Speakers

Alex James is the Dean of External Linkages and Full Professor of AI Hardware at Digital University Kerala. He earned his PhD from Griffith University, Australia, and leads Maker Village, India's largest electronics hardware incubator, along with centres for Intelligent IoT Sensors and Graphene innovation. A founding board member of India's first Digital Science Park, he has spun out multiple startups and published over 200 papers. With two decades of experience in board design, signal integrity, mixed-signal design, and AI hardware, he has taught 60+ courses in chip design and AI. His accolades include IEEE Kerala Section Best Researcher Award (2022), multiple IEEE editorial awards, and the prestigious Guillemin-Cauer Best Paper Award (2024). He has served as Associate Editor for leading IEEE journals, is Associate Editor-in-Chief of IEEE OJCAS, and will join the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Board of Governors (2026 to 2028).

Khushal Sethi is the Founder and CEO of DragonX Systems, a deep-tech company building high-speed architecture exploration tools and modern AI accelerator IP. Khushal holds an MS from Stanford University and a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Delhi. His work spans AI architectures, system simulation, and next-generation physical design algorithms, driven by the mission of making chip design faster, more accessible, and more computationally efficient.