Speaker Bio:  

Rajesh Swaminathan
Co-founder & CEO, xSi Semiconductors
Rajesh has over two decades of experience in the domains of Semiconductor Process, Operations, Device, Design, Application and Technical pre sales. Since 2004, Rajesh has been focusing in LED IC solution & has released several products to the market. Prior to xSi semiconductors, he has worked in companies like Maxim integrated Products, Linear Technology, Monolithic Power Systems & NXP Semiconductors. He graduated with a MS EE from University of south Florida & B.E EEE from College of Engineering, Guindy.
M N Vidyashankar
President, IESA
Vidyashankar is President - India Electronics and Semiconductor Association. His areas of interest include downsizing, re-engineering, e-governance, business process outsourcing, customer relations and Enterprise Resource Planning. He also served in the Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances, Government of India. He was Chairman BWSSB, Commissioner BDA and Secretary to Government, Health and Family Welfare Department.
Samir Kumar
Managing Director, Inventus (India) Advisors
Samir became an early-stage institutional venture investor in India in 2001 following a 15 year operating career with high growth Indian companies. For 10 years from 1988 - 1999, Samir was part of the early team at Wipro. Samir was a founding member of Wipro’s joint venture with Acer Computer in Taiwan to design, build and sell computers for the Indian market. Samir is well established in India’s entrepreneurial and venture communities with a broad network of business contacts throughout India and the Asia Pacific region. Samir is on the Governing Body of TiE Bangalore, and is an active Charter Member mentoring entrepreneurs. Samir is also active in his IIT & IIM Alumni networks, and is an active speaker at various entrepreneurial events in India.
Ganapathy Subramaniam
Venture Partner, Walden International
Ganapathy has 25 years of experience in the Semiconductor Industry and currently serves as advisor to several start-ups in semi-conductor space. He co-founded Cosmic Circuits in 2005 and was CEO till it‘s exit. Cosmic Circuits established itself as a leading player in Analog and Mixed Signal IP. It won TSMC IP partner award twice. More than 100 Million ICs were shipped annually using Cosmic Circuits IP. Cadence acquired Cosmic Circuits in 2013. Prior to Cosmic Circuits, Subramaniam has held senior management roles in Texas Instruments, including Director - Mixed Signal Technology Center & Director WLAN Engineering. Subramaniam is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy.
Raghu Panicker
Country Director, Mentor Graphics
Raghu has over eighteen years of experience, with an excellent record of developing, establishing, managing, and growing strong client relationships in the VLSI and Semiconductor Industry. He leads Mentor Graphics efforts to capitalize on the VLSI snd Semiconductor business opportunities in India and aligns with the global vision of the company. He has been responsible for driving Mentor Graphics business in the region focusing on major customers and prospective customers. Under his leadership and direction, the company has witnessed increased market leadership and continues to deliver record growth. He brings to this position a wealth of VLSI and Semiconductor Industry business experience, stemming from his early years of Research and Development at Semiconductor Complex.
Karthee Madasamy
Vice President & Managing Director, Qualcomm Ventures India
Karthee is VP & MD, India and Israel, and is based in Bangalore. He has over 16 years of experience in the wireless and multimedia industries and has worked in product development and management roles at various semiconductor startups. Prior to his current role, he worked as a management consulting intern at Boston Consulting Group and as an associate at the venture capital firm, JK&B Capital. Karthee currently manages and actively serves as a board observer for Qualcomm Ventures investments in Apalya, MapMyIndia, Kirusa and Tessolve. He holds an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at the University of Chicago and an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan.
Dr. Srikanth Sundararajan
Venture Partner, Helion Venture Partners
Dr. Srikanth has 25+ years of international experience in the software product and services space. He has worked at HP, Informix, and was part of the executive leadership team at HCL, the world wide CTO at Cognizant and the COO at Persistent. He had also successfully founded his own start up, Pretzel Logic Software Inc., which was subsumed into BEA, now Oracle. He holds a B Tech degree from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and a MS/PhD in Computer and Information Sciences from University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign. He has several publications and is the holder of patents, jointly with HP and BEA.
Padmaja Ruparel
President, Indian Angel Network (IAN)
With a wide range of experience of over 22 years, Padmaja has been deeply involved in starting and growing organisations in the IT and investing space. She has been a key player in the entrepreneurial eco system as she operationalised the TiE Delhi chapter and set it on a sound foundation for it to become one of the top three profitable and consistently performing chapters of the TiE world. She has been key in reviving the Indian Venture Capital Association, India’s oldest and largest association of VC and PE firms and is the CFO of the organization today.
Ravishankar G
Co-founder & Senior Vice-President, Ittiam Systems
Ravishankar has run the multimedia and Silicon IP Business units in Ittiam for several years successfully. He currently heads the Business Development for the APAC region in Ittiam. Having over 27 years of Industry experience in VLSI, DSP, multimedia and Wi-Fi Domains, he was also part of the Ittiam founding team. Prior to Ittiam, Ravi was with Texas Instruments India from 1986-2000. During his tenure at TI, Ravi worked and held several positions in the areas of DSP design, DSP applications and Semiconductor Sales and Marketing before becoming General Manager of the DSP Software Development systems group of TI India. Ravi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from University of Madras, an Engineering Degree in Electronics and Communication from Indian Institute of Science and also a post graduate diploma in IPR Law from National Law School, Bangalore.
Veena Avadhanam
Head, Bangalore Angels
Veena has over 15 years of experience in Strategic, Operational and Advisory roles in the Technology industry, mainly in the US. Her experience spans Technology, Telecom, Manufacturing and Financial services and ranges in scale from startups to multi-billion dollar public companies. For the past year Veena has been engaged in the startup ecosystem in Bangalore, as a consultant to local VCs as well as a mentor at NSRCEL-IIMB. Prior to moving to India, she was a Senior Manager in Symantec’s Corporate Development group, based out of Mountain View, CA, where she was involved in transformative strategic projects; in addition to helping the Company’s Business Units prioritize their product/feature gaps and screen potential acquisition targets and execute transactions.
Rajendra Khare
Co-Founder & CMD, SureWaves MediaTech
A second-generation entrepreneur, Rajendra earlier co-founded a semi-conductor start-up Armedia Labs that developed the world’s first single chip HDTV/MPEG Decoder. It was acquired by Broadcom Corporation for $67 million. He served as Managing Director, Broadcom India, where his team went on to develop a series of digital video products that commanded a dominant share of the worldwide market. He has also held leadership positions earlier at Arcus Technology, Wipro and Tata R&D Labs. Raj co-founded India Semiconductor Association (ISA) and served as its founding Chairperson. An Electrical & Electronics Engineer from BITS, Pilani, Raj has filed more than 30 US patents for innovative technology and was awarded both the Udyog Rattan Award and Bharat Gaurav Award as recognition for his pioneering work in the field.
PVG Menon
President & CEO, VANN Consulting
PVG Menon has over 26 years of experience in the Indian IT industry. He has recently stepped down as President of the India Electronics & Semiconductor Association (IESA). During his tenure as President of IESA, India has seen almost Rs. 75K Crores of investment committed into the Electronic Systems Design and Manufacturing or ESDM industry, including the approval for setting up of 2 state-of-the-art semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities in India. He was also responsible for advocating several key aspects of the National Policy for Electronics of 2012. His tenure also marked a shift in the focus and reach of IESA. He oversaw the transition of the industry body into one with a larger mission and canvas, and to being a powerful voice for policy change for the electronics industry. He has rich experience in development, marketing and management of technology, and has worked with leading companies like Philips (later NXP) Semiconductors and Analog Devices - where he has built multi-hundred million dollar global businesses. He has also worked with companies like Siemens Information Systems Ltd. and CMC Ltd. in development and project management roles. He has also been part of two start-ups. In 2013, PVG Menon was conferred with the Silicon India-Mentor-Graphics Award for Outstanding Leadership for the VLSI/ Embedded Systems Industry in India.
Sanjay Swamy
Managing Partner, AngelPrime
Sanjay is best known for his leadership role at mChek, the path breaking startup in secure payments, Sanjay has trodden the tough and demanding path of an entrepreneur all through his career. After completing his bachelor’s degree in engineering, Sanjay headed to Paris where he learned to cuss fluently in French, while getting a Master’s degree, one of which proved to be more invaluable than the other over time. A stint at Xerox PARC in Palo Alto provided a moment of epiphany and it’s fair to say that things have never been to same since. Bitten by the desire to create, Sanjay embarked on a journey to build world beating teams and products that took him through startups like Ketera and Portal Software, mChek and Zipdial, which he co-founded in 2010.
Balaji Kanigicherla
Founder, CTO & VP Engineering, Ineda Systems
Balaji is responsible for product architectures, hardware and software engineering. Prior to his engineering role at Ineda, he held the position of CEO for Ineda Systems. from its founding till the early stages of team building and technology development. Before Ineda, he was at AMD where he was responsible for management of 500+ engineer organization and was also program executive for their low power fusion SOC. Prior to AMD, he worked at Conexant Systems as a Senior Director managing their Set-Top-Box and Imaging/PC Media silicon engineering teams. He also worked in technical/management roles at Silicon Valley startups Ikanos & Velio and was a key member of their industry first networking/communication products. Earlier in his career, he was associated with Intel towards their x86 CPU and mobile chip-set engineering product development. He was awarded “Young Entrepreneur of the year” by Silicon India for 2011 and is a noted speaker at multiple industry & academic forums. He was the design contest chair and member of various industry panels at International Conference on VLSI Design & Embedded Systems held in 2008 and 2012. He has filed for 20+ patents till date and played the role of a technical advisor for few Silicon Valley startups. He has a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University.
Prasanna Shroff
Co-Owner and Vice President - Strategy & Marketing, Sankalp Semiconductor
Prasanna is an accomplished Semiconductor industry professional with a diversified experience in Corporate Strategy, Business Management and PNL ownership for over 19 years. He pioneered Cadence Design Systems’ field operations in India and played an instrumental role in growing this operation from scratch to over USD 65M over 12 years. During his tenure at Cadence, he built and executed successfully Market Segmentation & Globalization programs. He also developed various start-up programs and worked closely with several semiconductor start-ups and its eco-systems. He is currently the Vice President – Strategy at Sankalp Semiconductor and is a part of the executive leadership team. He manages business side of the organization and holds the PNL responsibility of the consulting business.