
"Threat and opportunity are two sides of the same coin"
 
 The above maxim proved to be good for TV Narendran, Managing Director, TATA Steel and the lesson this business executive has learnt is to stick on even when the situation gets sticky. This Pragyan be there as he delves into more of such parables, experiences and the philosophy these have helped refine, which will eventually reveal the nuances of how future leaders are created. Narendran is a Tata loyalist, who has spent 25 years in the company. Yet, he is young enough to spur new ideas to take the 106-year-old company forward. At 48, he is the youngest to take over the reins of TATA Steel in more than 100 years of the company's history. Known for his charisma and grit, Narendran was the unanimous choice to head the company. In spite of taking up the position at a time of economic uncertainty, Narendran has ensured stability in the company with his acumen and corporate wisdom. A mechanical engineering graduate from REC, Trichy, he joined Tata Steel in 1988 after completing his MBA from IIM, Calcutta. 
 
 This acclaimed alumnus of NIT Trichy returns to his alma mater for Pragyan 2014. Dont miss an opportunity to hear him speak, as he shares with us his experiences of heading one of the world's largest companies.
 
Time: 5:00 pm, 6th March (Thursday)
 
Valerie Wagoner
 
 
 Her resume is varnished with silicon valley sheen, twice graduated from Stanford University, she has worked for social networking company Ning as well as eBay. But her biggest success story came from the unlikeliest of places, Banglore and in the unlikeliest of sectors, ‘missed call marketing’. ZipDial Mobile Solutions Pvt. Ltd., a company that was born from a brainstorming session between Wagoner and her co-founder, today boasts of having the likes United Brewries, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, P&G and both the BJP as well as UPA amongst it’s clients. Wagoner has already led ZipDial to an annual revenue of over a million dollars and now has her sight set on transforming ZipDial into an Indian MNC by setting up a new base in Singapore for South East Asian operations. Pragyan Guest lectures presents the woman behind this unique entrepreneurial success story.
 
Time: 3:30 pm on 8th March (Saturday)
 
Dr. Marcus du Sautoy (OBE)
 
 
 Simple ideas such as playing with numbers can create magic, far beyond the grasp of many. The results are capable of changing the way view look at the world. Unfortunately, a students's relationship with mathematics has been either love or hate, with many missing out on the beauty and power that these trivial elements could hold. Prof. Marcus du Sautoy, will certainly help change that.
 
 Dr. Marcus du Sautoy (OBE), is a Professor of Mathematics at the Univ. of Oxford. He is known for being a popularizer of Science to increase the appeal of mathematics to the masses. His research interests include understanding the world of symmetry using zeta functions, a classical tool from number theory.
 
 Prof. du Sautoy is a well known figure, especially in the UK having presented & appeared in various documentaries and TV shows on BBC, most notably hosting the show "Mind Games" in 2004-05. He has also written a few popular mathematics books such as "Finding Moonshine" and most notably "The Music Of The Primes". He also writes regularly for the The Guardian & The Times.
 
Come to Pragyan 2014 for an opportunity to get mesmerized by the world of numbers, whether you've ever loved them or not!
 
Time: 2:30 pm, 7th March (Friday)
 
Jamie Hyneman
 
 
We live today in a digital world infested by urban myths and stories. In this chaos of lies and half-baked truths one man separated fact from fiction by rigors of the scientific method. Meet Jamie Hyneman- Myth Buster extraordinary! But he has also a resume that extends far beyond that. 
  • The inventor - He designed and built Blendo, a combat robot so strong that it would throw pieces of its opponents over the arena walls during robot wars competitions. 
  • The chef - He created his own dish, called ‘the 444’, called so because it has 4 fruits, 4 vegetables and 4 grains and is claimed to be one of the most healthy, instant-energy-giving foods ever made.  
  • The entrepreneur - He founded M5 Industries, an SFx company, now diversifying into toy prototyping and R&D in areas such as electronic cars and lifesaving devices.
  • The certified dive master, wilderness survival expert, linguist, concrete inspector, pet shop owner, animal wrangler and machinist.
It’s not very often that you get to interact with such a multi-faceted personality as him. This Pragyan, prepare to meet the man who loves science and moreover has fun doing it.
 
9:00 am, 8th March (Saturday)
 
 
CROSSFIRE 2014: CHANGING POLITICS: Is This The Change We Want?
 
The rising disparity between the rich and the poor, corruption, non-governance, incompetent education and abysmal human resource development have all been debated fiercely in the past.Add to that women empowerment and safety that has become a crucial point of discussion in India’s steps towards progress.Can we alleviate ourselves from this recurring issues? Is the entry of a new breed of politicians we have witnessed in recent past our best bet?
 
 
Crossfire 2014 hopes to provide answers to numerous such questions and expose the functioning of Indian politics in this year's edition.
 
Pragyan’14 presents Crossfire featuring distinguished panelists Mr. D. R. Karthikeyan ex-Director CBI, Mr. Santhosh Hegde a former justice of Supreme Court of India, Mrs. Nirmala Sitaraman national spokesperson of BJP to discuss the core issue:
“Changing Politics: Is this the change we want?”
 
 
PANELISTS :
 
1. Mr Praveen Swami
 
 
Praveen Swami is an Indian journalist, analyst and author specialising on international strategic and security issues. He was the Diplomatic Editor of The Daily Telegraph newspaper between September 2010 – October 2011 and is currently the Strategic Affairs Editor of The Hindu newspaper, and its Resident Editor in New Delhi.
 
He has won numerous awards including the Sanskriti Samman Award, Prem Bhatia Memorial Award for Political Journalism and the Indian Express- Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism prize. 
 
2. Ms. Shazia Ilmi
 
 
Shazia Ilmi is an Indian politician and social activist. She was a spokesperson for the India Against Corruption movement led by Anna Hazare in 2011 and 2012. While serving as a journalist and anchor at Star News, she led a media campaign for an anti-corruption bill, which gained huge momentum.
 
3. Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman 
 
 
Nirmala Sitharaman is an Indian politician currently serving as the spokesperson for the BJP. 
She has previously been part of the National Commission for Women between 2003-2005.
She is an alumnus of JNU and London School of Economics. Her knowledge spans across multiple fields, ranging from politics, economics and feminism.
 
4. Mr. Santhosh Hegde
 
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Nitte Santosh Hegde (born 16 June 1940) is a former justice of the Supreme Court Of India, former Solicitor General of India and was Lokayukta (ombudsman) for Karnataka State of India from 2006-2011.He joined the anti-corruption movement launched by Anna Hazare in 2011 as a core member of Team Anna. He is a political spectator and commentator. 
 
5. Mr. D R Karthikeyan
 
 
D. R. Kaarthikeyan (Devarayapuram Ramasamy Kaarthikeyan) is an Indian Police Service Officer from Tamil Nadu, and a former special director of the Central Bureau of Investigation and Director General, National Human Rights Commission. He has held numerous positions across his extensive career, which saw many highlights, especially him heading the Special Investigation Team which probed the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
 
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