Board of Advisors

Prof K. Thyagarajan – IIT, Delhi

Prof. K. Thyagarajan, has done R & D in the area of Fiber Optics since 1973. During 1988 to 1991 he was an awardee of the Research Fellowship of the Indian National Science Academy. He received (jointly with Prof. B. P. Pal) the "Fiber Optic Person of the Year 1997" award by Lucent Technologies- Finolex and Voice and Data, India. He has been a Visiting Scientist at the Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France, Thomson-CSF, Orsay, France and a Visiting Professor the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville. His current research interests are in the fields of nonlinear guided wave optics, optical fiber amplifiers, fiber gratings and dispersion compensating systems.

Dr. Anil Prabhakar – IIT, Chennai

Dr. Anil Prabhakar, was awarded Ph.D in Applied Physics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1997 and joined as Faculty Member in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) ,Chennai, India in 2002. Between 1997 and 2002, he was with the MKE-Quantum and then Read-Rite Corporation, Fremont, CA, and at Bangpa-in, Thailand, working in various capacities in charge of the design, characterization, and production of magnetic recording heads for hard disk drives. He is also an active member of the Optical Components and Subsystems Group, Center for Intelligent Optical Networks, IIT Chennai. His current interests include quantum electronics, nonlinear systems and alternative and augmentative communication devices. He received the INAE Young Engineer award in 2007 for his contributions to Electromagnetic and Optics.

Dr. Balaji Srinivasan – IIT, Chennai

Dr. Balaji Srinivasan, is a Senior Development Scientist, obtained his Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of New Mexico, USA and is currently working in the Indian Institute of Technology - Madras as an Assistant Professor.. Balaji’s research interests span the development of active and passive optical components / subsystems for telecommunications and fiber optic sensors. He is the winner of the prestigious Collegiate Inventor Award in 2000, New Focus Student Award in 1999, and is a frequent reviewer for journals published by the Optical Society of America and IEEE.

Satish Irde – Principal Partner, SISA Consulting

Satish Irde as Business Consultant, Satish assists SME organizations with their go-to-market strategy. Satish provides thought leadership in setting up business right from initiation activities, opportunity analysis, critical risk assessment, milestone scheduling, brand identity creation, operational guidelines & harvest strategy. Satish actively assists in setting up sales process, back-office process, and customer relationship management process. Satish has 18 years of IT industry experience, exposure to business philosophy in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pac. He has acquired a very well-rounded understanding of the various necessary aspects of both mentoring and running a successful technology business in its various life-cycle stages, envisioning/ business planning, building up relevant competencies/ teams, market positioning and development / alliances programs / setup and running scalable operation.