S. (KRIS) GOPALAKRISHNAN
CEO and MD, Infosys Technologies, Bangalore, India
S. Gopalakrishnan (Kris to his colleagues) is one of the founders of Infosys Technologies Limited. As Chief Executive Officer, he plays a key role in defining the company strategy and in using technology and innovation continuously to maintain its leadership of the industry.
On June 22, 2007, Kris took over from Nandan M. Nilekani as the CEO and Managing Director of Infosys Technologies Limited. Kris previously served as Chief Operating Officer (since April 2002), and as the President and Joint Managing Director (since August 2006). His responsibilities included Customer Services, Technology, Investments and Acquisitions.
Kris’ initial responsibilities at Infosys included management of design, development, implementation and support of information systems for clients in the consumer products industry in the US. Between 1987 and 1994 he headed the technical operations of KSA/Infosys (a joint venture between Infosys and KSA at Atlanta, USA) as Vice President (Technical). In 1994, Kris returned to India and was appointed Deputy Managing Director of the company.
Kris is currently the Chairman of Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management (IIITM), Kerala, and Vice Chairman of the Information Technology Education Standards Board (BITES) set up by the Government of Karnataka. He is on the board of directors of the National Internet Exchange of India. Kris currently chairs the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) Apex Council on Services. He is also a member of ACM, IEEE and IEEE Computer Society.
Kris holds M. Sc. (Physics) and M. Tech. (Computer Science) degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. He began his career with Patni Computer Systems (PCS), Mumbai as a software engineer in 1979 and quickly rose to become an assistant project manager by 1981. His seminal contribution during his stint at PCS was the development of a distributed process control system for controlling LD converters at Rourkela Steel Plant.
Title: Industry Perspectives on Automation Science and Engineering - The India Advantage
Schedule: 10.30 - 11.30 Hours; Sunday, August 23, 2009
Session Chair: Professor N. Viswanadham, Director, Center for Global Logistics and Manufacturing Strategy (GLAMS), Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, India
Abstract:
While India is developing economically at astronomical rate, the combined power of well qualified population
and economic power would stabilize at higher equilibrium. This will enable the Indian industries to invest
more in food & health care, home automation, cleantech / greentech segments and security management systems.
While the global spend on the alternative energy, health-care, diet supplementation and security management
systems would increase the natural choice of innovation and R&D driven approaches from Indian Industries
would help accelerate the growth globally.
The ability of Indian Information and automation technology companies to come together and lead large program management backed up key innovation would give strong business opportunities for developed countries and India mutually. Carbon credit schemes, compulsive alternative renewable energy use and government regulations would propel the spend on technology innovations and at the same time bind the industries to upgrade their automation / manufacturing systems.
Data transparency and faster data connectivity (both manufacturing and economical) across the business organization and decision makers will get further impetus as profitability and productivity will become core focus for all industries. Indian companies having played significant role so far would have to gear up further to handle the challenges of magnitude higher.
PETER LUH
Professor, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA
Peter B. Luh received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, in 1973; M.S. degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics Engineering from M.I.T., Cambridge, MA in 1977; and Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University in 1980. Since then he has been with the University of Connecticut, and currently is the SNET Professor of Communications & Information Technologies in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is also a member of the Chair Professors Group at the Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems, the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. He is interested in planning, scheduling, and coordination of design, manufacturing, and supply chain activities; configuration and operation of elevators and HVAC systems for normal and emergency conditions; schedule, auction, portfolio optimization, and load/price forecasting for power systems; and decision-making under uncertain or distributed environments. He is a Fellow of IEEE, Vice President of Publication Activities for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, an Associate Editor of IIE Transactions on Design and Manufacturing, an Associate Editor of Discrete Event Dynamic Systems, and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (2003-2007), and the Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation (1999-2003).
Title: From Group Elevator Scheduling to Building Emergency Evacuation
Schedule: 11.30 - 12.30 Hours; Sunday, August 23, 2009
Session Chair: Professor H.P. Khincha, Vice Chancellor, Visvesvaraya Technological University, Belgaum, Karnataka, India
Abstract:
Group elevator scheduling has been recognized as an important problem for building transportation efficiency, since unsatisfactory elevator service is one of the major complaints of building tenants. The problem, however, is difficult because of complicated elevator dynamics, uncertain traffic in various patterns, and the combinatorial nature of discrete optimization. This talk starts with the optimized scheduling of a group of elevators with destination entry and future traffic information. By exploiting the separable problem structure, a two-level formulation is established. A divide and conquer method is then developed while incorporating several innovative ideas for near-optimal performance.
When extending the above method to guide building-wide emergency evacuations, it was found that most approaches ignore psychological behaviors of crowds. This makes it difficult to capture well-observed features such as blocking and stampeding, resulting in poor evacuation performance. Based on psychological findings and simulation results, a novel egress model is established. It describes how an emergency event (e.g., fires and smoke) arouse a nonlinear collective desire of a crowd – the desired flow rate. Blocking is then the result when the desired flow rate exceeds the allowable rate as specified by the passage capacity. With this new dynamic behavior model, crowds are divided into groups, and guidance on individual groups (e.g., dynamic exit signs) are optimized and coordinated. Numerical testing and results demonstrate that, compared with existing methods, our method evacuates more people in less time.
In the talk, combinatorial optimization difficulties and human behavior issues will be highlighted.
KARL BOHRINGER
Professor, University of Washinton, Seattle, USA
Karl Böhringer is Professor of Electrical Engineering with adjunct appointments in Computer Science & Engineering and in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle. He received both his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from Cornell University and his Diplom-Informatiker degree from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany. During his dissertation work on distributed micromanipulation he designed, built, and tested multiple micro actuator arrays at the Cornell Nanofabrication Facility. He also spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Stanford Robotics Lab and Transducer Lab, where he collaborated on research in MEMS cilia arrays. From 1996 to 1998 he investigated techniques for parallel micro selfassembly as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.
His current interests include micromanipulation and microassembly, as well as biomedical implants and bioMEMS for single-cell genomics and proteomics. At the University of Washington, he is a member of the Center for Nanotechnology and the NIH Microscale Life Sciences Center. His Ph.D. thesis was nominated for the ACM doctoral dissertation award. He received an NSF postdoctoral associateship in 1997, an NSF CAREER award in 1999, and was an NSF New Century Scholar in 2000. His work was featured among the Top 100 Science Stories in Discover Magazine's "Year in Science" in January 2003. He received the 2004 Academic Early Career Award from the IEEE Robotics and Autoation Society.
Title: Programmable Self-Assembly for Microsystem Integration
Schedule: 11.30 - 12.30 Hours; Monday, August 24, 2009
Session Chair: Dr. Ram Sriram, Design & Process Group, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
Abstract:
Massively parallel self-assembling systems present a promising alternative to conventional manufacturing. Recently, various successful instances of self-assembly have been demonstrated; however, the full impact of this approach will only be realized once these systems can be programmed and reconfigured on demand. In this presentation, we review several projects that lead towards such self-assembling systems. A key concept toward this goal is the "programmable surface" - an engineered interface whose characteristics (surface forces, hydrophobicity, friction, etc.) can be controlled with high spatial and temporal resolution. We present sample projects that address various aspects ranging from real-time control of surface properties, to binding site designs that optimize attractive forces between components, to computational and algorithmic issues in the modeling of self-assembling systems.