Dr. Karan Singh

Chairperson

DR Karan Singh was born heir-apparent to the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir. In 1949, at the age of eighteen he was appointed Regent, then elected Sadar-i-Riyasat and then Governor of the State. In 1967, he was inducted into the Union Cabinet and held the portfolios of Tourism & Civil Aviation, Health & Family Planning and Education & Culture.

He was awarded a PhD by the University of Delhi for his thesis on the Political Thought of Sri Aurobindo. He has been Chancellor of Jammu & Kashmir University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, President of the People’s Commission on Environment & Development; Chairman of the Temple of Understanding, a global Interfaith organisation; Member of the Club of Rome, the Club of Budapest, and the Green Cross International. He was a four-time Member of the Lok Sabha and since 1996 is a Member of the Rajya Sabha, re-elected in Dec 2005. He is Chairman, Ethics Committee of the Upper House of Parliament; Chairman, Governing Board of the Auroville Foundation; Chancellor of the Banaras Hindu University and President of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, having rank equal to Central Cabinet Minister.

Karan Singh has written many books and has lectured on political science, philosophy, education, religion and culture, in India and abroad. He is recognised as one of India’s outstanding thinkers and leaders.

Rajendra S. Pawar

Founder

Mr. Rajendra S. Pawar is Chairman and co-founder of the NIIT Group, that encompasses two businesses—NIIT Technologies Limited, the software and services arm and NIIT Limited, the leading Global Talent Development Corporation. Mr. Pawar has played a leadership role in nurturing NIIT and building it into a leading Global Talent Development Corporation. By pioneering NIIT’s innovative franchising model, he enabled the company to unleash a wave of entrepreneurship across the globe, providing young people with the opportunity to create viable businesses centred on IT learning.

Mr. Pawar led NIIT’s foray into the software and services market, creating NIIT Technologies, a global IT Solutions organization. NIIT Technologies serves clients across North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Mr. Pawar is a member of Prime Minister’s National Council on Skill Development, a council chaired by the Prime Minister of India. He is a member of the Planning Commission’s Task Force on Skill Development and has also served on the Prime Minister’s National Task force, which aimed at making India an IT Superpower by 2008. Actively involved in India’s key Chambers of Commerce, Mr. Pawar has led several ICT industry initiatives. He has been a Founder Member of NASSCOM (the National Association of Software & Service Companies). He is currently a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum.

Mr. Pawar studied at the Scindia School, Gwalior and completed his BTech in Electrical Engineering from IIT, Delhi in 1972. Known for promoting industry-academia alliances, he works closely with many of the country’s well-known educational institutions and is on the Board of Governors of IIT Delhi, the Indian School of Business, and the Scindia School.

Vijay K. Thadani

Member, Board of Management

Vijay K. Thadani is the Chief Executive Officer of NIIT, Asia’s leading Global Talent Development Corporation. Mr. Thadani also serves on the Board of NIIT Technologies Limited, servicing customers in the USA, Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific, and India.

Mr. Thadani has led the Group’s globalization efforts since 1991, taking the NIIT flag to over 40 countries. As the Chairman of NIIT USA, and based out of Atlanta (1999-2003), he mentored NIIT’s Strategic Alliance Program that resulted in successful acquisitions of leading technology

Mr. Thadani is deeply involved in strengthening and consolidating NIIT’s presence in the Chinese market, where the company began operations in 1998. He was recently honoured with the position of ‘Economic Consultant’ to Chongqing, world’s largest city in the People’s Republic of China.

Mr. Thadani has headed many Industry Associations and Societies including the Indian IT industry association, MAIT. He has also chaired the Indian Government’s Committee on National Information Infrastructure Policy. Mr. Thadani has served as the Chairman of the IT Committee of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in the USA.

A ‘distinguished alumnus’ of the premier IIT Delhi, Mr. Thadani has lectured at prestigious institutions including the University of Michigan Business School, the J L Kellogg Graduate School of Management and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).

Prof. M.P. Kapoor

Founding Vice-Chancellor, NIIT University

Prof MP Kapoor’s rich and varied experience spans 52 years. After completing his higher studies, Prof. Kapoor joined IIT, Kanpur as a Lecturer in 1961 as founder member of Civil Engineering Department, was promoted as Assistant Professor in 1968, Associate Professor in 1971, and as a Professor in 1974. He served IIT Kanpur in various capacities— Dean of Faculty, Deputy Director, and Officiating Director. After retirement from IIT Kanpur in 1993, he was the Vice Chancellor of Thapar University, Patiala and concurrently the Director, Thapar Centre for Industrial Research & Development for ten years.

Prof. Kapoor has also been the Chairman and member of various National Committees on higher education constituted by AICTE, UGC, and MHRD.

Prof. Kapoor has been associated with NIIT Limited as advisor on the NIIT University Project since May 2005 and has taken over as the Founding Vice-Chancellor of  NIIT University (NU) in December 2005.

Prof. Kapoor has presented and published 40 papers in National and International Conferences and National and International referred Journals. Prof Kapoor has also been the founder member of the editorial board of an International Journal entitled “Engineering Optimization”.

His qualifications include B.Sc. from Christ Church College, Kanpur, BTech degree in Civil Engineering from IIT Kharagpur, MS degree in Structural Engineering from University of Minnesota, and PhD in Engineering Mechanics from Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland, Ohio.

His areas of specialization include Structural Dynamics , Structural Optimization , Earthquake Engineering and Computer-aided design.

Prof. Rajeev Shorey

President, NIIT University

Dr. Shorey received his Ph.D and MS (Engg) in Electrical Communication Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, India in 1997 and 1991 respectively. He received his B.E degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IISc, Bangalore in 1987.

Prior to joining NIIT University, Dr. Shorey was in General Motors India Science Laboratory (ISL), Bangalore. He was the Lab Group Manager of the Vehicle Communications and Information Management Group at GM ISL. Prior to joining GM Research, Dr. Shorey was a Research Staff Member at the IBM Research Laboratory, New Delhi from 1998 to 2005. From 1996 to 1998, Dr. Shorey was at SASKEN Technologies, Bangalore as a Project Lead of the Wireless Systems group. Dr. Shorey was an adjunct faculty in the Computer Science Dept at IIT, Delhi from 1998 to 2005. He was a faculty in the Computer Science Dept at the National University of Singapore from 2003 to 2004, while on leave from IBM Research Labs in New Delhi.

Dr. Shorey’s work has resulted in more than 50 publications in international journals and conferences and several US patents, all in the area of wireless and wired networks. He has 10 issued US patents and several pending patents to his credit.

Dr. Shorey serves on the Editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing and Wireless Networks Journal of Mobile Communication, Computation and Information. He has thrice been the guest editor of IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications. He is the editor of the book titled “Mobile, Wireless and Sensor Networks: Technology, Applications and Future Directions” published by John Wiley, US in March 2006. Dr. Shorey serves as the General Chair or the Technical Program Committee Chair of several international conferences. He is the General Co-Chair of the Sixth ACM International Workshop on VehiculAr Inter-NETworking (VANET 2009), a workshop in conjunction with ACM MobiCom 2009 that will be held in Beijing, China. He is the Steering Committee Chair of COMSNETS conference that has now become one of the leading conferences in India in the area of Networks and Communications. Dr. Shorey has given numerous talks, tutorials and seminars in industry and academia all over the world.

For his contributions in the area of Communication Networks, Dr. Shorey was elected Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering in 2007. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers, India. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a Member of ACM.

Prof. Parimal Mandke

Faculty Member, NIIT University

Dr Parimal Mandke is currently the Dean, Academic Affairs at NIIT University.

With formal qualifications of MSc (Bombay University), MSc Tech (BITS, Pilani) and PhD (BITS, Pilani), her experience spans over 35 years. For the first 15 years of her career, she was a Faculty member and Dean, Educational Consultancy at BITS, Pilani. During her stint at BITS, Pilani, she gave leadership to development of new innovative on-campus and off-campus programs of studies. Noteworthy among them being the off-campus program, M S (S&T), developed in collaboration with CSIR for working scientists of the CSIR system.

As Chief, Higher Education, NIIT, Dr Parimal contributed to the design of innovative GNIIT/ANIIT/FNIIT programs and industry-linked Professional Practice. She developed educational alliances with over a dozen Indian and international universities. Since 2002, she has been involved in the establishment of the NIIT University.

Dr Parimal has presented papers and co-authored four books in the areas of R&D Management, S&T and Education. She has taught courses in Technology Management, R&D Management, Scientific Method and designed innovative research-driven course like Contemporary Issues.

Her areas of expertise include university development, university partnerships and the academic discipline of S&T.

Sanjay Gupta

Faculty Member, NIIT University

Sanjay Gupta is currently an Associate Professor and Head for Centre for Research in Cognitive System (CRCS) since July 2005.

Sanjay started his career as a Graduate Engineer Trainee in Tata Engineering (now Tata Motors), Pune in 1986. He was promoted as Assistant Engineer (Electronics) in Tata Engineering (now Tata Motors) in 1988. He also worked as Senior Scientific Officer in IIT Delhi from

1991 to 1993. He joined NIIT in 1993 and served at various positions to be promoted as Head—GM (R&D), NIIT R&D department in 2004.

Sanjay’s research interests in Computer-Assisted science education and devices for human-computer interaction led him to patent 3 devices invented by him. Patents for 7 more devices invented by him are in the pipeline. He has done projects with Ministry of Tourism, NIIT’s Hole-In-The-Wall (HIWEL) project, NIIT’s School Learning Services (SLS), and others.

Sanjay’s interests include conducting Fun Science workshops for children, photography, reading travelogues and comedy.

Prof. Sunil Khanna

Faculty Member, NIIT University

Prof. Sunil Khanna is currently Dean Planning and also Professor of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics.

Sunil started his career as a Graduate R esearch Associate in Waite Agricultural Research Institute, University of Adelaide, South Australia in 1983 and then moved to work as a Research Fellow with Microbiology and Molecular Genetics Division, University of Cincinnati, Ohio in January 1984. In September 1985, he joined Tata Energy Research Institute as Area convenor fellow and worked at that position till March

1992 to be promoted as Dean, Biotechnology in April 1992 till January 1996. He moved to Tata Energy and Resources Institute, U.S.A as Vice President in Feb 1996 till June 1998. He came back to India in July 1998 and was associated with Tata Energy Research Institute as Principal Investigator for their research projects.

Sunil held various positions with Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology (TIET) from October 2000 to July 2005—Dean, Resource Generation and Planning (2003 onwards), Executive Director, Science & Technology Enterpreneurs Park (STEP), Coordinator, Center for Relevance and Excellence (CORE), Head and Professor, Department of Biotechnology and Environmental Sciences. He then joined NIIT University as Dean, Planning, and Professor of Biotechnology and Bioinformatics.

In terms of his educational background, Sunil is a PhD (Biochemistry),

1983 from Waite Agricultural Research Institute, Adelaide, Australia. He did his Masters in 1978 from the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India. And Sunil completed his graduation in (Botany [Hons]) in 1976 from Delhi University.

Sunil is a member of a number of societies in India and abroad, and has also worked as Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Journal of Microbiology from 1993 to1996. His publications include 50 papers in peer-reviewed journals/books, 60 papers in conference proceedings/meetings, 15 technical reports, 3 reviews in books, and 2 books.

Sunil’s interests include reading fiction and contemporary books and he is also fond of pottery.