Sri Prakash Belawadi

Sri. Prakash Belawadi is an Indian theatre, film, television and media personality, teacher, activist and journalist. He obtained a degree in mechanical engineering from University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering in 1983. He has participated in many seminars, conferences and festivals in India and abroad. He has been a motivational speaker at events and TEDx conferences. Prakash Belawadi’s debut film Stumble, which he wrote and directed, won the National Award for Best Film in the English language, 2003. For his tremendous achievements, he is conferred with ‘Pratibha Bhushan’ by Government of Karnataka. He is recipient of Karnataka Nataka Academy, Pride of Karnataka by Bangalore Round Table, Helpmann Award, Australia for his excellent acting skills in “counting and cracking”. He has been faculty for film courses in Sweden and Istanbul, Turkey. Belawadi is one of the founding members of Citizens for Bengaluru, an active platform for people to engage with the city government to make it accountable to citizens and co-founder of Centre for film and drama.

Sri Ricky Kej

Three time Grammy® Award Winner, US Billboard #1 artist, United Nations Ambassador & “GQ Hero 2020”, Ricky Kej is an internationally renowned Indian Music Composer and Environmentalist. Ricky has dedicated his life and Music to creating awareness on the Environment, and positive social impact. He has performed at prestigious venues in over 35 countries, including at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and Geneva.

Sri Hari Kiran Vadlamani

Sri Hari Kiran Vadlamani is an entrepreneur, seeker, activist and an aspiring artist. Deeply passionate about art, philosophy, and Indology, he has set up two more foundations apart from Advaita Academy, for pursuing these passions:

Indic academy is a not- for-profit think tank that aims to nurture and nourish scholarship in Indology, arm and groom public intellectuals in developing a Dharmic narrative.

Creative India promotes art & culture, as well acts as an advocacy platform for making India a global soft superpower through various institutional and individual initiatives.

Over the last decade, he has produced, mentored and acted as a facilitator to several creative and intellectual initiatives by likeminded artists, scholars & public intellectuals.

Prof. Sunaina Singh

Prof. Sunaina Singh is the Vice Chancellor of Nalanda University, an internationally acclaimed historical university with the Ministry of External Affairs, located in Rajgir, Bihar. Prof. Singh is currently engaged with the naissance task of rebuilding the renowned ancient Nalanda University. Prof. Singh is among the most prominent leaders in higher education in the South Asian region. A distinguished academician and administrator, she is also the Vice President, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR); Member, Governing Council, Association of Indian Universities (AIU); Member, Comprehensive Language Policy of India; Member, Bihar State Audit Advisory Board Bihar

As a Visiting Professor at reputed Universities abroad, she has played a crucial role in drawing the attention of the West towards Indian culture and literature, pedagogical systems, epistemological concerns, and university administration. She has the distinction of being the first Indian woman to head, as President of Shastri Indo Canadian Institute, a bi-national research institution with headquarters in New Delhi and Calgary under the MHRD and Canadian Government.

Prof. Vasudha Kamat

Prof. Vasudha Kamat is well known for her significant contribution to the field of Educational Technology/Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Education. She has invested five decades of life in the field of education and has contributed to School Education, Higher Education, Teacher Education, Women’s Education, Open and Distance Learning, Life Long Learning.

• Nominated by the UGC as Chairperson of Governing Body of the CEC (Consortium of Educational Communication), an Inter-University Centre of UGC) from June 2021.
• Nominated by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD, now Ministry of Education: MoE), Government of India to the National Education Policy Draft Committee (GoI) under the Chairmanship of Dr. Kasturirangan in June 2017.
• Vice Chancellor of SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai, India during the years 2011-16 and has introduced many innovative practices.
• Recipient of the Best Teacher Award by Maharashtra State Government (2005-06), Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship for conducting research in the Florida State University, USA (2005-06), The Rotary International Fellowship (2004-05) during which she taught at University Technology, MARA (UiTM), Malaysia.
• She intensely advocates integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in higher education (HE). Conducts Professional Development programmes for faculty from HE in the use of learner centred pedagogies and integration of ICTs (Blended, Flipped and Online Learning) in day to day teaching-learning-evaluation process.
• She has conducted several research studies for various National/International organizations such as Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), UNDP, World-Bank, UNICEF, MHRD, etc. She has closely worked with Open Universities and National Institute of Open Schooling in various capacities.

Sri Harish Bijoor

Sri. Harish Bijoor is a Brand-thinker and practitioner operating out of Bengaluru, India. He runs a unique boutique-consulting outfit branded “Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.”, a brand name that has a consulting presence across the markets of Hong Kong, Seattle, London, Istanbul, Dubai and the Indian sub-continent.

• Harish has spent his career across the aggressive realms of FMCG, Telecom and Consumer Durables. He is considered a marketing practitioner and thinker who is ahead of the consumer thinking curve, year on year.
• Harish is a public speaker who speaks to corporate audiences across the globe in the realm of motivation, people-management issues, brands,
  marketing and business at large. He has spoken to corporate audiences across the world for 10419 hours to date.
• Harish teaches at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad & Mohali, in addition to semesters at overseas Business schools in the US and Europe. He has been teaching at the Indian School of Business for the past 15 years.
• Harish has recently published a book titled, “Marketing Trends – Smart Insights into the world of Indian Business”, a serious book written in a style that is distinctly young and ‘MTV-ish’!
• He is currently involved in his second book on core branding. The book is titled, “Brand Irrationals: a fundamental journey into brand-think”
• Harish has simultaneously been commissioned to write a book on “Customer Service mechanisms” at play in contemporary marketing contexts.
• Harish is actively involved in research relating to Rural Consumer Behavior, Rural Retail Networks and Trade mechanisms at play. The current research exercise he is involved in spans a 6-year period covering 84,850 consumers across India.
• Harish has published papers extensively on the subjects relating to Strategic Marketing, Branding, Consumer Behavior, Retail networks, Rural marketing, Marketing research and Trend-analysis.
• Harish Bijoor contributes regularly to Business publications on Branding, sales, distribution and related topics.

Prof. Kapil Kapoor

Prof Kapil Kapoor, former Professor of English, Centre for Linguistics and English, and Concurrent Professor, Centre for Sanskrit Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was Dean of the School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, JNU, from 1996-1999 and Rector (Pro-Vice-Chancellor) of the University from 1999- 2002. He retired from JNU in 2005. He is a nominated Visiting Professor at the Irish Academy of Cultural Heritages, University of Ulster, U.K. and Nominated Member, Advisory Board for India Studies, Trinity College Dublin. He was nominated Birla Foundation Fellow in 2007 and UGC Emeritus Fellow at JNU, his parent university, 2007-2009. He is Adviser to CBSE, New Delhi for English since 2000. He has been nominated by Punjabi University Patiala as a Fellow for the S. S. Noor Fellowship for 2011-2013. His teaching and research interests include literary and linguistic theories, both Indian and Western, philosophy of language, nineteenth century British life, literature and thought and Indian intellectual traditions. He has been lecturing on these themes and has written extensively on them. He has been teaching for fifty years; 41 scholars worked for Ph.D. and 36 for M.Phil. with him. He was honoured in 2003 by MHRD, India, for his contribution to Sanskrit and in 2010 by Shiksha Sanskriti Utthana Nyasa for his contribution to Indian education. On October 2, 2011 he was honoured at Los Angeles by the Uberoi Foundation California USA for his contribution to Linguistics and Indic Civilization Studies. He has been honoured in 2012 as a distinguished scholar by Kunwar Narendra Pratap Singh Kalyankari Trust Gorakhpur. He is at present Adviser and Visiting Professor in BPS Women’s University Khanpur Kalan.

Sri Manish Sabharwal

Sri. Manish is Vice-Chairman of Teamlease Services, one of India’s leading staffing and human capital firm. Teamlease is also implementing India’s first vocational university and national PPP apprenticeship program. The company has hired 1.8 million employees over the last 15 years.

 In 1996 he co-founded India Life, an HR outsourcing company that was acquired in 2002 by a listed US company called Hewitt Associates. Consequently, he was CEO of Hewitt Outsourcing (Asia) based in Singapore for two years.

Sri. Manish is a member of the National Skill Mission, Central Advisory Board of Education and has served on various policy committees for education, employment and employability. He served as an Independent Director on the Board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). He is a Member of Advisory Board of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) and a governing board member of National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER). He is also Managing Trustee of the New India Foundation that offers fellowships for writing books about post-1947 India and is a columnist for Indian Express. He got his MBA from The Wharton School and is an alumnus of Shriram College, Delhi and Mayo College, Ajmer.

Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi

Dr. Chandraprakash Dwivedi is an Indian film director and script writer, who is best known for directing the 1991 television epic Chanakya in which he also played the title role of the political strategist Chanakya and an inspiration for millions. His other major work is the 2003 film Pinjar, a tragic love story set amidst the Hindu-Muslim tensions during the Partition of India, based on Amrita Pritam’s novel of the same name. He has also directed the 1996 television series Mrityunjay which is based on the life of Karna, a major character from the epic Mahabharata, and he won a Screen Videocon Best Director award for the same

Dr. Dwivedi is a qualified medical professional who gave up his profession because of a deep interest in Indian literature, and began working in theatre instead. From 1990-92, he wrote, directed and acted in the TV serial Chanakya, which took India by storm with its crafted dialog, mastery of hindi and lessons on politics and philosophy. In the late 1990s, he held the position of programming division head at Zee TV.  Dr. Dwivedi has been conferred with Padma Shri Award in 2022.

Prof. Subhash Kak

Prof Subhash Kak is Regents Professor of Computer Science Department at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. A native of Srinagar, he has completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He was a visiting faculty at Imperial College, London, and a guest researcher at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill. In 1977, He was a visiting researcher at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bombay. During 1979-2007, He was with Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge where he served as Donald C. and Elaine T. Delaune Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Kak’s research has spanned the fields of information theory, cryptography, neural networks, and quantum information. He is the inventor of a family of instantaneously trained neural networks.

Kak is also an archeoastronomer and Vedic scholar. His discovery of a long-forgotten astronomy of ancient India that has been called “revolutionary” and “epoch-making” by scholars. In 2008-2009, he was appointed one of the principal editors for the ICOMOS project of UNESCO for identification of world heritage sites. He is the author of 12 books which include “The Nature of Physical Reality,” “The Architecture of Knowledge,” and “Mind and Self.” He is also the author of 6 books of verse. The distinguished Indian scholar Govind Chandra Pande compared his poetry to that of William Wordsworth.

Prof. Bhimaraya Metri

Prof. Bhimaraya Metri, Director, IIM Nagpur is a distinguished academician, renowned teacher, researcher and an astute administrator. An outstanding leader of management education, he has performed key leadership roles at many premier management institutes and corporate in his remarkable career. Dr. Metri is the former Director of IIM Tiruchirappalli. He has also contributed immensely as Dean at L& T Institute of Project Management Vadodara, IMI New Delhi, MDI Gurgaon and leading research programmes at BITS Pilani. Currently, Dr. Metri is the member of Indian National Commission for Cooperation with UNESCO (INCCU), He is also serving on the panel of experts for mentoring the Institutes of Eminence (IoE) and also as the Chairman of – All India Board of Management Studies, AICTE, New Delhi; Management and Systems Division Council (MSDC); Human resources management and innovation sectional committee of Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), New Delhi and AIMA Board of Studies, New Delhi. Dr. Metri has trained more than 100 Vice Chancellors of Central, State and deemed Universities in the country. He also has trained more than 1000 Directors, Deans, Principals and HODs of leading Engineering Institutes including NITs under World Bank assisted project of MHRD-TEQIP to improve the quality of technical education in the country Dr. Metri was the first Indian elected as the Vice President, Asia Pacific Division, Decision Sciences Institute (DSI). Dr. Metri is the only serving IIM Director to receive the country’s prestigious AIMA-Kewal Nohria Award for Academic Leadership in Management Education. Distinguished Services Award by Asia Pacific Decision Sciences Institute, Top Director Award by CSR; Prerana Purshkar-Distinguished Alumnus Award, and “Top Rankers Excellence Award for Outstanding Academic Leadership” by Top Rankers Management Club, New Delhi.

Sri Anurag Behar

Sri. Anurag Behar is CEO of Azim Premji Foundation & Chancellor of Azim Premji University, Bhopal; he was the Founding Vice Chancellor of Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. He has an MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur and a BE in Electrical & Electronics Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Trichy. He enjoys long distance running. Anurag has been closely involved with efforts to improve education in India for the past eleven years. He has been a vocal advocate for the critical importance of public systems, in particular the public education system for the past few years he has also been engaged with environmental and ecological issues. He writes a fortnightly column for the newspaper Mint, on Education and Ecology Anurag has served on the Board of Wipro GE Healthcare Ltd and of the TERI University. He serves on various government & industry councils, such as the National Mission on Teachers and Teacher Education, the Government of India implementation committee for the Justice Verma Commission, and with the CII’s National Climate Change Council. He has been honoured by the World Economic Forum, by being recognized as a ‘Young Global Leader’.

Prof. Michel Danino

Visiting Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Gandhinagar

French-born Prof. Michel Danino has lived in India since 1977. A student of Indian civilization, he has written on protohistorical India (The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati, 2010) and Indian culture (Indian Culture and India’s Future, 2011; Sri Aurobindo and India’s Rebirth, an edited volume, 2018). Between 2011 and 2014, he was a visiting faculty at IIM Ranchi and twice a scholar-in-residence at IIT Kanpur. Since 2011, he has been teaching courses on Indian civilization and knowledge systems at IIT Gandhinagar, where he is currently visiting professor and has been assisting its Archaeological Sciences Centre.

Prof. Michel Danino was (2015-18) a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research; he is currently a member of the Research Council for History of Science (Indian National Science Academy), the Central Advisory Board on Culture, Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India, and the Academic Council of Indic Academy. He is also convener of a CBSE committee for the course Knowledge Traditions and Practices of India whose two-volume textbook he co-edited (with Prof. Kapil Kapoor, 2013 and 2015). In 2017, the Government of India awarded him Padma Shri by for his work on education and culture.

Sri S. V. Ranganath

Sri. S. V. Ranganath belongs to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), from where he retired after a long and successful tenure as Chief Secretary, Government of Karnataka (2009-13). He has been a member of the IIHS Board since 2014.

He has worked as a civil servant in various capacities both with the Government of India and the Government of Karnataka. He was Chairman Indian Coffee Board; Resident Director, Indian Investment Centre, Abu Dhabi; Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Karnataka; Additional Secretary & Financial Adviser in the Department of Space; and Member (Finance), Space and Atomic Energy Commissions.

Post-retirement, Sri. Ranganath was also non-executive Chairman of IFCI (2014-17). He was Vice Chairman, Karnataka State Higher Education Council; and Member, Karnataka Knowledge Commission. Currently, he is Chairman, NABFINS, a NABARD-promoted microfinance company. He has an MSc in Chemistry from the University of Delhi.

Padma Shri M. K. Sridhar

An inspiring academician and Professor in Management, popularly known as MKS, Prof. M. K. Sridhar is a Teacher, Researcher, Institution Builder, and Mentor to thousands of students across the world. With over four decades of teaching experience, Prof. MKS served as a Professor, Dean, and Director of the Department of Management Studies at Bangalore University.

He was the Member Secretary and Executive Director of the Karnataka Knowledge Commission from 2009 to 2013. He was a Member of the Committee for drafting the National Education Policy and a Member of the All-India Board of Management Studies, AICTE.

Currently, Prof. MKS is a member of the UGC, New Delhi, and the Executive Council of the Central University of Kerala. He was conferred with the “Karnataka Rajyotsava Award” by the Government of Karnataka, the “General President Gold Medal” by the Indian Science Congress Association, and the “Padma Shri” – the fourth highest civilian award for his contribution to the domain of Art and Literature.