IIT Ypanels - June 7 - Panelist Bios

Umang Gupta, CEO, Keynote Systems

Umang Gupta is well-known as an early Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Umang wrote the first business plan for Oracle in 1981 and was the founder and CEO of Gupta Corporation, the first Indian founded public software company in the U.S.A. In addition to his professional work, Umang is dedicated to the cause of the developmentally disabled. He and his wife Ruth took the lead in the founding of a Silicon Valley respite care home for developmentally disabled children, named Raji House in memory of their son. In 2000, Umang was the honored recipient of the Asian Pacific Foundation Award for Civic Leadership and Philanthropy. Umang also serves on the board of the Peninsula Community Foundation. Umang received his B.Tech from IIT Kanpur and his M.B.A. from Kent State University.

Ravi Apte, EVP & CTO, American Stock Exchange

Ravi is responsible for leading the IT function for the exchange, providing a clear vision and revitalizing the existing technology to position the Amex for the future. Ravi heads a core technology group of more than 300 people.

Prior to his arrival at The American Stock Exchange, Ravi was employed at Citibank for more than sixteen years. During his tenure there, Ravi held numerous positions and titles, and was responsible for leading various technology initiatives worldwide. He established two software companies for Citibank and ran them as CEO for several years. Subsequently, Ravi was the Technology Head for Citibank for the Asia Pacific region, comprising 14 countries. After coming to New York, Ravi was responsible for application development, and then end-to-end Technology Infrastructure for Citibank's Global Relationship Bank in the US and Europe.

Ravi received a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering, with honors, at the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay, India) in 1970, and completed The Executive Program at Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia in 1990.

Subodh Bapat, CTO, Volume Systems Products Division, Sun Microsystems

Subodh Bapat is Chief Technologist of Sun's Volume Systems Products division, one of Sun's two major systems divisions. In this capacity, Subodh has the responsibility for establishing the technology direction to lead Sun into the next generation of volume systems. These include blade servers, conventional rack-mount and tower servers, telecom-optimized servers, and workstations and technical compute servers, running both Solaris and Linux environments. Subodh is responsible for driving requirements for interconnect and networking standards, next-generation CPU architectures, systems management software, and packaging technologies.

Subodh is Distinguished Engineer at Sun and has served in a number of senior technical roles, including Chief Technologist of Sun's Edge Computing Division, Wireless Business Group, and other organizations.

Bapat has more than 15 years of experience in the telecommunications industry architecting software systems for use in wireless networks, and has published several articles on object software techniques for service provider network architecture and design. Bapat's papers have appeared in various IEEE publications and other leading technical journals.

Bapat has authored "Object-Oriented Networks: Models for Network Architecture, Operations and Management" (Prentice-Hall), a book that demonstrates the application of second generation object modeling techniques to the architecture and design of the next generation of automated and highly intelligent telecommunication networks. Bapat holds a number of patents in the area of implementing telecommunications software.

Bapat received his Bachelors in Technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (India) , worked at AT&T Bell Labs and ran his own company before joining Sun Microsystems.

Hemant Kanakia, CEO & Co-Founder, Gemplex

Dr. Hemant Kanakia is Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Gemplex a business-networking services provider offering secure connectivity with its flagship Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IP VPN) solution. Dr. Kanakia founded Gemplex along with present Chief Operating Officer, Gian Dilawari in 2000. Prior to Gemplex, Dr. Kanakia was Chairman, CEO, and founder of Torrent Networking that was eventually purchased by Ericsson for $450 million. The Torrent/Ericsson IP Infrastructure (IPI) division is a leading provider of advanced Internet routing solutions to communications companies worldwide. Prior to Torrent, Dr. Kanakia led an elite research team at Bell Labs investigating advanced data network switching technology. The research performed by Dr. Kanakia's team is some of the core technology of today's Internet.

Dr. Kanakia holds several patents in the field of packet and cell-switching architectures and real-time traffic management algorithms; a number of his research papers have been published in major communications and trade journals, including those of the IEEE, JSAC and SIGCOMM. Dr. Kanakia is an accomplished and frequent speaker at industry symposia and conferences such as NetWorld+Interop, Next Generation Networks and The Robertson Stephens Technology Conference. In 1999, Dr. Kanakia received KPMG's High Tech Entrepreneur of the Year Award for his contributions to the Washington, D.C., region's technology industry. Dr. Kanakia holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Uday Karmarkar, Professor, The Anderson School of Management, UCLA

Dr. Uday S. Karmarkar is Professor at the Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Karmarkar joined UCLA in 1994 after teaching at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago (1975-1979) and the Simon School at the University of Rochester (1979-1994). Professor Karmarkar has published over 60 research papers and articles and has founded two academic journals and is on several editorial boards. His research interests include the information economy and ebusiness, technology management, manufacturing strategy, supply chain management, enterprise management software, and service enterprise management.

He has undertaken projects in operations and technology strategy, industrial marketing, and supply chain management with firms in the US, Europe and Asia. His teaching interests include management in the information economy, information chains and processes, supply chain management, manufacturing, and service management.

Prof. Karmarkar holds a B.Tech. from IIT Bombay and a Ph.D. in Management Science from M.I.T. He serves on the Advisory Board of IIT Bombay, and is on advisory and directors boards for several new technology and traditional companies.

Pramod Khargonekar, Dean, College of Engineering, University of Florida

Dr. Pramod P. Khargonekar is Dean of Engineering, Associate Vice President of the Engineering and Industrial Experiment Station (EIES), and Eckis Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida. From 1989 to 2001, Dr. Khargonekar was at the University of Michigan where he held the positions of Claude E. Shannon Professor of Engineering Science and Chairman and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Prior to that he was faculty at the University of Florida and University of Minnesota.

Dr. Khargonekar is a recipient of the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award (1985), the American Automatic Control Council's (AACC) Donald Eckman Award (1989), the IEEE W. R. G. Baker Prize Award (1991), the George Axelby Best Paper Award (1990), the Hugo Schuck ACC Best Paper Award (1993), the Japan Society for Promotion of Science Fellowship (1992), and a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1997). At the University of Michigan, he received a teaching excellence award from the EECS department in 1991, a research excellence award from the College of Engineering in 1994, and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship from 1995 to 1998. Dr. Khargonekar is a Fellow of IEEE.

Dr. Khargonekar received his B. Tech. Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1977, and M.S. degree in Mathematics and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida in 1980 and 1981, respectively.

Arun Majumdar, Professor, UC Berkeley

Dr. Arun Majumdar is Professor and Vice-Chairman (Instructions) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley. Prior to UC Berkeley he was faculty in Mechanical Engineering at Arizona State University (1989-1992) and at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1992-1996).

Dr. Majumdar is a recipient of the NSF Young Investigator Award, the ASME Melville Medal, and the ASME Best Paper Award from the Heat Transfer Division. He is currently serving as an associate editor for the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer and International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, and the co-editor-in-chief of Microscale Thermophysical Engineering. He also serves as a member of the Council on Energy Engineering Research for the Department of Energy.

Dr. Majumdar received his Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 1989.

Shailesh Mehta, President & CEO, Granite Hill Capital Ventures

He is the President of Granite Hill Capital Ventures as well as Chairman of Peach Direct, a private label credit card company. Shailesh was previously Chairman of the Board and CEO of Providian Financial Corporation, an S&P500 company.

He is Trustee of Cal State Universities. Dr. Mehta is also known for his philanthropic activities. He has formed the Shailesh J. Mehta and Kalpa S. Mehta Charitable Foundation, which has given millions in grants to various institutions including the Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management at IIT Bombay and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

Jagmohan Mundhra, Film Producer & Director

Jagmohandas Mundhra (Jag Mundhra) has been making films since 1980 and has directed twenty four feature films in the past twenty years. He has produced several of these films and many of them are based on his own stories. An engineering graduate from IIT Bombay, (B.Tech. honours in Electrical Engineering) Jag Mundhra went to the United States in 1968 for the MBA programme at Michigan State University. He stayed on to do his M.A. in Advertising and a Ph.D in Marketing from the same University. In 1973, he wrote his doctoral thesis on "Marketing of Motion Pictures".

Jag Mundhra was a professor at several prestigious Universities and Colleges in Southern California. He finally decided to take the plunge full time in film making in 1980, by quitting his job and selling his cinema houses. Since then, he has directed twenty features in English and four in Hindi. He has also shot pilots for TV shows, ad films and documentaries. Many of the features directed by Jag Mundhra have been very successful through out the world and his name has a niche following in the genre of slick thrillers. His output is eclectic; from horror films, crime thrillers, to police stories and social dramas.

Jag Mundhra has received critical acclaim and several awards for his sensitive and committed portrayal of true live stories in his film "Kamla" and "Bawandar".

Avi Nash, Advisory Director, Goldman Sachs

Avi is an Advisory Director of Goldman Sachs after retiring as a Partner in 2002. In this role he is involved with several strategic, thematic and mentoring programs for the firm. Avi joined the firm in 1987, became a Vice President in 1989, a Managing Director in 1996, and a Partner of Goldman Sachs in 1998. Prior to his retirement he headed the firm's Basic Materials group in North America and the global chemical industry group in the investment research division. Avi was ranked in the Institutional Investor "All-America Research Team" for 15 years in a row, the last seven as #1. He ranked number one or two in the Greenwich Survey for the past nine years. In addition, he led the global Goldman Chemicals team to a #1 ranking. He has spoken at numerous industry and corporate meetings globally including the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Prior to joining the firm, he was a senior consultant with Booz, Allen & Hamilton from 1984 to 1987, focusing on strategy for manufacturing and technology-based companies in the U.S. and Europe. Earlier, he spent over seven years in a variety of functions including R&D, engineering, marketing and strategic planning with UOP (a Dow Chemical/Honeywell joint venture and a leading process technology licensor).

Avi serves on the Advisory board of the Center for Talented Youth (CTY), affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, and, separately, is a Trustee of The Hopkins School in New Haven, CT. In 2002, he was a recipient of a "Distinguished Alumnus" award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Avi received a Master of Management degree with distinction from Northwestern University's Kellogg School in 1981, an M.S. (ChE) from Syracuse University in 1977, and a B.Tech. ( ChE) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in 1975.

Vasant Prabhu, EVP & CFO, Safeway, Inc.

Mr. Prabhu was previously the President of the Information and Media Group at the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., from 1998 to 2000, Chief Financial Officer of Pepsi-Cola International, a division of PepsiCo, Inc. from 1997 to 1998 and Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of PepsiCo Restaurants International, a division of PepsiCo, Inc. from 1996 to 1997. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, India and received his MBA from the University of Chicago.

IIT Ypanels - June 7 - Panelist Bios

Umang Gupta, CEO, Keynote Systems

Umang Gupta is well-known as an early Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Umang wrote the first business plan for Oracle in 1981 and was the founder and CEO of Gupta Corporation, the first Indian founded public software company in the U.S.A. In addition to his professional work, Umang is dedicated to the cause of the developmentally disabled. He and his wife Ruth took the lead in the founding of a Silicon Valley respite care home for developmentally disabled children, named Raji House in memory of their son. In 2000, Umang was the honored recipient of the Asian Pacific Foundation Award for Civic Leadership and Philanthropy. Umang also serves on the board of the Peninsula Community Foundation. Umang received his B.Tech from IIT Kanpur and his M.B.A. from Kent State University.

Ravi Apte, EVP & CTO, American Stock Exchange

Ravi is responsible for leading the IT function for the exchange, providing a clear vision and revitalizing the existing technology to position the Amex for the future. Ravi heads a core technology group of more than 300 people.

Prior to his arrival at The American Stock Exchange, Ravi was employed at Citibank for more than sixteen years. During his tenure there, Ravi held numerous positions and titles, and was responsible for leading various technology initiatives worldwide. He established two software companies for Citibank and ran them as CEO for several years. Subsequently, Ravi was the Technology Head for Citibank for the Asia Pacific region, comprising 14 countries. After coming to New York, Ravi was responsible for application development, and then end-to-end Technology Infrastructure for Citibank's Global Relationship Bank in the US and Europe.

Ravi received a Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering, with honors, at the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay, India) in 1970, and completed The Executive Program at Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Virginia in 1990.

Subodh Bapat, CTO, Volume Systems Products Division, Sun Microsystems

Subodh Bapat is Chief Technologist of Sun's Volume Systems Products division, one of Sun's two major systems divisions. In this capacity, Subodh has the responsibility for establishing the technology direction to lead Sun into the next generation of volume systems. These include blade servers, conventional rack-mount and tower servers, telecom-optimized servers, and workstations and technical compute servers, running both Solaris and Linux environments. Subodh is responsible for driving requirements for interconnect and networking standards, next-generation CPU architectures, systems management software, and packaging technologies.

Subodh is Distinguished Engineer at Sun and has served in a number of senior technical roles, including Chief Technologist of Sun's Edge Computing Division, Wireless Business Group, and other organizations.

Bapat has more than 15 years of experience in the telecommunications industry architecting software systems for use in wireless networks, and has published several articles on object software techniques for service provider network architecture and design. Bapat's papers have appeared in various IEEE publications and other leading technical journals.

Bapat has authored "Object-Oriented Networks: Models for Network Architecture, Operations and Management" (Prentice-Hall), a book that demonstrates the application of second generation object modeling techniques to the architecture and design of the next generation of automated and highly intelligent telecommunication networks. Bapat holds a number of patents in the area of implementing telecommunications software.

Bapat received his Bachelors in Technology from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (India) , worked at AT&T Bell Labs and ran his own company before joining Sun Microsystems.

Hemant Kanakia, CEO & Co-Founder, Gemplex

Dr. Hemant Kanakia is Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Gemplex a business-networking services provider offering secure connectivity with its flagship Internet Protocol Virtual Private Network (IP VPN) solution. Dr. Kanakia founded Gemplex along with present Chief Operating Officer, Gian Dilawari in 2000. Prior to Gemplex, Dr. Kanakia was Chairman, CEO, and founder of Torrent Networking that was eventually purchased by Ericsson for $450 million. The Torrent/Ericsson IP Infrastructure (IPI) division is a leading provider of advanced Internet routing solutions to communications companies worldwide. Prior to Torrent, Dr. Kanakia led an elite research team at Bell Labs investigating advanced data network switching technology. The research performed by Dr. Kanakia's team is some of the core technology of today's Internet.

Dr. Kanakia holds several patents in the field of packet and cell-switching architectures and real-time traffic management algorithms; a number of his research papers have been published in major communications and trade journals, including those of the IEEE, JSAC and SIGCOMM. Dr. Kanakia is an accomplished and frequent speaker at industry symposia and conferences such as NetWorld+Interop, Next Generation Networks and The Robertson Stephens Technology Conference. In 1999, Dr. Kanakia received KPMG's High Tech Entrepreneur of the Year Award for his contributions to the Washington, D.C., region's technology industry. Dr. Kanakia holds a Bachelor of Technology degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.

Uday Karmarkar, Professor, The Anderson School of Management, UCLA

Dr. Uday S. Karmarkar is Professor at the Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Karmarkar joined UCLA in 1994 after teaching at the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago (1975-1979) and the Simon School at the University of Rochester (1979-1994). Professor Karmarkar has published over 60 research papers and articles and has founded two academic journals and is on several editorial boards. His research interests include the information economy and ebusiness, technology management, manufacturing strategy, supply chain management, enterprise management software, and service enterprise management.

He has undertaken projects in operations and technology strategy, industrial marketing, and supply chain management with firms in the US, Europe and Asia. His teaching interests include management in the information economy, information chains and processes, supply chain management, manufacturing, and service management.

Prof. Karmarkar holds a B.Tech. from IIT Bombay and a Ph.D. in Management Science from M.I.T. He serves on the Advisory Board of IIT Bombay, and is on advisory and directors boards for several new technology and traditional companies.

Pramod Khargonekar, Dean, College of Engineering, University of Florida

Dr. Pramod P. Khargonekar is Dean of Engineering, Associate Vice President of the Engineering and Industrial Experiment Station (EIES), and Eckis Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida. From 1989 to 2001, Dr. Khargonekar was at the University of Michigan where he held the positions of Claude E. Shannon Professor of Engineering Science and Chairman and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Prior to that he was faculty at the University of Florida and University of Minnesota.

Dr. Khargonekar is a recipient of the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award (1985), the American Automatic Control Council's (AACC) Donald Eckman Award (1989), the IEEE W. R. G. Baker Prize Award (1991), the George Axelby Best Paper Award (1990), the Hugo Schuck ACC Best Paper Award (1993), the Japan Society for Promotion of Science Fellowship (1992), and a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1997). At the University of Michigan, he received a teaching excellence award from the EECS department in 1991, a research excellence award from the College of Engineering in 1994, and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship from 1995 to 1998. Dr. Khargonekar is a Fellow of IEEE.

Dr. Khargonekar received his B. Tech. Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1977, and M.S. degree in Mathematics and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Florida in 1980 and 1981, respectively.

Arun Majumdar, Professor, UC Berkeley

Dr. Arun Majumdar is Professor and Vice-Chairman (Instructions) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley. Prior to UC Berkeley he was faculty in Mechanical Engineering at Arizona State University (1989-1992) and at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1992-1996).

Dr. Majumdar is a recipient of the NSF Young Investigator Award, the ASME Melville Medal, and the ASME Best Paper Award from the Heat Transfer Division. He is currently serving as an associate editor for the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer and International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, and the co-editor-in-chief of Microscale Thermophysical Engineering. He also serves as a member of the Council on Energy Engineering Research for the Department of Energy.

Dr. Majumdar received his Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1985 and his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley in 1989.

Shailesh Mehta, President & CEO, Granite Hill Capital Ventures

He is the President of Granite Hill Capital Ventures as well as Chairman of Peach Direct, a private label credit card company. Shailesh was previously Chairman of the Board and CEO of Providian Financial Corporation, an S&P500 company.

He is Trustee of Cal State Universities. Dr. Mehta is also known for his philanthropic activities. He has formed the Shailesh J. Mehta and Kalpa S. Mehta Charitable Foundation, which has given millions in grants to various institutions including the Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management at IIT Bombay and the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco.

Jagmohan Mundhra, Film Producer & Director

Jagmohandas Mundhra (Jag Mundhra) has been making films since 1980 and has directed twenty four feature films in the past twenty years. He has produced several of these films and many of them are based on his own stories. An engineering graduate from IIT Bombay, (B.Tech. honours in Electrical Engineering) Jag Mundhra went to the United States in 1968 for the MBA programme at Michigan State University. He stayed on to do his M.A. in Advertising and a Ph.D in Marketing from the same University. In 1973, he wrote his doctoral thesis on "Marketing of Motion Pictures".

Jag Mundhra was a professor at several prestigious Universities and Colleges in Southern California. He finally decided to take the plunge full time in film making in 1980, by quitting his job and selling his cinema houses. Since then, he has directed twenty features in English and four in Hindi. He has also shot pilots for TV shows, ad films and documentaries. Many of the features directed by Jag Mundhra have been very successful through out the world and his name has a niche following in the genre of slick thrillers. His output is eclectic; from horror films, crime thrillers, to police stories and social dramas.

Jag Mundhra has received critical acclaim and several awards for his sensitive and committed portrayal of true live stories in his film "Kamla" and "Bawandar".

Avi Nash, Advisory Director, Goldman Sachs

Avi is an Advisory Director of Goldman Sachs after retiring as a Partner in 2002. In this role he is involved with several strategic, thematic and mentoring programs for the firm. Avi joined the firm in 1987, became a Vice President in 1989, a Managing Director in 1996, and a Partner of Goldman Sachs in 1998. Prior to his retirement he headed the firm's Basic Materials group in North America and the global chemical industry group in the investment research division. Avi was ranked in the Institutional Investor "All-America Research Team" for 15 years in a row, the last seven as #1. He ranked number one or two in the Greenwich Survey for the past nine years. In addition, he led the global Goldman Chemicals team to a #1 ranking. He has spoken at numerous industry and corporate meetings globally including the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Prior to joining the firm, he was a senior consultant with Booz, Allen & Hamilton from 1984 to 1987, focusing on strategy for manufacturing and technology-based companies in the U.S. and Europe. Earlier, he spent over seven years in a variety of functions including R&D, engineering, marketing and strategic planning with UOP (a Dow Chemical/Honeywell joint venture and a leading process technology licensor).

Avi serves on the Advisory board of the Center for Talented Youth (CTY), affiliated with Johns Hopkins University, and, separately, is a Trustee of The Hopkins School in New Haven, CT. In 2002, he was a recipient of a "Distinguished Alumnus" award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Avi received a Master of Management degree with distinction from Northwestern University's Kellogg School in 1981, an M.S. (ChE) from Syracuse University in 1977, and a B.Tech. ( ChE) from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, in 1975.

Vasant Prabhu, EVP & CFO, Safeway, Inc.

Mr. Prabhu was previously the President of the Information and Media Group at the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., from 1998 to 2000, Chief Financial Officer of Pepsi-Cola International, a division of PepsiCo, Inc. from 1997 to 1998 and Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of PepsiCo Restaurants International, a division of PepsiCo, Inc. from 1996 to 1997. He graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology in Bombay, India and received his MBA from the University of Chicago.