Sridhar-Acharyulu:
Central Information Commissioner at the Central Information Commission of India, Prof Sridhar Acharyulu is the author of 30 books on Law & Journalism both in English and Telugu languages. Some of his popular books are: Right to Information-Law and Practice, Nirbhaya Act, Legal Language, Law of Expression, and Alternative Dispute Resolution. Dr Acharyulu has penned more than 100 research articles, developed lessons in Media Law and Journalism, and presented papers at International and National Seminars on subjects of socio-legal importance.

Vishal Batra:
Mr Batra is Blockchain Solutions Architect at IBM Research Lab, India. He founded an open source mobile messaging startup in early 2007 with global user base. He has been involved with Dubai Government’s blockchain project lately where he developed the technology blueprint and policy/legal framework for state-wide implementation and adoption of blockchain technology for paper-less digital governance.

Vishnu Chandra:
Dr Vishnu Chandra is the Deputy Director General & Group Head – RS & GIS Utility Mapping and Urban Development, National Informatics Centre (NIC). He has been working at the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in various capacities since 1990. He graduated with an M Tech in Physics and M. Phil in Instrumentation from the Indian Institute of Technology(IIT), Roorkee.

Sumandro Chattapadhyay:

Research Director at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Mr Chattapadhyay leads and contributes to academic, creative, and policy research at the CIS. The core policy topics that Sumandro engages with include open data and open research, e-governance and digital ID, and network economy and digital labour. He is also keenly interested in computational techniques in arts, humanities, and social research, and emerging methodological questions. He is a member of the Open Data Research Network managed by the World Wide Web Foundation and supported by IDRC.

J A Chowdary:

Mr Chowdary is the Special Chief Secretary and IT Advisor to the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh. He is the Chairman of AP Innovation Society and leads the innovation initiatives for building smart villages, smart towns and smart cities across the state. He is heading the initiative of collaborating with leading technology and Blockchain startups in Singapore and the University of California to establish a Blockchain Technology Institute in Andhra Pradesh. One of the key architects of the Hi-Tech City & Cyberabad in Hyderabad and also for IIIT, Hyderabad, JA is also credited with developing the IT industry in the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

Sunil Kumar:
Mr Kumar is the Director of Land Laws and Policy, Landesa India. He has twelve years of experience working on land rights and access to justice issues. Before joining Landesa, he worked as a State Legal Coordinator of Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty for four years and has played key role in design and implementation of land paralegal program which is successful in resolving land issues of more than one million people across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Ambrish Mehta:

Mr Mehta along with his wife Trupti Parekh provide GPS instruments to village-level Forest Rights Committees to conduct surveys of land in tribal areas in Gujarat. The couple has managed to leverage technology and fight for justice by remaining in the confines of governance. Ambrish is the managing trustee of ARCH- Vahini (Action Research in Community Health and Development) that has cared about the implementation of the government’s rehabilitation programme since 1980. Ambrish graduated in Biology.

D C Misra:
Mr D C Misra is currently Deputy Director General with NIC and has been associated with eGovernance for last 31+ years particularly for Rural Development domain. He has been involved in policy formulation, conceptualization, system development and operationalization of many innovative eGovernance projects which include system for MGNREGA, Planning and Accounting for Panchayats, eProcurement, Drinking Water & Sanitation(Swachh Bharat Mission), Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme(DILRMP) etc.

Ronald Meinardus:
Dr Meinardus is the Regional Director, South Asia, of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF) in New Delhi. Before joining the Regional Office in New Delhi in 2014, Dr. Ronald Meinardus served the Foundation in that position at the Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in Cairo, Egypt for seven years. A journalist by profession, Dr. Meinardus is also a political commentator and blogger.

Nikhil Narendran:

Mr Narendran is a Partner in Trilegal in the TMT and general corporate practice area. He has substantial experience in advising telecom, media and technology companies on a range of regulatory and contractual matters such as in relation to content liability, convergent networks, IP licensing and structuring, technology transfers and licensing arrangements, satellite, new technology models, outsourcing, data protection, data services, voice services, VOIP etc.

Ananth Padmanabhan:

Mr Padmanabhan is a fellow at Carnegie India, based in New Delhi. His primary research focus is technology, regulation, and public policy, and the intersection of these three fields within the Indian context. He has authored India’s leading treatise on intellectual property rights, Intellectual Property Rights: Infringement and Remedies (LexisNexis, 2012), and edited India as a Pioneer of Innovation (Oxford University Press, Forthcoming 2017). He is a regular contributor to leading Indian newspapers including the Indian Express, LiveMint, Economic Times, and Business Line.

Guillermo Peña Panting:

Mr Peña is a political analyst and economist based in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. He has worked with think tanks in North Carolina and London, and established Fundación Eléutera in Honduras. He has also worked thoroughly with private sector organizations such as the Honduran National Business Council, Honduran Manufacturing Association, National Industrialists Association and the Chamber of Commerce of Cortes on research, strategy, government relations, investment attraction, public relations and participating or advising on several boards. On the business side, Guillermo has experience in logistics, biomedical, retail and real estate and business development.

Or Perelman:

Mr Perelman is Co-founder of ChromaWay, an early pioneer of what is now dubbed as “blockchain 2.0″ technology. A Bitcoin expert and a lawyer, Or focuses on creating exceptional products that engage users in a sensible way. He is Co-founder of one of the earliest bitcoin wallets called Safebit, and was one of the co- founders of the Coloredcoin initiative which was the first blockchain solution in the space. He specialises in social media, patents law, internet law, intellectual property law and open-source law.

Baladevan Rangaraju:

Mr Rangaraju is the Founder-Director of the India Institute and Co-founder of the India Property Rights Alliance. A staunch proponent of choice and enterprise, this social entrepreneur is widely quoted and has appeared in national and international media, most often commenting on education policies and social infrastructure issues. He is the author of The Private School Revolution in Bihar: Findings from a survey in Patna Urban (with James Tooley and Pauline Dixon), India’s first landscape study of the school market in a city pioneering the use of GPS technology.