AKKA World Kannada Conference 2006


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Information Technology Speakers
Gururaj " Desh " Deshpande Founder and Chairman Sycamore Networks,Inc. Topic: Chasing a Dream in the Land of Opportunities
	Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande is co-founder and chairman of Sycamore Networks, Inc. Dr. Deshpande is an influential technology entrepreneur and visionary whose companies and ideas often reshape entire industries. Led by Dr. Deshpande's vision and direction, Sycamore has helped create a fundamental paradigm shift in the role and architecture of the optical network -- transforming a once static optical infrastructure into an intelligent and dynamic network foundation for the delivery of new services. Sycamore's equipment is currently carrying voice and data traffic in the networks of the world's largest service providers. More.
BV Jagadeesh GM and VP Citrix Systems - Application Networking Group Topic: Ingredients of a Successful Company - Ideas to IPO.
	B.V. Jagadeesh is group vice president and general manager of the Application Networking Group for Citrix. Prior to his tenure with Citrix, Jagadeesh served as president and CEO of NetScaler, Inc., a privately held leader in high performance application networking. Citrix acquired NetScaler in 2005 for $325M. A well-regarded technology industry visionary and veteran, he guided NetScaler to continually grow quarter after quarter while attracting the best-in-class managerial and engineering talent to the company. More.
Ms.Pratima Ram Country Head - USA : State bank of India
	Ms.Pratima Ram is part of the top management team of State Bank of India, (SBI) India's largest bank. She is currently, Country Head (U.S.A. Operations) of State Bank of India at New York, heading the Bank's operations in the United States, which is the flagship outfit of SBI's International business. Prior to this assignment she was in charge of the Bank's operations in South Africa at Johannesburg. Ms. Ram spearheaded the Bank's expansion in Africa in countries such as Botswana, and Angola, apart from expansion in South Africa itself. Her international exposure in both emerging markets and in the highly evolved financial markets of US is very unique.
Dr.KRS Murthy CEO CT Cubed
	Dr. KRS Murthyis a seasoned and veteran serial corporate executive and serial entrepreneur. He is an expert on corporate governance and mergers & acquisitions. He has a rare blend of few decades of C Level experience and accomplishments in all aspects of telecom, IT, software, video / multimedia, defense, aerospace and other high technology industries to include: corporate governance, strategy, investor relations, mergers and acquisition, R & D, engineering, operations, business development, marketing and total quality management. His stellar career includes roles of R & D executive managing and nurturing the world's best brains in Bell Labs, GE, and NASA, corporate executive in AT & T, GE, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Professor of Management in California State Universities (CSU) and BOD of IEEE.
Harsha V. agadi President and Chief Executive Officer
	Harsha Agadi, President and Chief Executive Officer of Church's Chicken, International in Atlanta, Georgia , and is Chairman of GHS Holdings, a consulting company in Detroit, Michigan. He is also associated with a number of private equity firms. Mr. Agadi has over 20 years experience across several companies, including Little Caesar Enterprises Inc., Domino's Pizza, American Express, Pepsico and General Foods. He has managed a $2.0 billion restaurant chain with 4,500 locations across 22 countries. He was highly successful in introducing global brands to the international market through direct investment and master franchising. He was also responsible for opening over 2,000 stores for two competing brands in the last 10 years, in over 50 countries.
Ms. Poornima Jairaj
	Ms.Poornima Jairaj is currently a Director with Global Technology Ventures; Founder Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs, Bangalore; Chairperson, Basava Residential School for Girls, Bangalore; Mentoring resource, NSRaghavan Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, IIM, Bangalore. Actively involved in the sourcing of entrepreneurial talent and the creation, strategy and growth of many software companies, including Kshema Technologies and Mindtree Consulting, during the period with Global Technology Ventures and Sivan Securities.
Shailesh Rao Google Inc.,
	Shailesh Rao, recently joined Google as Director of Local Search, 3rd Party and Content Partnerships for Google. His responsibilities include continuing to build Google,s Local Search business globally, driving Google's 3rd party channel programs, as well as managing new content partnership programs on a worldwide basis. Prior to Google, Shailesh was VP of Products for Yodlee. Shailesh managed all aspects of product and corporate development for the OnCenter product suite, a unique PFM solution for the financial services market and Yodlee's flagship product. He was also in the business development group at America Online focused on new product and content strategy and partnerships. Shailesh has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania with Honors, a BS from the Wharton School with a concentration in finance, and an MBA from The Kellogg School of Management.
Attorney Sheela Murthy Esq President & CEO Murthy Law Firm
	Attorney Sheela Murthy is the Founder, President and Managing Attorney of the prominent and prestigious Murthy Law Firm located in Baltimore County, Maryland. Her law firm has a staff of over 50 professionals concentrating exclusively in the area of U.S. immigration law. Ms. Murthy completed her LL.M from Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, USA. She was recognized as a "40 Under 40 Emerging Business Leader" in July 2001and as one of Baltimore’s Top 25 Lawyers (among all areas of law) in 1999. She is on the Board of Trustees of the American Immigration Law Foundation (AILF), a not-for-profit organization that seeks to educate, lobby and litigate on issues dealing with U.S. immigration law. Ms. Murthy is an active member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and has been the Chair on various Committees nationally for AILA. She has been the Chair of the U.S. Dept. of Labor Committee for AILA's Washington D.C. Chapter. She is a frequent speaker on U.S. immigration law issues around the world. The firm's website www.murthy.com is an award winning site containing the latest information on U.S. immigration law in an easy to understand format. In August 2005, her law firm website Murthy.com has been hailed as the world's most popular website with more than ten times the unique visitors of the top-ten law firms in the world combined, by Enquirio, an online research agency! Even as far back as 1997, murthy.com, her law firm's website was listed as the “World’s Best Lawyer Website” by Lawyers Weekly USA.
Ramu Potarazu Former COO, INTELSAT
	Ramu Potarazu is former President and COO of INTELSAT. Ramu served as President from late 2002 to early 2006. During his tenure, Intelsat became one of the largest international commercial satellite operators with revenues exceeding $1B. He was responsible for all of the P&L for three business units. He was also responsible for several mergers including the merger of Comsat and Loral with the operations of Intelsat. Earlier in his tenure at Intelsat he was responsible for the privatization and eventual sale of the company to private equity.
Ms. Sudha Dev Global BDE, IBM
	Sudha Dev is a Project and Business Development Executive with IBM. She has Global Responsibilities with focus on Europe and Asia Pacific. Her role includes helping close business, strongly influencing global resourcing while ensuring global delivery. Ms. Dev’s recent achievements include setting up the Siebel Technology Center and the Global Delivery Center for IBM in Bangalore India. These centers over the last few years were noticed as one of a kind models that IBM has successfully expanded to other areas.
Srinivas Srirangam President and CEO. Jay Technologies.
	Srinivasa Srirangam , founded Jay Technologies, in 2002 with the vision of helping businesses make more intelligent decisions by using information resources. Today he serves Jay Technologies as President and CEO. He also works in a customer advisory role, and Strategic Planner. Under his leadership, Jay Technologies has increased the Market Share serving such clients as Pro-Bel Enterprises, Hi Lite systems, Ved Software services, Scaffolding Today, to name a few. Before founding Jay Technologies, Srinivas Srirangam was an engineer working with well known RCM Technologies based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has successfully integrated CRM systems, Project Management EPM Solution and Collaborative Document management systems. Srinivas Srirangam holds an undergraduate degree in Science, an undergraduate degree in Civil engineering from University of Mysore, Mysore, India, and a Post graduate Diploma in E-Business from Canada.
Varchaswi Shankar CEO. V2Soft Inc
	Varchaswi Shankar is the Co-Founder and CEO of V2Soft Inc, a Michigan based IT Business Solutions Company which was started in 1998. V2Soft is a global company with operations in US, India and China. Varchasvi Shankar has received many awards including the most recent one from Crain’s called the Crain’s Business Award for 2006 for the success of V2Soft. Varchasvi Shankar is also the former co-founder & CEO of the online travel portal www.mylowfare.com which was later sold in 2005 to another organization. Varchasvi Shankar after getting his Masters from West Virginia University/Tech, worked at DaimlerChrysler for over 10 years before starting V2Soft Inc. Varchasvi Shankar is also actively involved in various Indian organizations. He is presently serving as one of the Directors of Indian American Friendship Council (iafc.us) and active member of India League of America (miindiaday.org). He was also the Vice-President of Pampa Kannada Koota in 1996 and was in the committee for a few years.
Suhas Gopinath Founder and CEO -Globals Inc.,
	Suhas Gopinath, His passion for the Internet has made him CEO of a web solutions and networking company at the age of 21. Suhas Gopinath today runs offices across 11 countries with over 400 employees worldwide. suhas has won numerous awards for being one of the youngest CEO's in the world. BBC, recognized Mr. Suhas Gopinath as the worlds youngest CEO for his achievement in expanding the organization as a leading multi-national company offering cost-effective solutions in web, software, e-commerce, networking and mobile. Suhas Gopinath has also initiated a non profit program titled "Building Entrepreneurship Skills in Youngsters" which was greatly acclaimed by the Honorable President of India Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam.
Vijay Kulkarni CEO and CO-Founder of GL Communications Inc.
	Vijay Kulkarni is CEO and co-founder of GL Communications Inc. a telecommunications consulting and product development firm based in Gaithersburg, MD with branch offices in Bangalore, India, and Shanghai, China. The company specializes in telecommunications product development and consulting in the field of digital communications, transmission, switching, and mobile communications technologies. Vijay has over 30 years of professional experience in the theory, design, implementation, and operations of advanced telecommunications systems. Vijay received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland and an M.S. from George Washington University.
Ananth N Ananth Vice President of Prism
	Ananth N Ananth - the Vice President of Prism, has over 15 years of experience in the telecom industry. Ananth founded the company to develop software for telecom companies in embedded systems and networks. He has managed the development of wireless ATM network management systems, development of a complete wireless network management system, designed and developed embedded Event Correlation service for an optical network element. Architected and developed various integrated solutions for satellite communications networks, and other network management solutions and tools. His current responsibilities include a focus on customer relations, quality control, marketing, personnel management, policies, etc.
Virender Kumar Counsellor (Space), ISRO Technical Liaison Unit Embassy of India
	Virender Kumar is an experienced technologist in the field of Space Research. He is the present Counsellor (Space) at Embassy of India, Washington, DC and is responsible for furthering the interests of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) in the United States. He obtained a Masters degree (M.Sc) in Physics from University of Delhi in India in 1984. He obtained a second Master’s degree (Master of Technology) in Microwave Communication Electronics in 1986, also from the University of Delhi. He joined the Space Applications Center (a major spacecraft payload development center of ISRO) in the year 1987. He is a communication payload specialist; having worked in the INSAT programme of ISRO since 1987. He has contributed towards every INSAT programme in different capacities, having functioned as Project Manager for INSAT-2, INSAT-3 and GSAT series of spacecraft. He has been responsible for development and implementation of many new technologies/hardware in the Indian Communication Satellites. He was heading a division in the Satcom Payload Technology Area in the Space Application Centre in Ahmedabad, India when he was posted by the Govt. of India as counsellor (Space) in Washington DC in February 2005. He also has interests in sports and has been actively playing Cricket and Table Tennis. He also enjoys reading, music and outdoor activities.