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How Indians Won the Silicon Valley
Tracing India’s Contribution to Digital Technology
Speakers
Shivanand Kanavi has deeply researched and written about the evolution of digital technology and seminal contributions made by Indians to the same. A part of it was presented in his award winning book Sand to Silicon: The amazing story of digital technology (2004 Tata-McGraw-Hill, 2007 Rupa). The government of Karnataka has also published the Kannada version of the same (ಡಿಜಿಟಲ್ ಕ್ರಾಂತಿ ಮತ್ತು ಭಾರತ). The book was praised not only by the stalwarts of the IT industry in India and the Silicon Valley but also by personalities like President APJ Abdul Kalam, Yashiro Masamoto, Chairman Shinsei Bank, Japan, Prof. Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School and others.
He will present a talk on the breadth and depth of Indian contribution to digital technology. It will cover seminal Indian contributions to semiconductors, chips, lasers, fibre optics, telecom, computing, optical networking and the Internet by briefly profiling 35-40 outstanding Indian individuals and their contributions. Mr. Kanavi will make a presentation, following which Dr. AS Kiran Kumar, former chairman of ISRO, will offer his insights and remarks. A Q&A with the audience will follow.
Speakers
Shivanand Kanavi
Shivanand Kanavi is former Vice President, TCS and is currently Adjunct Faculty at National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru. He writes on business, science & technology, Indian history, political economy and philosophy. He is a popular speaker in IITs, Universities and higher educational institutions, as well as in Radio and TV.
Shivanand studied Theoretical Physics at IIT Kanpur; Northeastern University, Boston and IIT Bombay. He was the Executive Editor of Business India magazine, a pioneer in Business Journalism in India till 2004. He has written extensively on Business and Technology. He was awarded the Madhu Valluri Award for IT Journalism for the year 2004.
Shivanand has authored the highly acclaimed Sand to Silicon: The amazing story of digital technology (Tata-McGraw Hill 2004, Rupa 2006). He worked in the largest IT services company TCS as Vice President-Special Projects from 2004 to 2010. He has edited, Research by Design-Innovation and TCS (Rupa, 2007). He was Global Head, Marketing and Strategic Communication of CMC Ltd, a subsidiary of TCS, from 2010 to 2013.
Kiran Kumar
A S Kiran Kumar is Chairman, Physical Research Laboratory Management Council and Member, Space Commission, Govt of India. He has served as Secretary, Department of Space and Chairman, Indian Space Research Organisation, during 2015-2018. He holds M.Sc. Degree in Physics (Electronics) from Bangalore University and M.Tech. Degree in Physical Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
He has steered the implementation of the applications oriented Indian Space Programme, which has facilitated rapid development of the country in many important spheres of earth observation, communication, navigation, meteorology and space science, as well as the development of indigenous launch vehicles and related technologies for providing assured access to space. He has led design and development of more than 50 Electro-Optical Imaging Sensors flown on various Space borne platforms starting from Bhaskara in 1979. Further, his role in the success of Chandrayaan-1 mission and Mars Orbiter Mission has been significant.
