Digital Solutions for Environmental and Economic Development

Dr. Balvinder Shukla is a professor of entrepreneurship, leadership & Information Technology and is currently the Vice Chancellor of Amity University Uttar Pradesh. She has an M.Tech from IIT Kharagpur and a Ph.D. from Queen's University, UK. She is the co-author of several books including 'The Role of Business Incubators in the Economic Growth of India' and 'Human Resource Management'. Her keen areas of interest lie in promoting Entrepreneurship, Research, Internationalization, CSR, and Industry-Academia Collaborations. She has conducted several executive programs and consulting assignments for Industry and mentored many budding Entrepreneurs, Women Entrepreneurs, and Family Business Owners in various clusters/sectors. Her contributions are widely acclaimed and recognised with numerous prestigious awards and honours. Some of the recent ones are "Excellence in Entrepreneurship Development Award, Academic Leadership Award, Excellent Contribution to Education Sector Award, Vice Chancellor of the Year Award, and Life-Time Achievement Award" and the latest one "National Distinguished Vice Chancellor Award" by the esteemed Indian Institute of Ecology and Environment, and the prestigious Sushma Swaraj Stree Shakti Samman Award in 2024."

Dr. Bulusu Krishna Murthy is currently working as Dean Translational Research and Entrepreneurship Development at Amity University, Nioda. He also served as Dean Research, Atria University, Bengaluru; Senator IIITDM Kurnool and Professor of Practice DIT University Dehradun and Adjunct Professor at IIITM Gwalior. As Senior Director (Scientist G) and Group Coordinator (R&D in IT and NKN) in the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Government of India, where he served for 35 years, he was responsible for promotion of R&D in IT; Viswesvaraya PhD Fellowship scheme; National Knowledge Network, Cyber Security, Digital India Infoway, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology. Establishment of Media Lab Asia (Digital India Corporation). Main architect of the National Strategy on Blockchain and Unified Blockchain Farmework in 2021. After taking VRS from MeitY in October 2021, he joined as CEO, IIT Bhilai Innovation and Technology Foundation (IBITF), Raipur, with the responsibilities of establishment of Technology Innovation Hub (TIH) for FinTech under the National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems, funded by DST, Govt. of India. Dr. Murthy was Conferred with the prestigious VASVIK Industrial Research Award for the year 2020 in the field of Information and Communication Technologies.

Dr. Nitasha Hasteer is a Professor and Head of the Information Technology Department, as well as the Deputy Director (Academics) at the Amity School of Engineering & Technology, Amity University Uttar Pradesh. She holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science & Engineering and has over 24 years of teaching, research, and administrative experience across academia and industry. Her primary research interests lie in Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Crowdsourced Software Development, Software Project Management, and Process Modeling using Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques. Dr. Hasteer has made significant contributions to these fields, publishing more than 80 research papers in renowned international journals and conferences. Her work focuses on advancing computational techniques and methodologies that improve software development processes and decision-making frameworks, as well as exploring the integration of machine learning with cloud-based systems for optimized, scalable solutions. She has successfully guided numerous postgraduate dissertations and is currently mentoring PhD scholars in both Computer Science & Engineering and Management. Dr. Hasteer has also contributed to the academic community as an editor for books published by prestigious publishers such as Springer and Taylor & Francis. Her academic leadership extends to the broader research community, where she has served on the editorial boards of several high-impact international conferences. She has secured research funding from prominent governmental organizations, including the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), the Department of Science & Technology (DST), the Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO), the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), and the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) for organizing international conferences that advance knowledge in the domain of Information Technology.

Prof. Sumeet Gupta is affiliated as Professor in the Dept. of Information Technology and Systems at IIM Raipur. He received PhD (Information systems) as well as MBA from National University of Singapore and BE (Mining) from GEC Raipur. He has a total of 18 years of work experience in Industry, Teaching and Research, during which he worked with L&T India, The Logistics Institute-Asia Pacific, Singapore and SSGI Bhilai before joining IIM Raipur. He participated in Global Colloquium at Harvard Business School in 2015. He has been accredited by AIMA as an Accredited Management Teacher and was awarded Prof. Manubhai M Shah Memorial Award by Indian Commerce Association for the year 2017. He was also awarded President Graduate Fellowship at the National University of Singapore. He has published more than 50 papers in top-ranked International Journals (DSS, Omega, P&M, I&M, IJIM, EJOR etc.) and more than 30 papers in International Conferences (ICIS, ECIS, PACIS, AMCIS, AOM, POMS, etc.) and his publications count exceed 100. He has also edited two books in the area of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain. His research interests include Electronic Governance, E-Commerce and Business Analytics. He has conducted several consultancy projects with both Private and Govt. bodies in India and abroad and has conducted many training programs.

Prof. Diptiranjan Mahapatra an IIM Ahmedabad graduate, is in the Policy and Strategic Management Area at IIM Sambalpur. His research interest is interdisciplinary and at the intersection of Strategy, Public Policy, and Economics. He is especially interested in the Nonmarket Strategy (NMS) including State-owned Enterprises (SoEs); Geopolitics in Energy Market; Antitrust issue in Platform Economy; Corporate Political Activity, Public-Private-Partnership (PPP), and Street level Bureaucrats. His industry experience includes working with the Adani group and Reliance Industries Limited, and also as a scientific staff with BNL, Department of Energy, USA for one carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project.