Keynote Speakers

Title: Security and Authentication Issues of Contactless Biometrics

Abstract: Contactless biometric authentication, a form of biometric authentication without physical contact, includes technologies such as iris recognition, facial recognition, and voice recognition. 2D and 3D Contactless fingerprint biometrics has achieved rapid development in the past decades. Biometric authentication serves as the potential solution to addressing identity verification needs, owing to its inherent uniqueness, universality, collectability, and durability. However, we need to have technologies for prevention of misuse and theft of identity, In this talk, I shall address this problem taking the challenges of data constraint scenarios.

Bio:Dr. Santanu Chaudhury is a distinguished academic and researcher in the fields of Computer Vision, Computational Intelligence, Multimedia Systems, and Robotics. He is currently serves as the Schlumberger Chair Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at IIT Delhi and is the former Director of IIT Jodhpur. Dr. Chaudhury holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering and a B.Tech in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, both from I.I.T Kharagpur. Throughout his illustrious career, Dr. Chaudhury has held several significant positions. He started as a Development Engineer at MMC in the Digital Systems Division, then served as a Junior Scientific Officer at the CSE Department of I.I.T, Delhi. He was also a Computer Engineer at ECSU, ISI Calcutta, and a Lecturer in the Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering Department at I.I.T, Kharagpur, before becoming an Assistant Professor at I.I.T, Delhi. Additionally, he has chaired the Grades and Registration committee for undergraduate studies at I.I.T, Delhi.

Dr. Chaudhury's research focuses primarily on real-time embedded systems and digital systems, where he has made substantial contributions. His extensive publication record includes numerous research papers in esteemed journals and conferences. He has played a pivotal role in curriculum development at I.I.T, Delhi, including restructuring the B.Tech curriculum introduced in 2003. He also designed and coordinated a certificate course on "Embedded Systems and Applications" for working professionals, which has been successfully run multiple times under the aegis of FITT, I.I.T, Delhi. Furthermore, he is developing a Video Lecture series on "Embedded Systems" supported by ETSC under the NPTEL program. In addition to his academic and research pursuits, Dr. Chaudhury has been actively involved in various extension activities. He has served as a Program Committee Member for IEEE ICCV (2000, 2002, 2005), Program Chair for ICVGIP'98, and Organising Chair for ACCV'2005. He was also a Guest Editor for the IETE Technical Review and served as the General Secretary of IUPRAI (Indian Unit of International Association of Pattern Recognition) from 2005 to 2007. Dr. Chaudhury has been recognized with several prestigious awards and fellowships. He received the INSA Medal for Young Scientists in 1993 and is a Fellow of both the Indian National Academy of Engineers and the National Academy of Sciences. His ongoing contributions continue to shape the field of Electrical Engineering and influence the next generation of engineers and researchers.

Title: Multimodal Vision Language Models, LLM, LAMs and their potential applications

Abstract:  The Keynote builds on the Evolution of Innovation, Industrial Revolution and Society - linking it to advances in Technology and Natural Human Computer Interfaces. Taking inspiration from Technology Predictions and recent Advances in Generative AI, the talk outlines the evolution of Multi-modal AI and its implications to building Intelligent Interfaces for the New Age Devices. Specific focus on Vision - Language modality to build VLMs, VLLMs, VLAMs and their potential consumer facing applications and Embedded realisation possibilities are discussed. The Keynote concludes with the implications of these advancements for building Human Centric Interfaces.

Bio: Dr. Balvinder Singh has extensive experience working in industry for 27+ years driving innovation, core technology product development & building compelling consumer experiences. Dr. Singh earned his Ph.D from India Institute of Technology, Kanpur in the field of Vision & Image Processing in 1996. He completed his Masters degree in 1991 and Bachelors degree in Electronics & Communication Engineering in 1990 from Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. Dr. Singh started his career in industry working for Sasken Communication Technologies & subsequently DigiBee Microsystems developing Wireless and Multimedia Technology for Mobile phone and embedded / SoC products. He has been associated with Samsung R&D India for last 15+ yrs and has been instrumental in building the Global Leadership for Samsung Smartphone Camera. He has successfully led the Camera Center of Excellence (CoE) delivering innovative camera solutions for every Galaxy Smartphone from Galaxy S3 to S24. He has incubated expansion of the R&D centre in newer areas such as Extended Reality, Internet of Things, IP based Multimedia Communications & Hardware IP developments. Dr. Singh currently Heads the Advanced Research & Technology development at Samsung; in domains of Generative AI, Computer Vision, Multi-modal Interactions & Sensor Intelligence. He has numerous patents & technical publications to his credit. He spearheads the Open Innovation & Ecosystem partnership with Start-ups, Academia, Open Source & Government’s Digital India program to build unique product propositions.

Title: Research and its Translation in the Age of Gen AI

Abstract:  Generative AI is evolving from being a mere curiosity to being a core component of value creation. Application of research through its translation can be accelerated with the smart use of Generative AI. This can be achieved if we can focus on addressing the select data challenges and accelerating the transfer knowledge process. This keynote would attempt to link the native strengths associated with Generative AI with the requirements of translational research resulting in the potential acceleration of industry adoption through the quick joining of dots in research. Providing a current view, the keynote will showcase a few compelling examples from the industry thereby illustrating the transformative potential of Generative AI.  

Bio: With over 35 years of experience across diverse industries, technologies, and markets, Somjit Amrit has proven himself as a dynamic leader in multicultural global environments, expertly steering organizations as a P&L leader. His career has been marked by pivotal roles in various technology trends, including telecommunications, e-commerce, software services, data science and analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and now, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). As a recognized authority in Business Strategy with a talent for translating technology to meet human needs, Somjit is a frequent speaker at industry conferences. His core expertise lies in applying technology to address real-world problems, a domain where he has consistently delivered impactful solutions. 

Somjit excels in fostering a fast-paced, engaging organizational culture, and he is passionate about building, nurturing, and leading high-performance teams. His innovative contributions have been acknowledged with prestigious awards such as the Azim Premji Award for Innovation in 2010 and the Aegis Graham Bell Award for Innovation in IoT in 2018. In his current role as CEO of IIT Mandi iHUB and HCI Foundation, Somjit is committed to establishing a Centre of Excellence in HCI, focusing on translational research, skill development, incubation, and industry collaboration. Under his leadership, the organization is building a high-performance team dedicated to these goals. A voracious reader, Somjit enjoys exploring books, no matter how abstract. In September 2023, he published his first non-fiction book, "Anecdotally Yours," which has garnered critical acclaim. In addition to his executive responsibilities, he also teaches Business Strategy and Technology at premier Institutes of Management. Somjit holds an engineering degree from NIT Rourkela (1984-88) and an MBA from IIM Lucknow (1989-91), qualifications that have laid the foundation for his remarkable career.

Title: Effectiveness of Synthetic Data for Fast High-Resolution Fingerprint Recognition

Abstract:  High-resolution fingerprint (HRF) recognition is mainly centered around local descriptors created using small image patches around the pores. Although these methods generally provide good verification performance, they are not well-suited for identification due to their poor computational performance and variable and large template size caused by the variable number of useful pore patches in HRF images. This presentation will discuss how the problem mentioned above of variable template size can be overcome by learning to generate fixed-sized global descriptors for the whole HRF image while also taking into account the finer level-3 features by infusing HRF domain knowledge, leading to a deep learning model that is significantly faster than the SOTA. Towards the end, I will also present the results of our study that explored the effectiveness of a synthetic dataset for high-resolution fingerprint recognition. 

Bio: Vivek Kanhangad received Ph.D. from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2010. Prior to joining Hong Kong PolyU, he received M.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, in 2006 and worked for Motorola India Electronics Ltd, Bangalore for a while. His research interests are in the overlapping areas of computer vision and pattern recognition, focusing on biometrics and biomedical applications. His research team won the Best Iris Liveness Detection with Portable Devices Competition at the International Joint Conference on Biometrics (IJCB 2014), Florida. He regularly serves as a Technical Program Committee Member for reputed international conferences on biometrics. He is currently the Vice President (Education) of the IEEE Biometrics Council, an Editorial Board Member of the IEEE Biometrics Council Newsletter, and a Senior Member of IEEE.