Institution: EdCIL (India) Limited, India

Dr. B. Chandrasekar is presently, the Executive Director (Corporate Planning) in EdCIL (India) Limited, a Mini Ratna Category-I CPSE under Ministry of Education, Government of India.

Dr. Chandrasekar has significant experience in education planning & management, policy level interventions, monitoring, review and assessment of national level education programmes for the Government at various levels, international funded institutions. In addition to present profile, he has contributed to India's education sector as international expert for DfID, The World Bank, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank.

Dr. Chandrasekar has wide experience of working in country's premier higher educational institutions in the capacity of Registrar, Homi Bhabha National Institute, a Deemed to be University, grant-in-aid institute of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), Govt. of India, IIIT-Delhi (a University by Act of Govt. of NCT of Delhi) and UNESCO-Regional Centre for Biotechnology, an Institute of National Importance, Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India.

Dr. Chandrasekar is also Secretary to Apex Working Group of 'Study in India (SII)' which is a flagship programme of GOI's MoE towards Internationalisation of Higher Education and other national schemes. He is mentoring the establishment of Sindhu Central University, UT of Leh/Ladakh, in the capacity of Secretary to the Executive Council. He is an ardent speaker in the national and international form for promoting India's education overseas.

Dr. Chandrasekar has more than 12 research publications in field of Renewable Energy, Institutional governance in the Education Planning and Technology in Education.

Dr. Chandrasekar holds a Master's Degree in Sciences (Bharathidasan University), MTech (IIT-Kharagpur) and PhD (IIT-Delhi). He was awarded NUFFIC Fellowship by the Royal Government of Netherlands to pursue PG Diploma in Management of the Environment at the Maastricht School of Management, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Institution: University of Michigan-Flint, United States

Dr. Zachariah Mathew serves as the Director of the Center for Global Engagement and the Senior International Officer at the University of Michigan-Flint. In this pivotal role, he leads the university's efforts in international student and scholar services, oversees education abroad programs, fosters global partnerships, and spearheads comprehensive internationalization initiatives. Additionally, Dr. Mathew contributes to the University's strategic transformation committee, playing a crucial role in shaping the institution's global engagement initiatives.

Dr. Mathew holds a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration and Leadership from Indiana State University and brings nearly twenty-five years of expertise in international education and higher education administration to his position. His academic journey began in India, where he earned a Bachelor of Physical Education degree from Lakshmi Bai National College of Physical Education, Trivandrum. He later moved to the United States to pursue a Master of Science in Sports Management at Indiana State University.

Before his transition to the United States, Dr. Mathew had a career as a Physical Education teacher at various prestigious international schools, including Mallya Aditi International School in Bangalore and Rishi Valley School in Madhanapalli.

Institution: University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Dilip M Menon is the Mellon Chair of Indian Studies and the Director of the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa at the University of Witwatersrand. He was educated at the Universities of Delhi, Oxford and Cambridge and got his PhD degree from Cambridge. He is a translator from the Malayalam and writes on film, theatre and literature.

His research for the past decade has engaged with issues of caste, socialism and equality in modern India. This has resulted in several essays and a monograph on issues of caste in modern India as also a translation of the first novel written in an Indian language by a lower caste individual.

Currently, he is working on issues of cultural and intellectual history and is engaged in a project on the writing of history in India between 1850 and 1960. The work inaugurated at the Centre is interdisciplinary and transnational in approach and looks afresh at issues of colonialism, modernity and migration in the Global South.

Institution: Atlantic Technological University, Ireland

Professor Suresh C. Pillai (ATU) is the associate director of the Health and Bio-Medical Research Centre (HEAL), also the and Bio-Engineering Research Group at Atlantic Technological University and heads the Nanotechnology. He obtained his PhD from Trinity College Dublin Ireland and completed his post-doc at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), USA.

He received the Boyle Higgins Medal (2019) from the Institute of chemistry, Ireland and the Linus Pauling Lecture Award (2020) from Mahatma Gandhi University for his nanomaterials work. Technologies emanating from his research have been licensed to six companies, and he has received multiple awards for his commercialisation work.

He has generated >€34M in research funding (>€10M as an independent PI). He is the author of >200 publications (>30,000 citations) and has presented >100 invited talks and >30 conference plenary or keynote talks.

Prof. Suresh Pillai is the inventor of 13 granted patents (including those in the US, EU, China, and Japan) and six pending patents. One of his nanomaterials-based technologies was selected as a demonstrator (from over 450 nominations) at the first European Commission Innovation Convention (Brussels, December 2011). He is the national delegate and technical expert for the ISO Standardisation Committee and European Standardisation Committee on photocatalytic materials.

Institution: National University of Singapore

Academician Seeram Ramakrishna is a world-renowned professor at the National University of Singapore (NUS), which is ranked among the top three universities in the world for the interdisciplinary research. His senior academic leadership includes NUS Vice-President (Research Strategy); Dean of NUS Faculty of Engineering; Director of NUS Enterprise; Director of NUS Industry and Technology Relations Office (INTRO); Director of NUS International Relations Office (IRO); Chairman of Solar Energy Institute of Singapore (SERIS); Director of NUS Bioengineering Initiative; Director of NUS Nanoscience & Nanotechnology Initiative (NUSNNI), and Founder of the Global Engineering Deans Council.

He has been named among the World's Most Influential Minds (Thomson Reuters), and a Highly Ranked Scholar (ScholarGPS). He co-authored more 500 Q1 journal papers. His H-index is 215 with more than 217,825 citations. He received a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, and TGMP from Harvard University, USA. He also received advanced research experiences at MIT and Johns Hopkins University, USA and KIT, Japan.

He is an elected Fellow | Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, China; Indian National Academy of Engineering; UK Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng); Singapore Academy of Engineering, Singapore; ASEAN Academy of Engineering and Technology; and International Academy of Engineering and Technology. He is also an elected Fellow of AAAS, ASM International, ASME, AIMBE, USA; IMechE and IoM3, UK; ISTE, India; IES, Singapore and IUBSE (FBSE).

Institution: IIT Bombay, India

Professor NV Varghese is currently a Distinguished Visiting Professor at IIT Bombay; former Vice Chancellor of NIEPA, New Delhi (2017-22); Founding Director of the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE/NIEPA), New Delhi (2013-2019); and former Head of Governance and Management in Education at the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP/UNESCO), Paris (2006-2013).

He has been the focal point for the ANTRIEP network, member of several International Boards/Committees and Editorial Boards of Journals, Chief Editor of the Journal for Educational Planning and Administration (2017-2022) and Secretary General of the International Working Group on Education (IWGE) from 2008 to 2013.

He has directed research projects in several countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and CIS region. He has published several books and numerous research articles in academic journals and books in the areas of educational planning, financing, school and higher education.

Institution: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, France

Dr. Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin, is a Senior Analyst, Project Leader and Head of Division at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (Directorate for Education and Skills). He works for the OECD Centre for Education Research and Innovation (CERI) and leads its work on innovation in education and education for innovation.

Stéphan's work covers all levels of education, but he has worked and published extensively on higher education, notably on cross-border higher education, on the future of higher education and, most recently, on "open higher education".

In addition to many articles and book chapters, he has co-authored and edited many OECD reports such as Ensuring Quality in Cross-Border Higher Education (2015), Measuring Innovation in Education: A New Perspective (2014), Art for Art's Sake. The impact of arts education (2014), Review of the Italian Strategy for Digital Schools (2013), Sparking Innovation in STEM education through Technology and Collaboration (2013).

Stéphan holds a PhD in economics, a master's in philosophy and a grande école diploma in business administration. Before joining the OECD, he has worked as lecturer and researcher in economics at the University of Paris-Nanterre and the London School of Economics. He is a Marie Curie Fellow and a 2007 Fulbright New Century Scholar.