The Future of Batteries – Bangalore

Bio

Pratik Dattani is Advisor to Bridge India and the Managing Director for boutique economic consulting firm EPG, specialising in economic analysis, strategic communications and market entry assistance with India, with offices in London, Bangalore and East Africa.

He was additionally, until August 2017, UK Director for the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), the premier and largest industry body in India. He is also the co-founder of a tech start-up in the CSR space. Previously he worked in Economic Consulting at FTI Consulting and Deloitte in London and Abu Dhabi, with a focus on public policy and arbitration. He was Chairman for a not-for-profit membership organisation with several thousand members for three years.

He studied Economics at Warwick University, where he was awarded the Prize for Excellence, and LMU University of Munich. His dissertation won a prize at an international economics conference at Georgetown University, Washington DC. He has published academic research on behavioural economics and social impact and is a regular commentator on public policy and India across print, TV and online media, featured on BBC News, CBC, CNBC, CNN, NDTV, South China Morning Post and Huffington Post.

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James Quinn is CEO of Faradion, the world leader in non-aqueous sodium-ion cell technology company, based in Sheffield, in the British heart of innovative manufacturing. He is an international technology executive and entrepreneur, with a background in both publicly traded and private companies. He has significant experience with fund raising and mergers and acquisitions.

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Before Ashok Leyland, Hari spent 20 years at GE Global Research, and studied at the Indian Institute of Science. He is an accomplished manager with 20 years industrial R&D experience in people, technical, and functional leadership. He has successfully led and managed teams in the areas of electrochemistry, corrosion, and tribology developing materials and solutions for performance, degradation, and durability for different applications.

He has deep domain expertise in energy storage batteries and solid oxide fuel cells, is key member of the team that enabled launch of GE’s first commercial battery product (Durathon™) and the GE Energy Storage business, and has 20 international patents, 7 international journal publications, and 15 internal reports. 

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Huzefa Tavawalla is Head of Disruptive Technologies Practice Group & the Bangalore Office at Nishith Desai Associates. He is a core TMT lawyer and a technology enthusiast with an in-depth expertise in Technology – M&A. He has been representing numerous internet / digital / hi-tech multinationals in their global business expansions and M&A’s. He has also assisted similar companies on their India entry strategies. He has authored / co-authored several publications on UAV, Fintech, Regulatory Sanbox, investments in hi-tech, AI, driver-less cars, AR/VR, IoT, wearables etc.

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Gaurav Gupta is an officer of Indian Administrative Service of the 1990 batch. He works in the Karnataka Government as Principal Secretary, Commerce & Industries, with concurrent charge of Information Technology, Biotechnology and Science & Technology.

He has an experience of over 25 years in fields of Commerce & Industries, Infrastructure, Power, Urban Development & Transportation.He has served as Commissioner for Industrial Development promoting industries and investments in Karnataka. He has been the key driver for the ‘Invest Karnataka 2016’, the flagship mega-investment summit. In the past, he has worked to create critical infrastructure – transport, water and electricity – for the State and also for the City of Bengaluru. He has served as Chairman of Bangalore Water Board, Special Commissioner in BBMP and Managing Director in KSRTC.

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Chris is the former group operations director of AEA Technology PLC, responsible for lithium-ion battery licensing, and CEO of IP2IPO Ltd (now IP Group). He is a highly experienced entrepreneur and former executive chairman at Covesion Ltd and Molecular Vision Ltd.

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Arun Cherian is a seasoned professional with over 14 years of experience. He is passionate about electric vehicles and renewable energy and plays an active role in enabling youth leadership and stakeholder management for nation building projects. Currently, at SUN Mobility, Arun holds P&L responsibility for the eBus Business Division and expansion of this business vertical in domestic and international markets. Previously, he headed the team that crafted the strategy across multiple vehicle segments and mobility applications. He also led the team that is conceptualised the deployment strategy for SUN Mobility’s Quick Interchange Station™ network for cities. Prior to SUN Mobility, Arun was heading the strategic partnerships and smart cities division at Green India Building Systems and Services (GIBSS), a cleantech start-up in the geothermal space, where he led the efforts on fund raising, external stakeholder management and strategic business development. He has also held key positions in organizations such as Infosys, SAP, and Lodha Group.

Arun is an Electronics Engineering graduate from BITS Pilani and holds an MBA in Finance and Marketing from the India School of Business & Tel Aviv University. He is also a recipient of the ‘Young Fellow of Science’ fellowship from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and Executive Committee member of Confederation of Indian Industries’ (CII) ‘Young Indian’s’ (Yi) organization. At Yi, he is actively involved in projects on youth leadership and mentoring budding entrepreneurs launch innovative start-ups in the social impact space.

He enjoys attending key industry conferences and sharing strong points of view on the roadmap to India’s transition to becoming a global leader in electric mobility. Apart from work, you can find him reading, cycling or training for half-marathons.

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Pranav Singanapalli founded eMotion Motors with a mission to design eco-friendly performance Electric Vehicles at affordable prices for the Indian Market. The first offering from eMotion Motors is ‘SURGE’, a performance Electric Two Wheeler, unveiled in June 2018.

Pranav has a demonstrated history of working in the automotive industry and is skilled in Design Management, Sketching, Adobe Photoshop, 3D Visualization, and Product Design. He obtained his Master of Arts (MA), focused in Multidisciplinary Design Innovation, from Northumbria University.

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Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Institute Professor at IIT Madras, did his B.Tech degree from IIT Kanpur and MS and PhD from University of Maine, USA and was a faculty at Washington State University, USA for a year and half before joining as a faculty at IIT Madras in 1981. In 2017-18, he was on sabbatical from IITM and was Principal Advisor to Minister of Power, MNRE, and Railways, Government of India, New Delhi.

Prof Jhunjhunwala is considered a pioneer in nurturing Industry-Academia interaction in India towards R&D, Innovation and Product Development. He conceived and built India’s first university affiliated business park (IIT Madras Research Park) to promote Industry-Academia R&D collaboration. TIE conferred him the title of Dronacharya for his contributions to the cause of entrepreneurship, as he incubated and nurtured more than 180 companies at IIT Madras. He heads the IITM Incubation Cell and Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI). He leads TeNeT group, which has worked closely with industry to create innovative affordable products in sectors like telecom, banking, energy and electric vehicles.

Dr Jhunjhunwala has been Chairman and member of various government committees and has been on boards of several education institutions in the country. At the same time, he has been on the boards of a number of public and private companies and has driven comprehensive changes, especially in the areas of technology, in these companies. He was on the boards of State Bank of India, Bharat Electronics Ltd, HTL, NRDC, IDRBT, VSNL and BSNL as well as in Tata Communications, Mahindra Electric, Sasken, Tejas Networks, TTML, Intellect and Exicom. He is currently also on the board of BIRAC and the Chairman of Technology Advisory Group of SEBI. Also he is currently Chairperson in IIIT Kottayam and College of Engineering, Trivandrum, Kerala.

Dr Jhunjhunwala was conferred Padmashri, Shanti-Swarup Bhatnagar Award, Vikram Sarabhai Research Award, H. K. Firodia Award, Silicon India Leadership Award, Millenium Medal at Indian Science Congress, UGC Hari Om Ashram Award,Ram Lala Wadhwa Gold Medal, JC Bose fellowship, Bernard Low Humanitarian Award, Dronacharya and Lifetime Achievement Award by TIE, Chennai among many others. He is fellow of IEEE, INSA, NAS, IAS, INAE and WWRF and a member of National Academy of Engineering (NAE), USA. He has also been conferred honorary doctorate by University of Maine and Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden.

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