Invited Speakers

LT GEN (DR) Anil Kapoor AVSM, VSM (Retired), India

Lt Gen  Dr Anil Kapoor, AVSM, VSM superannuated as Director General Electronics and Mechanical Engineering on 31 Dec 2020. He was also the Director General Info Systems apriori. The General is an alumni of the prestigious National Defence Academy, Pune, Indian Military Academy, Dehradun, Defence Services Staff College, Wellington, Army War College, Mhow and National Defence College, New Delhi. A Gold Medalist both in B Tech (Electronics) and Master of Engineering (Mechanical), M Sc in Defence Studies, M Phil in Strategic Management of Technology, Ph D in Management and is an expert in Radars, Guided Missiles, MRO asset management, disruptive emerging technologies and condition based monitoring of assets.  The four decades long journey that followed in military service bears testimony to maturation of his experience in military leadership, technology and innovation management, equipment management, change management, organizational behavior, emerging disruptive technologies and human resource management  in diverse and challenging environments. The General has also been on two UN Peacekeeping Assignments as Senior Logistics Officer in Angola and Deputy Chief Integrated Support Services in Sudan on deputation to UN for two years, managed operational logistics in J & K  Operation Vijay during the  Kargil war, Operation Parakram and recently engineering support planning for Operation Snow Leopard in Eastern Ladakh in 2020. As a Brigadier he was Dean of Faculty of Industrial Engineering and Tactics in Military College of EME and  as a Major General EME in Northern Command, he implemented Engineering Support Philosophy and Practices which has become a best practice in the Corps of EME. A Chartered Engineer, he was  awarded  the Eminent Engineer Award 2020 on 15 Sep 2020 by Institution of Engineers, India for outstanding professional contributions in engineering and displaying technical brilliance. He is a Master Class Independent Director and member of Institute of Directors and Indian Institute of Corporate Affairs, Professor of Practice IIT Tirupati and Chairman, National Advisory Committee, Asset Management Society India.

Prof. Harekrishna Misra, Information Systems, Institute of Rural Management Anand, India

Prof. Harekrishna Misra, holds PhD in Information Systems. His current research interests include software engineering, e-governance, ICT for Development, and e-Business for rural and social enterprises. He has widely published refereed Journals and also is on the Editorial Boards of two international Journals.  He has around 42 years of experience in industry and academia in the fields of IT and Systems.

He held various positions in the committees set up by the government of India (GoI) including the Chairperson of the advisory committee of the Entrepreneurship Board of DST, GoI. He was the Chair Professor, at Verghese Kurien Centre of Excellence, at IRMA. He is currently a member of the Governing Council of National Council of Cooperative Training (NCCT), Ministry of Cooperation, GoI, and chairs one of its expert committees to oversee the governance of digital assets at NCCT.  He is also the Chairperson of, the Board of Governors, of an e-retail company (Sahaj Retail Limited, Kolkata, India) dealing with e-governance service delivery in India. He is a member of an expert committee to prepare a “national policy of cooperation” for India. He also works closely with faculty at United Nations University, Portugal on Measuring “Global Rural E-Governance Readiness”.  

Dr. Alireza Ahmadi, Professor Operation and Maintenance Engineering, LTU

Dr. Diego Galar, Professor of Condition Monitoring, LTU

Dr. Diego Galar is Full Professor of Condition Monitoring in the Division of Operation and Maintenance Engineering at LTU, Luleå University of Technology where he has coordinated several European projects related to different aspects of cyber physical systems, Industry 4.0, IoT or Industrial AI and Big Data. He was also involved in the SKF UTC centre located in Lulea focused on SMART bearings and also actively involved in national projects with the Swedish industry or funded by Swedish national agencies like Vinnova.
He was also principal researcher in Tecnalia (Spain), heading the Maintenance and Reliability research group within the Division of Industry and Transport and Professor in Skovde University holding the Volvo chair.
He has authored more than five hundred journal and conference papers, books and technical reports in the field of maintenance, working also as member of editorial boards, scientific committees and chairing international journals and conferences and actively participating in national and international committees for standardization and R&D in the topics of reliability and maintenance.
In the international arena, he has been visiting Professor in the Polytechnic of Braganza (Portugal), University of Valencia and NIU (USA) and the Universidad Pontificia Católica de Chile. Currently, he is currently visiting professor in University of Sunderland (UK), University of Maryland (USA), and Chongqing University in China.

Dr. Matti Rantatalo, Associate Professor, Operation and Maintenance Engineering, LTU

Matti Rantatalo is an associate professor at the Division of Operation, Maintenance and Acoustics at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden with the focus on simulation and measurement of vibrations for Condition Based Maintenance (CBM) applications. He is working at LTU as a supervisor, teacher and researcher and is responsible for coordinating the EU-research and innovation projects at Luleå Railway Research Centre (JVTC). He is currently involved in numerous research projects dealing with condition monitoring and predictive maintenance aspects and 2022 he holds a part time position at Trafikverket working with EU-related research projects.