Dr. S. Vidyashankar is the Vice-Chancellor of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU), appointed in September 2022 and reappointed for another term in September 2025. He previously served as the Vice-Chancellor of the Karnataka State Open University and has had a distinguished academic career at the Bangalore Institute of Technology, where he began teaching in 1991.

With over 28 years of teaching and 15 years of research experience, Dr. Vidyashankar has guided six Ph.D. scholars and holds several national and international patents. His academic expertise spans manufacturing engineering, including manufacturing processes, entrepreneurship, foundry technology, and automotive engineering. He also held key administrative positions such as Dean and PG Coordinator at Bangalore Institute of Technology. Dr. Vidyashankar obtained his Ph.D. from Kuvempu University in 2009, and continues to contribute significantly to the advancement of technical education, research, and innovation in Karnataka.

Dr. Prasant Misra is a Senior Scientist in the Data and Decision Sciences division of TCS Research. He also serves as Visiting Faculty in the Department of Cyber Physical Systems at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Dr. Misra has authored over 60 publications, position papers, and editorials spanning CPS/IoT, mobile systems, and electric mobility. He has been felicitated by numerous honors and awards for his work, of which it is noteworthy to mention the MIT Technology Review’s TR35 India "Top 10 Innovators under 35” and the TCS “Exemplary Contribution Award” in 2017; the ERCIM “Alain Bensoussan” and “Marie Curie” Fellowship in 2012 for scientific excellence; and the Australian Government's AusAID “Australian Leadership Awards” in 2008 for his potential to make substantial impact on social, economic, and development challenges of the Asia-Pacific region at a leadership level.

Dr. Misra actively contributes to the broader scientific and professional community through his involvement with a wide range of academic, industry, and government bodies. He has served on the committees of leading professional organizations (viz. IEEE | ACM | COMSNETS Association); government agencies (viz. MeitY); standard development organizations (viz. BIS | ISO/IEC); editorial boards (viz. Elsevier Ad Hoc Networks Journal | IEEE ITS Magazine | IEEE Communication Magazine). He also plays an active advisory role in public technology policy and capacity-building initiatives (viz. NASSCOM-MeitY FutureSkills Prime | MeitY’s Smart City 2.0).

He has over 18 years of professional experience. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and completed his Post-doctoral fellowship from RISE SICS (formerly the Swedish Institute of Computer Science), Stockholm.

He has held research positions at CSIRO Australia; and short-term visiting positions at NICTA Australia, TIFR Mumbai, Universiteit Gent, ETH Zurich. He is a senior member of the IEEE/Computer Society and ACM/SIGMOBILE. He is an ACM Distinguished Speaker.

Dr. Chengappa Munjandira is a dedicated technologist with nearly fifteen years of experience in the telecommunications industry, specializing in advanced network architectures and innovation. His expertise spans the design and deployment of NFV and virtualized RAN systems, including Telco Core, vEPC, and vIMS, with deep technical proficiency in Open RAN, AI/ML, and cloud- native solutions. Dr. Chengappa has played a key role in pioneering 5G Open RAN deployments and vDU integrations, architecting scalable and efficient systems that have driven latency reduction and enabled a diverse range of real-world applications. His work has involved developing long-term technology strategies, evaluating vendor ecosystems, and leveraging NFV technologies such as DPDK, OVS-DPDK, SR-IOV, and PCI-PT, while also actively contributing to open-source communities. He holds a Ph.D. in Virtualization and Cloud Computing from Visvesvaraya Technological University, an M.Phil. in Computer Science from Christ University, and has completed an advanced program on Space Technologies at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc).

In IEEE, Dr. Chengappa has served as Vice Chair of the IEEE Bangalore Section (2024–2025), where he strengthened faculty engagement, expanded technical activities, and supported subsections across Mysore, Mangalore, and North Karnataka. He has been instrumental in leading several major conferences, including CONECCT 2025, BHTC 2025, BTC 2023–2024. As Vice Chair for Industry Relations at the IEEE India Council (2025), he has been driving the "Industry for IEEE, IEEE for Industry" initiative, Previously, as Secretary of the IEEE Bangalore Section (2022–2023), he strengthened governance and transparency, building on his earlier roles as Lead for Membership Development (2021) and Professional Activities (2020). His leadership as SIGHT Chair (2024) saw the conceptualization of SustainFiesta, an initiative encouraging student innovation aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Dr. Chengappa continues to lead IEEE MOVE India as its Technical Lead, spearheading India's first MOVE vehicle for disaster relief and STEM outreach, while also co-leading the IEEE Catalyst Mid- Manager Program bridging academia and industry

Steven Fernandes began his postdoctoral research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he worked on projects funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He later conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Central Florida, contributing to projects funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). His current research focuses on developing robust computer vision applications using deep learning and advancing computer-aided diagnosis through medical image processing.