24-Hour Knowledge Factory Spring 2009: Guest Speakers

To be updated throughout the course of the semester...

January 16th:

- Sanjeev Arora , CEO - Pipal Research

Sanjeev Arora has been instrumental in crafting Pipal’s growth strategy, bringing in blue-chip investors and developing new clients via innovative products like PipalAnswers. Sanjeev joined Pipal when Agility Research, a company founded by him, was acquired by Pipal. Sanjeev has formerly been a senior consultant with McKinsey & Co., where he served a broad range of clients, focusing on corporate strategy, M&A, business building and operational assessment areas. Prior to this, Sanjeev founded AirClic, where he raised more than US $70 million, and created the industry’s most innovative platform to enable mobile workforce productivity enhancement. Sanjeev also founded Nirvana Software, a content filtering and caching company, which was later acquired by a private investor group. Sanjeev has earlier worked with EDS where he focused on IT strategy, outsourcing, portfolio structure (PMO) and large scale integration and delivery for several fortune 100 clients, and with the prestigious TATA group in India.

A national merit scholarship winner, Sanjeev holds an undergraduate degree in engineering from IIT, India, and has completed an MMBA program at McKinsey, conducted by faculty from Harvard and Wharton business schools. As a speaker, Sanjeev has shared his views on innovation, strategy, globalization and business building at the Harvard, Wharton and Kellogg business schools.

January 23th:

- Sudhir Singh , Head – Cards Practice, Infosys

Sudhir Singh is the Head of Infosys’ Global Cards Practice. He is responsible for building and strengthening Infosys’ client relationships and market visibility across the Cards domain . He also heads Infosys’ South-West US Geo Cluster Unit. Sudhir serves as part of Infosys’ Banking and Capital Markets Management Committee and as a member of Infosys’ Infrastructure Service extended Management Committee.

Sudhir has extensive experience in the Payments area focusing particularly  on Campaign Management,  Customer Data Integration, and Pricing & Loyalty mechanisms in the Retail Payments space.

Sudhir has also led Infosys’ Strategic Sourcing Point-of-View creation exercise which came up with a recommended “modularized” approach to Sourcing for Fortune 500 Organizations. He has extensive experience with both strategic and operational aspects relating to the global delivery model. In his earlier stints in Infosys, Sudhir established and grew one of Infosys’ largest/deepest relationships with a Fortune 100 FS organization which has been a pioneer in the Outsourcing space.

In his earlier stints with Unilever LLC Sudhir had driven the Unilever foray into low-cost branded staples as a Brand Manager.

- Rifat Latifi, MD, Professor - Department of Surgery

Rifat Latifi, MD, professor of clinical surgery at The University of Arizona Department of Surgery and trauma surgeon at University Medical Center, has been named interim medical director of the Level 1 Trauma Program at UMC.

Dr. Latifi joined the UA Department of Surgery in 2003, serving as director of Surgical Critical Care at UMC and as associate director of the Arizona Telemedicine Program. He developed the Southern Arizona Teletrauma and Telepresence (SATT) Program, which provides a live consultation link -- including state-of-the-art videoconferencing, telemetry, digital X-rays and ultrasound -- between the trauma doctors at UMC and rural emergency rooms doctors and nurses in the southern section of the state to assist in trauma care of injured and critically ill patients.

A medical graduate of the University of Prishtina, Prishtina, Kosova, Dr. Latifi completed internships at the University of Prishtina and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio, and residency at Yale University School of Medicine. He also was a Surgical Critical Care Fellow at New York Medical College.

Dr. Latifi specializes in trauma, general surgery and critical care with special interest in re-operative surgery, advanced laparoscopic surgery, and nutrition support of surgery and critically ill patients. He has published eight books and has authored and co-authored more than 100 articles and book chapters. Most recently he directed the medical care for the marathon swimmer Martin Strel during the Amazon Swim Expedition through telemedicine and introduced telemedicine in many communities along the Amazon River in Peru and Brazil.

January 30th:

- Neeraj Gupta , Executive Vice President - Patni Computer Systems

Mr. Neeraj Gupta, an Executive Vice-President, is the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) and Head of Global Client Relations with responsibility for leading all commercial functions including global sales and marketing.

Prior to this role, Mr. Gupta headed two key business units – Communications & Media and Growth Industries. During this period, he developed a strong base for the growth of the Company and diversified its revenues geographically. Before joining Patni, he was the founder and CEO of Cymbal Corporation, a services company focused on Communications Service Providers. Mr. Gupta has almost 20 years of proven leadership experience in various areas including product management, marketing, professional services, and engineering at leading technology companies including Octel Communications, LucentTechnologies, Genesys Telecom, and Alcatel.

Mr. Gupta has a Bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering from Punjab Engineering College, India and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Alabama, USA.

Feburary 6th:

- Jayachandran Chittenipat - Cognizant Technology Solutions

Jayachandran C P leads the Product Management and Solution Architecture team of Cognizant's Process, Tools and Knowledge Mgmt Group. He is responsible setting the strategic direction and planning for various tools and techniques in the areas of Knowledge Mgmt, Software Delivery and Organizational Process Implementation. He has extensive experience in working with and managing globally distributed software projects. In his current responsibility, he performs his role for a strategic initiative for Cognizant attempting to harness the power of enterprise knowledge management and leveraging the same to drive tangible and real time excellence and efficiency in software delivery.

During his tenure in Cognizant of over 6+ years, Jay has been passionately involved in various complex enterprise wide automation initiatives across project management, service management and enterprise knowledge management. His roles and responsibilities has spanned areas of product management, solution architecting, change management, measurement, monitoring and user feedback analysis. Prior to Cognizant, he has been involved in development and implementation of large scale automation projects in logistics domain.

A Certified PMP from PMI, he is passionate about the various processes and methods of project and software delivery management. He holds a Post Graduation in Management from The Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore and a Bachelors from Madras University.

Feburary 13th:

-Raj Goyal , Mallinckrodt Professor of Medicine - Harvard Medical School

Dr Raj K. Goyal is Mallinckrodt Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and staff physician at the VA Boston Healthcare System (VABHS). He earned his M.B.B.S. from Amritsar Medical College, Panjab University, and his M.D. from Maulana Azad Medical College, University of Delhi, in India. Following postdoctoral training at Yale University, he joined Baylor College of Medicine in 1971 and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in 1973. In 1978, he became chair of the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of Texas in San Antonio. In 1981, he joined Harvard Medical School and became chair of the Division of Gastroenterology at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He was later recruited to the VABHS and served as Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the VABHS from 1995 to 2005. Dr. Goyal is an eminent gastroenterologist and an investigator whose research has provided some of the important advances in our understanding of esophageal and gastric physiology and diseases including Barrett's esophagus, enteric neurotransmission and the physiology and pathophysiology of esophageal and gastric motility. He provided the first evidence for the existence of muscarinic receptor subtypes. His work forms the basis of many current concepts regarding the regulation of esophageal sphincters, esophageal peristalsis, esophageal nocioceptors, gastroparesis and Barrett's esophagus. Dr Goyal has served on numerous editorial boards and was editor-in-chief of Gastroenterology from 1986 to 1991. He was the Founder President of the American Motility Society and is the recipient of its Distinguished Achievement Award.

- Jamie Casap , Business Development Manager - Google inc.

( Notice: postpone to later date )

Jaime Casap is a Business Development Manager at Google, inc., a provider of search technology based in Mountain View, CA.  In his role on the Google Apps for Education Team, Jaime is responsible for evangelizing Google Apps to universities and colleges in North, Central, and South America.

Previously, Jaime was part of Charles Schwab’s Talent Management and Development Team and responsible for the employee development program for the Technology organization, under the direction of Charles Schwab’s CIO.  Before joining Charles Schwab, Jaime was a Manager at Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting) for six years, where he consulted on organizational strategy and human performance in the Electronics and High Tech Industry.  Jaime also served a role on Governor Cuomo’s Welfare Reform Task Force.  Jaime holds a B.S. from the State University of New York at Brockport and a Master’s from Arizona State University.

In addition to his role at Google, Jaime is a Faculty Associate at Arizona State University’s School of Public Programs, where he teaches classes in Organizational Behavior, Leadership, and Innovation. 

Jaime also serves on the Arizona Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education Program Advisory Board and Arizona State University’s School of Engineering and School of Computer Science Advisory Boards.

March 13th:

- Krishna S. Nathan, Vice President - Storage Systems Development, IBM

Dr. Krishna Nathan is Vice President, Storage Systems Development where he is responsible for the development of IBM storage products including disk, tape and software.  He joined IBM in 1991 at the T.J. Watson Research Center, and held various research and management positions in pen computing, handwriting recognition, mobile and handheld platforms and related applications. From 1999 to 2001, Dr. Nathan was director for consumer voice systems in the software group, where he led world-wide sales, marketing and development of IBM's consumer line of speech products.  In 2002 Dr. Nathan returned to IBM Research as director of the Zurich Research Laboratory and later vice president of services. Prior to assuming his current role, he was vice president of Technology where, among other things, he was responsible for driving the technology roadmap for the company. Dr. Nathan holds a doctorate in electrical sciences from Brown University and a master's degree in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

April 10th:

-Biplab Adhya, Vice President - Financials & Business Services Industry Leader, Genpact Software

Biplab holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, India and an MBA with majors in Finance and Systems from IIM Bangalore, India. He has more than 14 years of business process and IT consulting experience.

Biplab has been with Genpact for the past 7 years. He currently leads the Financial Services and Business Services Industry verticals for Genpact Software. He has extensive experience leading complex Application Management initiatives, ERP Deployments and running IT PMO/ Centers of Excellence for large global customers.

Prior to Genpact, Biplab worked for  PricewaterhouseCoopers and program managed engagements ranging from business process reengineering initiatives to package implementations.

April 23th:

-Phil Clay, Chancellor - MIT

Phillip L. Clay is the Chancellor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Professor of City Planning. He has served as the Chancellor since 2001. The Chancellor and the Provost are the Institute’s two most senior academic officers. As Chancellor, Professor Clay has oversight responsibility for graduate and undergraduate education at MIT, student life, student services, international initiatives, and the management of certain of MIT’s large-scale institutional partnerships. Together, the Chancellor and the Provost advise the President and participate in strategic planning, faculty appointments, resource development, and Institute resources and buildings.

Professor Clay is widely known for his work in U.S. housing policy and community-based development and has been involved in several studies that received national attention. For example, in a 1987 study commissioned by the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp., he identified the market and institutional conditions contributing to the erosion of low-income rental housing and documented the need for a national preservation policy. He later served on the national commission that recommended the policy that became part of the Housing Act of 1990. His research and writing continue to explore U.S. housing and urban policy. In his most recent research, sponsored by several national foundations, Professor Clay evaluated the effectiveness of various initiatives to build organizational and developmental capacity in community-based development organizations.