Dilip Asbe
Chief Executive Officer, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)
Dilip Asbe is Managing Director & CEO of National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) since 2017. Prior to this post, he was Chief Operating Officer of NPCI. He has played a pivotal role in designing, building, operationalisation and management of large-scale innovative payments processing platforms like Immediate Payment Service (IMPS), Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS), India’s homegrown card network RuPay and much acclaimed Unified Payments Interface (UPI). A formidable leader to the core, he has ensured the delivery of processing over 7 billion financial transactions a month with remarkable mentoring of teams. He was awarded the ‘Changemaker of the Year’ award for the revolutionary product UPI which he spearheaded, by one of the leading business dailies. He was also awarded the ET award 2018 for ‘Policy Change Agent of the Year’ award for UPI. In September 2019, he was awarded the ‘Financial Express Award in Fintech category’ from the Hon’ble FM, Ms. Nirmala Sitharaman. In February 2020 another feather was added by CNBC TV18 at the India Business Leader of the Year Award for UPI product terming it as ‘The Disruptor’. Dilip holds a Master of Science (MS) Degree in Global Management (Executive Programme) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UK and Electronics Engineering from Mumbai University.
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 Sunil Bajpai
Chief Trust Officer, Tanla Platforms
Sunil Bajpai is Chief Trust Officer at Tanla Platforms Limited, a leading provider of Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) headquartered in India. While at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, as Principal Advisor, he worked on the net neutrality rules for India, revision of benchmarks for quality of service, and adoption of blockchain as RegTech in the telecom industry. He has held leadership positions in operations, information technology, research, and policy areas on Indian Railways. He holds a Master’s in design engineering and an M. Phil in Social Sciences.
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 Vidushi Chaturvedi
Deputy Director General, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
A strong votary of gender empowerment, Ms. Vidushi Chaturvedi has contributed to the area of mainstreaming women and girls through education, sports and technical skills. During her tenure as Director Education in New Delhi Municipal Council, she spearheaded the momentum to make Right to Education 2009, a success through the conversion of regular schools into Day Boarding schools that would be engaged in 360 degree support to children living in jhuggis and temporary shelters- providing them nutritious food, an enabling and encouraging environment that made learning an enjoyable endeavour. These happy and safe spaces were gender expansive and deepened the sense of belonging in children. As a Team Leader of the Gender Equality and Social Equity stream on a project on Rural Telephony and Information Technology (in partnership with CIDA, IBM Sasktel, State Govt of Madhya Pradesh amongst others), she ensured that gender perspectives was intertwined into the main policy framework to benefit marginalized sections by leveraging latest technology. She was also the Finance representative at the UPU’s Annual Congress 2018, at its HQ in Bern. Having worked in departments like that of Women and Child Development and Health and Family Welfare, she has been instrumental in the effective implementation of social legislations like the Juvenile Justice Act 2015, Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 and the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act 1994 as well as the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA) 2003 as well as the Drug-de-addiction programme. Currently, she is involved in the execution of the Aadhaar Act 2016, which is proving to be the backbone of all things digital and the 12 digit identity number has evolved into the most effective tool of empowerment of one and all. Ms.Vidushi’s intellectual pursuits include an M.Phil in International Relations, LLB and Masters in English Literature. She has contributed articles in journals on areas including Gender Mainstreaming, Children’s Education and Media and Politics, besides being a visiting faculty in government institutions. Before joining the civil services in 1998 in the Indian Post and Telecommunications Finance and Accounts service, she taught English Literature in Lucknow University and was a Freelance journalist for the print and electronic media.
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Saurabh Garg
Chief Executive Officer, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI)
Dr. Garg is an IAS officer of Odisha Cadre and has worked as Joint Secretary in the Departments of Expenditure and Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Government of India; and as Secretary in the Departments of Agriculture, Industries and Urban Development at the Government of Odisha. He was on a secondment as Adviser at the World Bank, Washington DC. Prior to joining the IAS, he was with the Tata Administrative Service. He has worked on areas like digitalizing agriculture, direct income transfer scheme for farmers, formation of the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF); improving the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) policies; preparing the framework for digital payments; revamping of the gold sector policies and has led negotiations for the Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs). Dr. Garg holds a Ph.D in International Economics and Development from the Johns Hopkins University, USA; an MBA from IIM, Ahmedabad and a B. Tech from IIT Delhi. He was a Chevening Gurukul scholar at the LSE, London.
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 Archana Goyal Gulati
Head of Government Affairs and Public Policy, Google, India
Dr. Gulati is a telecom and competition policy expert with an illustrious career of over 30 years with the Government of India. Dr Gulati took voluntary retirement in 2021 at the Senior Deputy Director General/Additional Secretary level. She belongs to the 1989 batch of the Indian Civil Services. Among the various positions she has held in the Government of India, she served as Joint Secretary (Digital Communications) with the NITI Aayog, the policy think tank of the Indian Government. Before this, in her role as Senior Deputy Director-General in the Department of Telecommunications, Dr Gulati served as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the Chairperson of the Telecom Commission of India. She has also previously headed the M&A wing of the Competition Commission of India, and been the Financial Advisor to the Vice Chairperson of India's National Disaster Management Authority. Dr. Gulati has extensive experience in participating in and contributing to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) as an expert on Digital Policy and Universal Service policy. She has served as an ITU expert on a mission for Nepal & Afghanistan on ICTs for Persons with Disabilities. Most recently, she was co-rapporteur of the ITU-Development sector's Study Group (2018-21) dealing with Consumer Protection in the Digital Age and has represented the Asia Pacific Region as Vice-Chair of the ITU Working Group on Finance and Human Resources. Dr. Gulati is passionate about the transformative power of digital communications and technologies and has endeavoured to formulate policies and programmes to enable universal access to communication and information services. As the Joint Administrator (Finance) of the Universal Service Fund of India, she spearheaded a special scheme for rural women called Sanchar Shakti which was launched by the President of India on International Women’s day in 2011. She is widely recognised as a thought leader and expert in digital policy and regulations. Her educational qualifications include a BA Honours in Economics from Lady Sri Ram College, Delhi University, LLM (Telecom & IT law) from the University of Strathclyde, UK, and a PhD. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She is a prolific writer and has written many articles and contributed chapters to books on the subjects of ICTs, universal service and competition.
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Bilel Jamoussi
Chief of Study Groups Department, TSB, ITU
Tunisian born, Dr. Bilel Jamoussi is Chief of the Study Groups Department of ITU Standardization Bureau in Geneva Switzerland. Since 2010, he has been leading the bureau’s standards making activities into a new era characterized by rapid convergence and the need for increased collaboration with vertical sectors and partnership between developed and developing countries. Prior to 2010, Jamoussi worked for a Telecommunication equipment and solutions provider for 15 years in Canada and then in the United States where he held several leadership positions and was granted 22 US patents in diverse areas including packet, optical, wireless, and quality of service. He holds a BSc, MSc and PhD degrees in Computer Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is fluent in Arabic, French, and English and speaks some Spanish and German.
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 MC Sathish Kumar
Deputy Administrator, Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), Government of India
Mr. MC Sathish Kumar is a 2014 batch officer of Indian Civil Services belonging to IP&TAFS service. He is currently working in New Delhi in the Ministry of Communications as Deputy Administrator in Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) and deals with the financial matters of the Fund which is setup to plug the digital divide in Rural and Remote areas. Before joining USOF, he was working in the field unit of Department of Telecommunications as Joint Controller in the telecom circle of Maharashtra & Goa and Tamil Nadu.
Prior to joining the prestigious Indian Civil Services in 2014, he was working as Project Manager in Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), a central government public sector undertaking, taking care of the civil infrastructure projects. He started his career as a Software engineer in Infosys technologies limited. He did his Bachelor in Civil Engineering from College of Engineering, Anna University, Chennai and completed micro Masters in Data, Economics and Development Policy (MITx DEDP) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA. He is actively involved in the ITU-T Study Group 3 activities which deals with the policy, economic and regulatory aspects of International Telecom/ICT matters and holds the position of Associate Rapporteur in two Questions of ITU-T SG3, Rapporteur in ITU-T SG3 Asia-Oceania region and as Editor for several work items in SG3.
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 Min Suk Lee
Policy Research Director, Department of Telecommunications Competition, Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI)
Dr. Min Suk Lee is a Director of Competition Policy Research Department in KISDI (Korea Information Society Development Institute), a government-funded ICT research brain in Korea. He also currently holds a Vice-chairmanship of ITU-T SG3 RG-AO. Dr. Lee has participated in more than 50 government research projects most of which are related to the regulatory framework of the ICT sector. He is a principal researcher of Annual Telecommunications Market Review in Korea since 2015, and has played a critical role to establish the current shape of regulatory framework of Korea which leaded him to award the commendation from the Ministry of Science and ICT in 2021. He holds a Ph.D in Economics from Virginia Tech, USA.
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 Andrew Lynn
Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), India
Professor Andrew M. Lynn is on the faculty of the School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), where he works in the area of Computational Biology. His areas of research are in the use of hidden Markov models in sequence recognition, molecular structure and dynamics, systems biology, open-source drug discovery and biomedical data science. Cyberinfrastructure is an additional area of expertise - he has built the university high performance computer facility, and was Director of the university’s Communication and Information Services facility during the establishment of the National Knowledge Network, where he simultaneously established infrastructure for E-learning. He has served as a Dean, School of Computational and Integrative Studies, JNU. Other administrative responsibilities include servingl on the Board of Studies at various universities within the country, and empowered technical committees within the Govt. of India.
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 Anju Mangal
Regional Head, A4AI for Asia & Pacific
Anju is A4AI’s Regional Head of Asia and Pacific. Her work focuses on strengthening A4AI national coalitions and support stakeholder collaborations to advance our shared goal of affordable access across Asia. Anju was affiliated with the Pacific Community (SPC) as the Digital Transformation ECM Specialist and Business Analyst Adviser. Anju was recently awarded the Obama Foundation leadership fellowship and the U.S State of Department International Visitor’s Leadership Programme on Digital Economy and Cybersecurity. She is currently the Vice Chair of the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Forum and the Vice Chair of the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society. Anju was a tutor for DiploFoundation’s ICT Strategy Course and a research expert in Internet Governance. She was an ISOC Ambassador, Commonwealth IGF fellow and APrIGF fellow. She was the first Pacific Islander to be elected as a Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) member of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum. She has also worked for the the UN Internet Governance Forum-Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland. |
 Shailendra Kumar Mishra
Chairman, ITU-T SG3 Regional Group for Asia and Oceania (SG3-RG-AO) | Pr. Advisor, Financial & Economic Analysis, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
Mr. S.K. Mishra is an officer of the Indian P&T Accounts and Finance Service. Mr. Mishra holds a Masters’ in Public Administration and an M.Phil in Social Sciences. He also holds a Master’s degree in ‘Sanskrit’ from University of Allahabad. He is a Life Member of the Indian Institute of Public Administration and the Bougainvillea Society of India. Over a career spanning about 30 years, he has worked in the Department of Telecommunications and Department of Posts in Government of India in various capacities in field offices and headquarters dealing with Finance, Project appraisal, Revenue management, Tariff setting and costing, Accounting, Internal Audit, Human Resource Management/Development, Establishment, General Administration and Training. He was Financial Advisor to the Government of India-UNDP (1996-2000) project on ‘Human Resource Development and Management in Telecom; executed with the help of ITU. From 2003 to 2005, he supervised the Telecom Revenue operation billing, Accounting and related IT systems, Tariffs and the Banking operations of MTNL, Mumbai. He served as DDG (PAF), Department of Posts, and Head of the Postal Accounts Organization from 2006-2008 and as Director General, National Institute of Communication Finance from 2008-2012.Thereafter he worked in Department of Telecommunications as in charge of Assessment of Non-tax revenues from telecom sector as well as the financial and economic analysis of Telecom licenses. From January 2015, he is working as Pr. Advisor (Financial and Economic Analysis) in the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). He is dealing with Tariff and economic regulation, Accounting separation, Costing of services, Financial and economic impact analysis of regulatory decisions, Assessment of economic and financial health and performance of the sectors regulated by TRAI, as well as Internal finance, Accounts and budgeting for the TRAI. He is also the Appellate Authority for TRAI for the matters relating to RTI Act.
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 Atsuko Okuda
Regional Director, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
Ms Atsuko Okuda was appointed as the Regional Director in April 2020. She leads ITU’s support to the region’s digital transformation and manages the Bangkok and Jakarta offices to cover 38 member countries in Asia and the Pacific. Prior to the new assignment, she was the Chief of the ICT and Development Section of the ICT and Disaster Risk Reduction Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in Bangkok, Thailand from 2015 to 2020. At ESCAP, she promoted the development of regional broadband connectivity and inclusive broadband through the implementation of the Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway (AP-IS) initiative. Before joining ESCAP, Ms Okuda served the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in Beirut as the Chief of the Governance and Statebuilding Section and the Chief of the Strategic Planning and Monitoring Section which managed the ESCWA’s programme and projects. Prior to it, she contributed to the Umoja project, the UN Secretariat ERP initiative, in the Office of the Under-Secretary-General of the Department of Management, UNHQ for 2 years. From 2002 to 2010, she was responsible for promoting a wide range of ICT for development initiatives at ESCAP and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) as Senior IT Officer. She started her UN career in the area of ICT for Development at the Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, the Bureau for Development Policy, and UNDP Country Office in Bhutan from 1997 to 2002. Ms Okuda obtained a BA from Kyoto University (Japan), MA from Helsinki University (Finland), and has currently been enrolled as a research fellow at the United Nations University – Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT) in the Netherlands. Her doctoral thesis is entitled “Towards e-compliance: Anti-corruption and e-governance initiatives in the case of Bhutan”, to be defended in 2021. Her academic articles on broadband, AI, and Digital Transformation were published by the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy and the Druk Journal. Among other publications and research papers, she was the author of a chapter on e-resilience in the 2018 UNDESA E-government Survey and several blogs published by ITU.
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 Rajesh Pathak
Secretary, Technology Development Board (TDB), Govt. of India
Shri Rajesh Kumar Pathak is a 1995 batch Civil Service Officer of IP&TAFS Cadre. He holds Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from University of Roorkee (Now IIT Roorkee) and Master’s degree in Technology from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi. He also did Post Graduate Diploma in Public Policy & Management (PPM) from Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore. During his 26 years long service career, Shri Pathak has held many challenging assignments in Central Govt. Ministries, Urban Local Body (ULB), Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), Govt. PSU and Autonomous Statutory Bodies etc. He has vast working experience of various Govt. functions viz. Accounts & Finance Functions, Administrative Functions, Audit Functions, Regulatory & Statutory Functions, Policy Formulation & Implementation, Financial Management, Taxation, Tender and Contract Management etc. Shri Pathak has assumed charge of Secretary, Technology Development Board (TDB), DST in July 2021. In this short period of time, under his guidance TDB has supported many path breaking indigenous technologies in telecom sector such as giga mesh solution for 4G/5G connectivity in rural sector by M/s Astrome Technologies pvt. ltd and NavIC receiver chips for navigation by M/s. Manjeera Digital Systems pvt. ltd. Besides these, TDB recently supported innovative technologies such as Daylighting technology for achieving Net Zero Target by M/s. Skyshade daylights pvt. ltd. and Drone swarming by M/s. BotLab Dynamics.
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 V. L. Kantha Rao
Mr. V. L. Kantha Rao has been Additional Secretary (Telecom), Ministry of Communication, Government of India since January 2022. Prior to this, Mr. Rao was the Additional Secretary & DG (Acquisition) in Ministry of Defense. He also held the post of Additional Secretary in Department of Defence Production. He has earlier served in the Government of India in the Ministries of Commererce & Industry and Information Technology. He was Industry Commissioner and Principal Secretary, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Department of the State Government of Madhya Pradesh during 2014-18. Mr. Rao belongs to the Indian Administrative Service of 1992 batch and has wide expertise in the area of Defence, Election, Industry, E-governance and Finance in a career spanning 30 years. He has Engineering and MBA degree earned before joining the Government.
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 Anand Sampathraman
Director, Sustainability & Industry 4.0, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Asia Pacific
Anand is Director of Sustainability and Industry 4.0 at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), serving Asia Pacific customers. Prior to this role, he was Head of Internet of Things for Asset & Energy Management solutions serving global customers at TCS. He has been instrumental in architecting and developing multiple IoT platform and analytic models for Asset & Energy Management solutions and providing managed services for global clients. He now consults Asia Pacific clients at TCS on Sustainability (includes net zero ambitions) and Industry 4.0. He has held responsibilities as a Plant Manager in Automotive industry before joining TCS in 2009. He has two solution copyrights and multiple papers on Sustainability related subject. He is a certified Industry 4.0 assessor and a certified Manufacturing consultant. Anand is a Chemical Engineer from AC.Tech Anna University, Chennai, post-graduate in Management from Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode. He has also done an executive program in IoT from MIT, Sloan School of Management.
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 Tavpritesh Sethi
Associate Professor, Computational Biology & Founding Head, Center of Excellence in Healthcare, IIIT-Delhi
Dr. Tavpritesh Sethi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computational Biology and the founding head of Center of Excellence in Healthcare at IIIT-Delhi. His area of expertise is computational medicine and he has built artificial intelligence solutions for ICUs, COVID-19 and antibiotic resistance. Dr. Sethi received his M.B.B.S from Government Medical College, Amritsar and Ph.D. from CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, New Delhi, India. He has been a visiting faculty at Stanford University for two years. He is a fellow of the DBT/Wellcome India Alliance and the Kavli Foundation of National Academy of Sciences, USA. Dr. Sethi published more than 40 articles in international journals, is a TEDx speaker, has delivered several keynote addresses at international venues and serves as an academic editor for PLOS One, Nature Scientific Reports, PeerJ and Journal of Genetics.
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