Professor Sadagopan is currently the Director (President) of IIIT-Bangalore (a PhD granting University). IIIT’s represent a set of new generation universities started in India in late 90’s with special focus on IT; IIIT-Bangalore is one of the first such Institutes; as the first Director of IIIT-Bangalore he is involved in the visioning, planning and executing the growth of this Institute that is counted as one of the premier Institutes in India.
He obtained his MS & PhD Degree from Purdue University, USA in 1979 and BE (Hon) Degree from Madras University, India in 1973. He had taught at IIT Kanpur (1979 to 95) and IIM Bangalore (1995-99).
His research interests include OR, Multi-criteria optimization, Simulation and Enterprise computing.
Syam Appala is an entrepreneur with 15+ years of experience in IT and 5+ years of experience in energy and energy efficiency realms, with proven track record of incepting and delivering solutions that have multi-billion-dollar potential. Syam serves a key Architect at Cisco Systems, Inc in San Jose, CA and has the unique track record of delivering solutions that generated more than $60 billion dollars in revenues in the last decade. He pioneered and contributed to Internet standards in cyber security with 10 issued patents and several pending at USPTO. Syam possesses entrepreneurial skills that amalgamates business strategy, business and product management and technology development, required to build successful companies and consistently take valuable products to the market.
Syam serves on the local California board of US Selective Service System (SSS), appointed by President of United States. Syam serves as an advisor to Science & Technology Park, Pune, that has successfully incubated more than 80+ companies in the last 7 years and is the most reputed incubator in India. Out of passion for building value and taking innovations to the market, Syam advises several startups and non-profit organizations in Silicon Valley and India. Syam owns a multi-million dollar hedge fund (Lorven Funds) in USA that has successfully invested in 50+ IPO stage US startup companies.
Syam completed product and engineering management from Stanford University and Haas school of Business and MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Tennessee Technological University.
