Keynote Address

We are very pleased to announce that Prof. Mohan M. Trivedi, Distinguished Professor ECE, and Director CVRR and LISA Labs, University of California, San Diego, USA, will deliver the Keynote Address.

Prof. Mohan M. Trivedi is a Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and founding director of the Computer Vision and Robotics Research Laboratory, as well as the Laboratory for Intelligent and Safe Automobiles (LISA) at the University of California San Diego. Mohan Trivedi received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Utah State University in 1979, after completing undergraduate work in India. He has published extensively and has edited over a dozen volumes including books, special issues, video presentations, and conference proceedings.

He and his team are pursuing research in intelligent vehicles, autonomous/self-driving, machine perception, machine learning, human-robot interactivity, advanced driver assistance, active safety and intelligent transportation systems.

He has published over 500 archival papers, has won over 20 “Best/Finalist” Paper award, has received the IEEE ITS Society’s Outstanding Research Award and LEAD Institution Award as well as the Meritorious Service and Pioneer Award (Technical Activities) of the IEEE Computer Society. He has given over 100 keynote/plenary talks and he regularly serves on panels dealing with technological, strategic, privacy, and ethical issues surrounding research areas he is involved in. Trivedi is a recipient of the Pioneer Award and the Meritorious Service Award from the IEEE Computer Society; and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from BITS Pilani and Utah State University. He is a Fellow of IEEE, IAPR and the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE). He is a founding member of the Executive Committee of the UC System-wide Digital Media Innovation Program (DiMI).

He has served as the Robotics TC Chair for the IEEE Computer Society, on the Governing Boards of the IEEE SMC and ITSC Society, Editor-in-Chief of the Machine Vision Applications journal and charter member of the University of California System wide Digital Media Innovation (UC Discovery) program. He serves regularly as a consultant to industry and government agencies in the USA and abroad.

Prof. M. Balakrishnan is a Professor at the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Delhi and the founder of the ASSITECH Lab. He has been a recipient of three National awards, ACM Eugene L Lawler award and very recently IIT Delhi's Life Time award for his work in the disability space. He is a pioneer in the development of assistive devices for the visually impaired, having established a research group on Embedded Assistive Technologies for the Disabled (ASSISTech). His vision is to see India become a hub for innovative technological product development; with a view to making a difference to those who are differently abled.

He obtained his B.E.(Hons.) in Electronics & Electrical Engg. from BITS Pilani in 1977 and Ph.D. from EE Dept. IIT Delhi in 1985. He worked as a Scientist in CARE, IIT Delhi from 1977 to 1985 where he was involved in designing and implementing real-time DSP systems. For the last 32 years, he is involved in teaching and research in the areas of digital systems design, electronic design automation and embedded systems. He has supervised 12 Ph.D. students, 3 MSR students, 173 M.Tech/B.Tech projects and published nearly 110 conference and journal papers. Further, he has held visiting positions in University of Guelph (Canada), University of Syracuse (USA), University of Kiel (Germany) and University of Dortmund (Germany).

At IIT Delhi, he has been the Philips Chair Professor, Head of the Department of Computer Science & Engineering (2002-2005), Dean of Post Graduate Studies & Research (2006-2009), Deputy Director (Faculty) (2009-2012) and Deputy Director (Strategy & Planning). Further, at IIT Delhi, he has initiated a number of programmes/activities to promote research, start-ups as well as outreach to the community. ASSISTECH, a laboratory and research group founded by him along with Prof. P.V.M. Rao (Mech Engg), is involved in developing a number of assistive devices targeted towards mobility and education of the visually impaired. SmartCaneTM is a mobility aid for visually impaired developed by his group which is currently used by thousands of users in India and other low-income countries.

He has been on the board of several companies and active in ACM and VLSI Society of India. More recently the focus of his work has been in development of affordable assistive devices for visually impaired. He is involved in a number of projects that can enhance safe mobility as well as assist in education. In the year 2010, Balakrishnan was awarded the Golden Jubilee Mentor Award by IIT Delhi Golden Jubilee Committee after being nominated by his ex-students from across the globe. His achievements also include Vasvik Award in 2005 for industrially relevant research.

Prof. Miguel Ángel Sotelo is a Full Professor at the Computer Engineering Department and currently, also the General Manager (CEO) of the University of Alcalá. He received the Dr. Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering in 1996 from the Technical University of Madrid, the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering in 2001 from the University of Alcalá (UAH), Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain, and the Master degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the European Business School in 2008.

His research interests include Driverless Vehicles, Cooperative ITS Systems, and Traffic Technologies. He was the Head of the INVETT Research Group (2012-2019) of the University of Alcalá, Director General of Guadalab Science & Technology Park (2011-2012) and Head of the RobeSafe Research Group (2006-2010). In May-June 2010 he was Dean of the Technical School of UAH and Vice-dean of the same School in the period 2004-2010. He was Vice-President for International Relations at UAH (2014-2019). Currently, he is the General Manager (CEO) of the University of Alcalá.

He is the author of more than 220 refereed papers in journals and international conferences, and corresponding author of 15 national patents and 1 PCT patent. He has been recipient of the Prize for the Best Team with Full Automation of GCDC 2016, the 2013 ITSS Outstanding Application Award, the 2010 Outstanding Service Award of the IEEE ITS Society, Best Research Award in the domain of Automotive and Vehicle Applications in Spain, 2002 and 2008, the 3M Innovation Awards in the category of eSafety in 2003, 2004 and 2009, and the Best Young Researcher Award of the University of Alcalá in 2004. He is Member of the IEEE ITS Society Executive Committee, and Member of the Steering Committee of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles. He has been a member of the IEEE ITS Society Board of Governors (2012-2014), Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Magazine, (2014-2017) Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (2008-2015), member of the Editorial Board of The Open Transportation Journal (2006-2015), President of the Spanish Chapter of IEEE ITS Society (2015-2016), and Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Newsletter (Jan 2013 – Jan 2014). He served as General Chair of the 2012 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, as well as Program Chair and member of Program/Organizing Committees in more than 30 international conferences. He has been the President of the IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society (2018-2019).

In 1997 he was Research Visitor at the RSISE department of the Australian National University. From 2004–2010 he served as Auditor and Expert at FITSA Foundation for RTD Projects in the domain of automotive applications. He has served as Project Evaluator, Rapporteur, and Project Reviewer for the European Commission in the field of ICT for Intelligent Vehicles and Cooperative Systems in the VI and VII Framework Programmes. In the period 2009-2015, he was CEO of Vision Safety Technologies Ltd, a spin-off company established to commercialize computer vision systems for road infrastructure inspection. He is an IEEE Fellow.

Prof. Santanu Chaudhury is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He is currently the Director of the Indian Institute of Technology, Jodhpur. He was also the Director of CSIR-CEERI, Pilani, during 2016-18. He is a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus award from IIT Kharagpur, from where he received his PhD in Computer Science and Engineering and a B.Tech in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering.

He has held various positions including, Dhananjay Chair Professor, Schlumberger Chair Professor and Dean, Undergraduate Studies at IIT Delhi. He is a fellow of Indian National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences, India. He was awarded the ACCS-CDAC award for overall scientific contributions in 2012 and the INSA medal for Young Scientists in 1993. He is the author of more than 300 publications in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings, 15 patents and 4 books. His research interests are in the areas of Computer Vision, Artificial Intelligence and Multimedia Systems.

Anoop G Prabhu is the Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Vehant Technologies. He is responsible for aligning the company’s technical competence with the emerging trends and futuristic technologies. He was also the co-founder of the companies Kritikal Solutions and Kritikal SecureScan. He holds a B.Tech and M.Tech degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

As the co-founder, he has led Vehant Technologies to become a pioneer in providing computer vision and machine learning based state of the art solutions for Intelligent Transportation Systems, Security and Surveillance. These solutions are designed, developed and manufactured in India and Europe to meet global standards, features and quality.