Chairperson: Rajiv Kapur
Organizers: Chitra Giridhar, Sanjeev Mehta, Anurag Gupta

Rajiv Kapur
Managing Director, Broadcom India

India has come a long way as a global force in the Semiconductor Industry. There has been considerable evolution, starting from the days of India’s first fabs, to the period where Indian talent became highly sought after globally, and on to a time when companies outside India trusted Indian firms for outsourcing. Today, we are a well recognized talent power house in VLSI design, SW and system engineering, a fertile ground that provides an environment and ecosystem to do significant parts of global product development, and we as a country are now recognized for our abilities in product definition, market development and customer interactions – both for India and from India.

The VLSI conference, now in its 22nd year, has witnessed this evolution. It has served as India’s premier platform for VLSI engineers to share their research, network and ideas. It is therefore very apt for us to now use this annual conference as a platform to start discussing India as a market. The world has noticed India’s emergence. No business can ignore the potential of India as a consumer base. High growth and infrastructure build-out will happen. The individual consumer will desire more and spend for it. It is not a question of how and why but more a question of how fast and when. To some extent, it does not matter whether India’s GDP grows at 5% or 8%. What matters more is that it is growing at a noticeable pace, and India is an increasingly important consumer market, at a time when the developed nations struggle to sustain their growth and face recession. We earlier saw a flurry of high-tech companies initially using talent from India, then in India, and now for India.

Today, we still commonly see products developed for global markets sold into India as-is. While this model may suit many products and businesses, it probably does not best fit our needs across the board. There is now recognition that India has unique needs, which should bring unique products and services. Maybe all we need is a little tweak to the UI or feature set. India’s diversity of languages forces careful thought on language support. Power poses a lot of challenges, and product design cannot ignore it. India is large and often remote, with many needs, and careful thought must be given to how best to serve those needs. Education, banking, medicine are basic needs that do not easily reach our vast rural population. Technology/products and services must be carefully put together to meet the needs of the country.

Global semiconductor players and India majors are now focused on how to harness various technology solutions to address those needs. Use of the 280M+ cell phones as a platform, wireless technology to get connectivity, and products and services designed for the common man are now getting significant attention in all verticals. The government of India is doing its part to encourage this focus. Start-ups are creating unique products, and are getting recognition from the VC/PE world. We, as a VLSI industry in India, must increasingly leverage our technology prowess to recognize the needs of this large, still untapped market. Whether driven by entrepreneurship, love for technology, commercial interests, philanthropy or love for the country, there is a need for us all to look around us and propose products that fit well into India. India has a large need, and now is the time to create products that address it. In her book titled “We Are Like That Only” Rama Bijapurkar does well to portray why India if different, and deserves a different approach. Please join us at VLSI 09 to hear a few stories about what is being done on the topics of Made FOR India. I hope it will inspire you all.
 

C. Damodaran,
General Manager, Embedded and Networking solutions,
NeST Software, Trivandrum

C. Damodaran is currently the General Manager- Embedded & Networking Solutions at Network Systems and Technologies (NeST), the software division of the NeST Group of companies. He has over 20 years of embedded system design, project management and product development experience. Prior to joining NeST in 2001, Damodaran worked at Liebert Corporation, a division of Emerson Electric in Columbus, OH as Sr. Project Engineer in charge of developing next generation UPS systems.

Damodaran received his bachelor’s degree in Applied Electronics from the College of Engineering, Trivandrum and has an MSEE from University of Akron. He is also a senior member of the IEEE and a certified PMP.

Title of the Talk: Cost effective Telemedicine Terminal

Abstract:

For bringing high-end specialty healthcare to all areas and reducing the disparities existing between various income groups, communities and geographic areas within the country, the Govt. of India has included telemedicine as a major thrust area in the 11th Five Year Plan. Pilot projects for establishing nation-wide telemedicine network is an initiative by the National Task Force formed as a part of it. Developing Telemedicine Terminals suitable for Primary Health Centres (PHC) was a requirement which came from this drive.

The Multi-purpose Telemedicine Terminal has been designed using TI DaVinci and MontaVista Linux platforms. Both hardware and software are highly modular in design so that additional modules can be plugged-in to add new features. Standard diagnostic equipments like digital ECG, X-ray scanner etc. are connected to USB interface of Telemedicine Consultation Centre (TCC), which is located in a remote PHC. The captured patient data is sent across the broadband network to the Telemedicine Specialty Centre (TSC). Battery backup is provided to make the device portable.

Being a cost-effective and portable single terminal, with telemedicine and video conferencing facilities together, this is suitable for PHCs and Community Health Centres in the rural areas of India. It requires only the existing broadband infrastructure for its installation and operation. Currently the prototypes are completed, and are undergoing initial field trials.

Web: www.nestgroup.net,  www.nestsoftware.com

Vertical: Medical & Healthcare
 

Rajeev Kaushal
Head - eInfochips Pune Division
Einfochips Ltd, Pune

Rajeev Kaushal brings with him around 18 years of industry and R&D experience in the area of software engineering, system designing, product development, embedded systems and management practices. He has relevant experience in the area of image processing, machine vision, security systems, algorithms development and optimization, mathematical modeling and simulation. He began his career as a scientist in Indian defense R&D establishment, where he worked for 8 years, followed by 9 years experience in Siemens India, primarily in scientific applications. Rajeev has good working experience in handling variety of projects and business models. Rajeev has 7 publications in national and international forums/journals.

Rajeev has done Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from IPM, Lucknow, Masters in Computer Science from university of Allahabad and Masters in Technology (Modeling and Simulation) from University of Pune.

Title of the Talk: Handheld Biometrics Authentication for security & surveillance Industry

Abstract:

Security has become a basic need in today’s world comprising of corporate houses, public places to residential areas. eInfochips, a product development services company has come up with a reference design solution named "Handheld Biometric Authentication Unit" (abbreviated as HBA) for strengthening security measures at places like airports, borders and critical infrastructures.

HBA has multi-level authentication with built-in fingerprint sensor, smart card reader, 3MP CMOS camera and on-the-spot digitized identification with on-board or back-end database. It has minutiae-based matching algorithm for identifying personnel with worn or scratched fingerprints, audio beep notifications for success/failure events and wired/wireless connection with central database system.

At the same time, a credentialing system with these features in place, identity verification can proceed even if there is no internet connection, no electricity or no computer available to check a centralized database. This reference design can be used by OEMs for manufacturing customized biometric security products.

Web: www.einfochips.com

Vertical: Security

Manish Gupta,
Associate Director,
IBM India Research Laboratory

Manish Gupta is the Associate Director at the IBM India Research Laboratory. In various technical and senior management positions he has held at IBM India and at the T. J. Watson Research Center, Manish has led efforts to pursue challenging new missions at IBM India and has led research on system software for the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer and other Deep Computing platforms. Manish received a B. Tech. in Computer Science from IIT Delhi in 1987, a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1992, and has worked with IBM since then. He has co-authored over 70 papers in the areas of high performance compilers, parallel computing, and Java Virtual Machine optimizations, and has filed sixteen patents. Manish has received two Outstanding Technical Achievement Awards and the Gerstner Team Award for Client Excellence at IBM, and has been elected to the IBM Academy of Technology. He has been invited to give keynotes at several international conferences and workshops.

Title of the Talk: Spoken Web

Abstract:

In India and several other countries, the number of mobile phone subscribers far exceeds the number of personal computer users, and continues to grow at a much faster pace (it just crossed the 300 million mark in India). We will present the Spoken Web project at IBM India Research Laboratory, an attempt to create a new world wide web, accessible over the telephone network, for the masses in these countries. We first introduce the concepts of Hyperspeech and Hyperspeech Transfer Protocol that allow creation of "VoiceSites" and traversal of “VoiceLinks". We then describe a simple voice-driven application, which allows people, without any information technology background, to create, host, and access such VoiceSites, and traverse VoiceLinks, using a voice interface over the telephone. We present our experience from recent pilots, conducted together with Byrraju Foundation, in a few villages in Andhra Pradesh. These pilots demonstrate the ease with which a semi-literate and non-IT savvy population can create VoiceSites with locally relevant content, including schedule of education/training classes, agricultural information, and professional services, and their strong interest in accessing this information over the telephone network. We describe several outstanding challenges and opportunities in creating and using a Spoken Web for facilitating exchange of information and conducting business transactions.

Dr. G Venkatesh - Ph D.
Executive Director & Corporate CTO/CSO, Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd.

He is a graduate in Electronics from IIT-Madras and a Ph.D in Computer Science from TIFR, Mumbai. Prior to joining Sasken in 1995, he was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at IIT Mumbai, where his teaching and research interests were in the areas of logic, programming languages and VLSI.

His role at Sasken has spanned from Technology, Engineering, Telecom and as head of the Product Division of Sasken. Currently he is responsible for the delivery function worldwide with development centers spanning across the globe.

Title of the Talk: Taking wireless technology to medical field

Abstract:

Making medical science available to common man has become the primary need for mankind, the significant challenge for most organizations in this space has been the question on reaching the common man. Sasken is now leveraging its strength in wireless technology and enabling primary health care and health monitoring tools available to a common man through wireless technology – this is all made possible in the Mobile Health Device (a cell phone with extended health care features) that one can carry along.

MHD features:

• Primary health care features
  o Blood pressure monitoring using BT interface.
  o Sugar level monitory using BT interface.
  o Anti-counterfeit detection support on medicines purchased.

• Mobile phone features
  o All features of a cell phone are provided for replacing existing cell phone device.

• Connectivity -  Wireless connection with Central Database System, also can interface with the KIOSK at a medical center.

• Portable - Hand-held form factor same as a cell phone.

• Intuitive GUI - Interactive User Interface through Touch Screen.

Web: www.sasken.com
Vertical: Medical & Healthcare

Bio-data for conference talks, updated June 2008

Rajeev Agrawal
founder and CEO of Innoviti Embedded Solutions

Rajeev is the founder and CEO of Innoviti Embedded Solutions, a leading provider of innovative transaction processing solutions for the banking, retail and other verticals.

Innoviti provides solutions in the areas of financial inclusion, payment processing, database marketing and attendance monitoring for the world markets.

Prior to founding Innoviti, Rajeev headed the Broadband Access Technologies Business at Sasken Communication Technologies, Bangalore, from 1995 to 2002 as Vice President and Head. He started his career as a radio astronomy engineer at the Raman Research Institute, Bangalore in 1990 and continued work in the area of communication systems design at the Center for Development of Telematics, Bangalore. India.

Rajeev has done his Bachelors in EE and Ph.D. in Signal Processing from IIT, Bombay.

Talk: Title of the Talk: Enabling Financial Inclusion In India

Ramendra S. Baoni
Managing Director, Bisquare Systems Pvt Ltd

Mr Ramendra Baoni - Founder and Managing Director of Bisquare Systems Pvt. Ltd., an Embedded Systems Product Design and Consulting Company. Bisquare is actively involved in developing products and technologies in the domain of Portable Media players, Set top Boxes, Energy efficient Lighting solutions and high performance computing.

Alumnus of BITS, Pilani with a Dual Degree in Electrical & Electronics Engineering and in Computer Science
He started his career from DCM Microelectronics where he worked with many DRDO labs and CDOT on many Strategic ASIC Designs. He left soon after and started off an independent Embedded Systems Design consulting firm that later was later incorporated as Bisquare Systems, which among other achievements developed the country’s first indigenous Set Top Box for DTH in 1999.

He has been associated with the Indian Navy for the last ten years in the development of various Cryptographic products cantered around the concept of "Runtime Reconfigurable Cryptographic Coprocessors" and has published numerous papers.

Mr Baoni has been on various committees of the Govt of India such as CAS committee, BIS standardization committee for Set Top Boxes.

Talk: Title of the Talk: Applying Technology for Education to the Masses

Abstract:

Various technological solutions have been adopted in the past to address the largest issue facing India today - education to the masses. Almost all of them are temporary fixes and they don’t seem to address the basic pedagogical method of teaching method that is used by a teacher. Just installing VSAT connectivity or providing internet access does not solve the problem of making high quality education reach the masses.

India has a unique requirement - a very large population with a very large cultural and language diversity (India is the only country in the world with such a large number of scripts and languages, and couples with this is the requirement of a low cost solution.

It is most important to address the education to children of the remote locations and conventional technological methods are too expensive and not appropriate. A completely innovative and a low cost solution is proposed.

An answer can be in the innovative use of interactive broadcast services. Broadcast services have an advantage that they can be transmitted to any location. Isn’t the natural method of classroom teaching similar to broadcasting? The teacher mainly speaks and the students listen. Once in a while a student asks a question, which the teacher tries to answer to the best of her ability, or tells the class - I will check and tell you tomorrow! Does this sound like interactivity?

Dr. Vinay G. Vaidya
CTO - Engineering IT & CREST Leader, KPIT Cummins.

Title of the talk: Safety System For Lane Departure Warning

 Abstract