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In this list you may find the most common documents required for exporting:Quotation - an offer to sell goods and should state clearly the price, details of quality, quantity, trade terms, delivery terms, and payment terms.Exporter - an agreement between the buyer and the seller stipulating every details of the transaction. It is a legally binding document. It is therefore advisable to seek legal advice before signing the contract.Pro Forma Invoice - an invoice provided by a supplier prior to the shipment of merchandise, informing the buyer of the kinds and quantities of goods to be sent, their value, and importation specifications (weight, size and similar characteristics). This is not issued for demanding payment but may be used when applying for an import licence/permit or arranging foreign currency or other funding purposes.Commercial Invoice - it is a formal demand note for payment issued by the exporter to the importer for goods sold under a sales contract. It should give details of the goods sold, payment terms and trade terms. It is also used for the customs clearance of goods and sometimes for foreign exchange purpose by the importer.Packing List - a list with detailed packing information of the goods shipped.Inspection Certificate - a report issued by an independent surveyor (inspection company) or the exporter on the specifications of the shipment, including quality, quantity, and/or price, etc; required by certain buyer and countries.Insurance Policy/ Certificate - an insurance policy is an insurance document evidencing insurance has been taken out on the goods shipped, and it gives full details of the insurance coverage. An insurance certificate certifies that the shipment has been insured under a given open policy and is to cover loss of or damage to the cargo while in transit.Product Testing Certificate - a certificate to certify the products are conformed to a certain international/national technical standard, such as product quality, safety and specifications, etc.Health Certificate - document issued by the competent country when agricultural or food products are being exported, to certify that they comply with the relevant legislation in the exporter's country and were in good condition at time of inspection, prior to shipment and fit for human consumption.Phytosanitary Certificate - frequently an international requirement that any consignment of plants or planting materials importing into a country shall be accompanied by a Phytosanitary Certificate issued by the exporting country stating that the consignment is found substantially free from diseases and pests and conforms with the current phytosanitary regulations of the importing country. Application of the certificate in Hong Kong should be made to the Agriculture and Fisheries Department.Fumigation Certificate – a pest control certificate issued to certify that the concerned products have been undergone the quarantine and pre-shipment fumigation by the approved fumigation service providers. It is mainly required by the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and UK's customs on solid wood packing material from Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland.ATA Carnet – an international customs document used to obtain a duty-free temporary admission for goods such as exhibits for international trade fairs, samples and professional equipment, into the countries that are signatories to the ATA Convention.Consular Invoice – a document required by some foreign countries, showing shipment information such as consignor, consignee, and value description, etc. Certified by a consular official of the importing country stationed in the foreign country, it is used by the country's customs officials to verify the value, quantity and nature of the shipment.

Mr. Avinash P. GandhiMr. Avinash P. Gandhi received his Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra and he has completed Senior Management programmes at Indian Institute of Management and Administration Staff College of India.Mr. Gandhi served as a Special Advisor to Asia Automotive Acquisition Corp. since June 20, 2005. From 1998 to 2002, Shri. Gandhi had been the President of Hyundai Motors India and from September 1994 to June 1997, he served as the Chief Executive Officer of Bhartia Cutler Hammer (now a part of Eaton Corporation). From June 1997 to June 1998, Mr. Gandhi was Group Chief Executive of a Conglomerate of seven companies having tie-ups with leading global electrical products manufacturers.Mr. Avinash P. Gandhi has rich years of experience in engineering and various managerial positions. He held top leadership positions in prestigious organizations for nearly two decades in a professional career spanning forty years. From 1969 to 1994, he served in a number of positions with Tata Motors and Escorts Limited including that of Director on Board of Escorts Claas, a start up joint venture project with the largest Indian self propelled combine harvester company.Mr. Gandhi’s other positions of eminence include:The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Fag Bearings India Ltd.Independent & Non-Executive Director of Havells India Ltd.Director of Uniproducts (India) Ltd.Member of Advisory Board of NuVeda Learning Pvt. Ltd.His other Directorship’s include Independent Lumax Industries Ltd., Fairfield Atlas Ltd., Panalfa Automotive Pvt. Ltd., Continental Engines Ltd., Mahavir Aluminium Limited, Minda HUF Ltd., Indo Alusys Ltd., Avinar Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Avinar Service Pvt. Ltd. and Pan Alfa Auto Ektrie Pvt. Ltd.Mr. S. N. AgarwalMr. S.N. Agarwal, a graduate engineer from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra and an alumnus of Harvard Business School (AMP- 1985) is the Chairman of the BHORUKA Group.He has been a Senior Executive Committee Member of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry, (FICCI) since 1985. He has been the Chairman of various National Committees of FICCI on Power, Non-conventional energy, Logistics etc. He is the President of Karnataka State Council of FICCI-New Delhi and he is also the Vice President of SAARC Chamber of Commerce & Industry representing India.Mr. S N Agarwal’s other positions include Member, Governing Board - Indian Institute of Management (Bangalore), Chairman of the Committee on Finance and Campus Development of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B), Member - World Presidents Organization. He was also the Past President of All India Organization of Employers, (AIOE).Dr. Ganesh NatarajanDr. Ganesh Natarajan is Deputy Chairman and Managing Director of Zensar Technologies Limited, a Global firm that transforms Technology and Processes for Fortune 500 companies. Dr. Natarajan has been one of the most successful professionals in the Indian Information Technology Industry, having earlier been part of two major success stories in IT Training and Consulting, NIIT and APTECH. During his ten-year stint as CEO of Aptech he grew the company’s revenues fifty times and listed it on the Indian and London Stock Exchanges.A Gold Medallist in Mechanical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra he has completed his PhD in Knowledge Management at IIT Bombay. He is the author of three McGraw Hill Books on Business Process Reengineering and Knowledge Management and has also authored a book titled “Winds of Change”. He is a regular columnist for India’s premier Business and IT magazines.Dr. Ganesh Natarajan was named “CEO of the Year” by the Asia Pacific HR Conference in 1999 and received the Wisitex Foundation’s CEO of the Decade – Knowledge Award from India’s Minister for Information Technology in 2000. In July 2005, he received the Asia HRD Congress Award for Contributions to the Organisation through HR. He was one of nineteen finalists at the Ernst & Young Entrepreneurs of the Year Award 2005 where he was recognized for his exemplary leadership skills and business acumen.Dr. Natarajan chairs the Outsourcing Forum of the Confederation of Indian Industries in Western India and is also a member of the Executive Council of NASSCOM, India’s premier IT and BPO Association. He has been elected Chairman of the NASSCOM Innovation Forum for 2005-07.Mr. Deven SharmaMr. Deven Sharma holds a bachelor's degree from the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, having graduated in Mechanical Engineering in the year 1977. He holds a Master's degree from the University of Wisconsin and a doctoral degree in Business Management from Ohio State University.Deven Sharma was named president of Standard & Poor's in August 2007. Standard & Poor's, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies, is the world's foremost provider of financial market intelligence, including independent credit ratings, indices, risk evaluation, investment research and data. With approximately 8,500 employees, including wholly owned affiliates located in 21 countries, Standard & Poor's is an essential part of the world's financial infrastructure and has played a leading role for more than 140 years in providing investors with the independent benchmarks they need to feel more confident about their investment and financial decisions.Prior to being named president, Mr. Deven Sharma served as Executive Vice President, Standard & Poor’s, where he was responsible for Investment Services and Global Sales. The businesses include Investment Data & Information, Research and Portfolio services. Prior to this, he spent five years as Executive Vice President, Global Strategy for The McGraw-Hill Companies, where he led the expansion into digital markets, geographies and new growth areas, as well as acquisitions. He also oversaw McGraw-Hill Ventures.Mr. Sharma joined The McGraw-Hill Companies in January 2002 from Booz Allen Hamilton, a global management consulting company, where he was a partner. During his 14 years with that firm, he provided guidance to client companies on business strategy and globalization, as well as on branding and sales management. Much of his experience includes work with global corporations in U.S., Latin America, Europe and parts of Asia. Prior to Booz Allen, he worked with manufacturing companies, Dresser Industries and Anderson Strathclyde.Mr. Sharma has authored several publications on competitive strategy, customer solutions, sales and marketing. He is a Board member of CRISIL, The US-China Business Council and Asia Society Business Council.Mr. Gurdeep Singh PallMr. Gurdeep Singh Pall is the corporate vice president for the Office Communications Group at Microsoft Corp. and part of the Microsoft Business Division's senior leadership team. He is responsible for vision, product strategy and business development, and R&D for Microsoft's Unified Communications offerings, including Microsoft Office Communications Server, Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft Office Live Meeting service and Microsoft Office Communications Online.Mr. Pall joined Microsoft in January 1990 as a software design engineer. He has worked on many breakthrough products in his tenure, starting with LAN Manager Remote Access Service. He was part of the Windows NT development team, working on the first version of Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 as a software design engineer, all the way through Windows XP in 2001 as general manager of Windows Networking. During his work on Windows, he led design and implementation of core networking technologies such as PPP, TCP/IP, UPnP, VPNs, routing and Wi-Fi, and parts of the operating system. He co-authored the first VPN protocol in the industry – Point-to-Point Tunnelling Protocol (PPTP) – which received the prestigious Innovation of the Year award from PC Magazine in 1996. He also authored several documents and standards in the networking area in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body in the mid-1990s. Mr. Pall was appointed general manager of Windows Real-Time Communications efforts in January 2002 and helped develop a broad RTC strategy that led to the formation of the Real Time Collaboration division and acquisition of PlaceWare Inc. (now called Microsoft Office Live Meeting). Since then, Pall has led acquisitions of Page on media-streams.com AG and Parlano and key industry partnerships. Microsoft's Unified Communications efforts have received many technical and design industry awards. He was named one of the 15 Innovators & Influencers Who Will Make A Difference in 2008 by Information Week. Mr. Gurdeep Singh Pall recently co-authored "Institutional Memory Goes Digital," which was published by Harvard Business Review as part of "Breakthrough Ideas for 2009" and was presented at the World Economic Forum 2009 in Davos, Switzerland.Mr. Pall has more than 20 patents (in process or approved) in networking, VoIP and collaboration areas. He holds a master's degree in computer science from the University of Oregon and a graduate degree in computer engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi in India.Mr. Sanjay NayakMr. Sanjay Nayak is the Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer of Tejas Networks, a leading optical networking product company from India. Mr. Nayak is a technologist with over 18 years of industry experience in India as well as the USA. Prior to founding Tejas, he held senior management position in globally leading Electronic Design Automation companies such as Synopsys (where he was the Managing Director of Synopsys-India) and earlier at Cadence Design Systems. Mr. Nayak holds an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University, Raleigh and B.E in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra.Mr. Sukant SrivastavaSukant Srivastava is Managing Director and Country Manager for Convergys Corporation’s Customer Care business in India. He is responsible for overseeing the operations of Convergys’ eight contact centres and 11,000+ Customer Care employees in India, directing relationships with National Government officials and representing Convergys in key industry forums and associations. Additionally, he focuses on driving Convergys’ Relationship Management brand position in India, enabling talent acquisition and continued leadership in the rapidly growing business process outsourcing market. Mr. Srivastava reports to Clint Streit, president of Customer Care, and is located in Gurgaon, India. Prior to joining Convergys, Mr. Srivastava served in a variety of global leadership roles with Keane, Inc. His most recent assignment was as managing director for Keane’s Indian operations. In this position he served as a transformation agent for enterprise-wide change initiatives, including a shift to a globally integrated business model. Previously, he was vice president of Global Services Integration for Keane.Mr. Srivastava holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology in Ranchi, India and a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of North Florida.Dr. Shree K. NayarDr. Shree K. Nayar did BE in electrical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, India in the year 1984. He received his PhD degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in 1990. He is currently the T. C. Chang Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. He co-directs the Columbia Vision and Graphics Center. He heads the Columbia Computer Vision Laboratory (CAVE), which is dedicated to the development of advanced computer vision systems. His research is focused on three areas; the creation of novel cameras, the design of physics based models for vision, and the development of algorithms for scene understanding. His work is motivated by applications in the fields of digital imaging, computer graphics, and robotics.Dr. Shree K. Nayar has received best paper awards at ICCV 1990, ICPR 1994, CVPR 1994, ICCV 1995, CVPR 2000 and CVPR 2004. He is the recipient of the David Marr Prize (1990 and 1995), the David and Lucile Packard Fellowship (1992), the National Young Investigator Award (1993), the NTT Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award (1994), the Keck Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching (1995) and the Columbia Great Teacher Award (2006). In February 2008, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.Dr. Arup Roy ChoudhuryDr. Arup Roy Choudhury is a firm believer in achieving team-excellence through transformational shift to proactive, positive and personalized approach. Having experience in private and public sector organizations, Dr. Arup Roy Choudhury has an illustrious career of about 35 years during which he has been holding the position of CEO for over thirteen years. An engineering graduate from BIT-Mesra, he completed his post graduation and doctorate from IIT-Delhi and fol lows the motto “Sankalpa Shuddha Hi Siddha” i.e. if your intentions are pure, you are bound to succeed.Becoming the youngest CEO of a CPSE at the age of 44 years, he scripted a stunning turnaround story as CMD when he transformed NBCC, which was a sick company with negative net-worth and salary backlog in 2001, into a blue-chip enterprise having 'Schedule A’ and ‘Mini Ratna’ status bestowed upon it by the Government of India. The transformational turnaround of the Company brought about by him enabled NBCC’s turnover grow about 10 times and net-worth over 500 times during his tenure of nine-and-a-half years at the helm (Annexure-I). He pulled NBCC out of the abyss and catapulted it into the distinguished league of ‘Top Ten CPSEs’. Under him, NBCC broadened its business horizons and paid its maiden dividend to the Govt. of India for the year 2006-07, after 45 years of its incorporation.Dr. Choudhury now heads NTPC Limited, the 10th largest power producer in the world and ranked as #1 Indepedent Power Producer by Platts (part of the prestigious McGraw Hill Group). NTPC is acknowledged as the best company in the world for capacity utilization. NTPC is also one of the seven largest Central Public Sector Undertakings of India, designated as a ‘Maharatna’.Since taking over as CMD-NTPC in September, 2010, Dr. Choudhary has been positioning the enterprise on course to become the largest and best power producer in the world.In a period of three and a half years of Dr. Choudhury’s leadership, NTPC has already added about 10,800 MW, which is over one fourth of its total installed capacity of over 43,019 MW built in over 38 years. NTPC’s turnover is around Rupees 68,800 crore (about USD 12.5 Billion). NTPC's financial performance in 2012-13 has been exceptionally strong with a Profit After Tax (PAT) of about Rs. 12,600 crore (about USD 2.3 billion), an increase of about 37% over the previous year's PAT.Dr. Choudhury steered the process of ‘Offer for Sale’ for disinvestment of 9.5% stakes of the Government of India in NTPC, garnering over USD 2 billion (About Rs. 11,500 Cr). This was oversubscribed by 1.7 times with 45% coming from foreign investors. NTPC's issue for Tax Free Bond of Rs. 1,000 crore in December, 2013 received overwhelming response from the investors with oversubscription of 3.37 times.Dr. Choudhury, as Chairman of Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE) - the apex forum of over 200 Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) in India - for two consecutive terms of two years each (From April 2009 to March 2013) effectively led policy advocacy for greater empowerment of these enterprises. He led a team of select CEOs to the Prime Minister and still remains the flag-bearer of Central PSUs.Dr. Choudhury figures at # 40 among 'India Inc's 100 Most Powerful CEOs 2013' in the list released by The Economic Times.Dr. Choudhury has received several national and international awards, including the Award for ‘The Best Organizational Turnaround’ from Hon. President of India in 2006, ‘Top Ten PSU and Turnaround Award’ from Hon. Prime Minister of India in 2007 and ‘Best Individual Leader of a Public Sector Enterprise’ from Hon. Prime Minister of India in 2010.Dr. Choudhury has captured his rich experiences and insights into a very well received book titled – 'Management by Idiots'.Mr. Anjan LahiriMr. Anjan Lahiri serves as President and CEO of MindTree’s IT Services business and is stationed in Bangalore. In this role he is responsible for all aspects of MindTree’s IT Services business around the world.Prior to relocating to Bangalore in 2008, Anjan spent five years in London setting up and then growing MindTree’s European Operations. In 1999 when he joined MindTree as a part of the founding team, he helped set up MindTree’s New Jersey office and then led MindTree’s US West Coast Operations from San Jose, California from 2000 to 2003 before relocating to London.Prior to MindTree, Anjan was a Director with Cambridge Technology Partners. He was part of the initial group, which started Cambridge’s internet services consulting practice. Anjan started his professional career with Wipro Infotech in 1987. By 1991 when he left to pursue higher studies in the US, he was a Territory Manager in Wipro’s Kolkata office.Anjan Lahiri received a BE in electronics engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi.Mr. Pawan Bhageria1983 Mechanical Engineering-Gold Medalist and MBA from XLRI, Jamshedpur His 26 years of experience in Automotive / IT Industry includes Manufacturing, New Plant Commissioning Projects & all aspects of Information Technology with special focus on automotive & manufacturing industry. He has held leadership positions in large corporations of repute in India and abroad in Global cross-cultural business and technical environment.Key areas of work :Business aligned IT strategic planning and its execution,Process re-engineering & Efficiency Modeling .ERP (SAP/Oracle/Others) Global Implementation.IT Operations Managemen.IT Audits & ComplianceLarge Contract Negotiations & Vendor ManagementOrganization Change ManagementHe was Head of IT for Tata Motors & Strategic Account Manager at Tata Technologies before joining General Motors in 2006. Currently part of GM International Operations as IT Director.Mr. Himanshu KapaniaMr. Himanshu Kapania has been the Managing Director of Idea Cellular Limited since April 1, 2011. Mr. Kapania served as Deputy Managing Director at Idea Cellular Limited until April 1, 2011. He served as the Chief Operating Officer - Corporate and Director of Operations for Idea Cellular Limited.Mr. Kapania joined Idea in September 2006 with over 21 years of industry experience. He worked with Reliance Infocomm as their Chief Executive Officer for Northern Operations covering Punjab, Haryana and HP as for three years, with IDEA Cellular Ltd., as Chief Operating Officer for over six years, with Network Ltd., as Dy. General Manager - Marketing for three and a half years, with Shriram Honda as Manager Marketing for over three years and with DCM Toyota as Sr. Executive for five years. Mr. Kapania serves as a Director of Idea Cellular Limited. He is a BE in Electrical & Electronics from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi and a postgraduate from the Indian Institute of Management, BangaloreM. M. Singh (Batch of 1974)M M Singh is the Chief Operating Officer, Maruti Suzuki India LimitedHe leads Production vertical at Maruti Suzuki India Limited. He is responsible for rolling out 1.2 million cars from Maruti stable every year with assets under control (AUC) of USD 5 billion (Rs 30,000 crores). All manufacturing facilities at Gurgaon, Manesar , Gujarat reports to him. He leads a team of 20,000 people at 10 plants consisting of more than 150 departments.His leadership led to production of high Quality cars which were exported to EU, Latin America and Middle East, and Topping CSI and APEAL ratings in India. Every year Maruti exports about 120,000 cars made in India. During his leadership an Indian manufactured car became World’s largest selling auto brand, Alto, beating models like Polo and Accord.He is Chairman of SIAM ( Society of Automobile Engineers) Logistics, Co-chairman of FICCI Manufacturing National Committee and Chairman of CII North manufacturing committee.He has received inspired manufacturing fraternity with his patented thought process called “Production Managament System” which has set revolution in manufacturing sphere by combining Japanese practices with Indian wisdom and capturing the passion of western management.M M Singh is from the BIT BE (ECE) Batch of 1974Sudhir Mohan TrehanSudhir Mohan Trehan is Executive Chairman of Avantha Power & Infrastructure Limited and Vice Chairman of Crompton Greaves Limited.A gold medallist in mechanical engineering, he graduated from Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi. He received his Master’s degree in operational research from State University of New York at Stony-Brook, U.S.A., and successfully completed the Advanced Management Program (AMP) from Harvard Business School, Boston, U.S.A.He joined Crompton Greaves Limited in 1972 and, over the years, has held several positions of responsibility. He was appointed Managing Director of the company in 2000 and, on his retirement in June 2011, was named Vice Chairman. He is a member of the Avantha Management Board, which formulates strategy at the Group level. He is also Chairman of the Board of Governors at Thapar University.Sudhir is a highly respected and widely recognised business leader. He was named “Outstanding Chief Executive” for 2000-2001 by the Indian Institution of Industrial Engineering. In recognition of his contribution to the Indian industry in general and the management movement in particular, the Bombay Management Association (BMA) unanimously conferred upon him the “Management Man of the Year Award” for 2005-2006. He was named Business Standard CEO of the Year for 2008-09.Sudhir has worked in various capacities with industry bodies, including BMA, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Association (IEEMA) and Nashik Industries & Manufacturers’ Association (NIMA). He was Chairman of CII’s Western Region.His interests include golf, cricket and reading.Mr. R. K. Gupta (Batch of 1965)Founder & Chairman, Laxmi Publications Group & President Emeritus BITOSA DelhiMr. Gupta is founder of Laxmi Publications Group. He has over 35 years of publishing experience. A wellknown figure in the Indian Publishing Industry, he was Ex-President, Federation of Educational Publishers in India. Apart from a distinguished personality in publishing industry, Mr. Gupta has actively taken part in promoting sports in India. He has head many international delegations. He was Secretary, Winter Games Federation of India, President, Ice Skating Association of India, Secretary, Winter Games Federation of India, Member, and Indian Olympic Association. He did Mechanical engineering from BIT Mesra.Mr. Pramod Taparia (Batch of 1966 )Founder & Chairman, Wintech TapariaMr.Pramod Taparia (popular as PT) is an entrepreneur, facilitating the food processing industry, by doing required pioneering work in India. At an age of 35 years, in 1985, PT got an award from the Vice President Shri Ramaswamy Venkataraman of India for being a "Self made Industrialist", at Delhi. Collaborating with the Swedish, in 1986, he founded a company offering international Technology & Equipments at an affordable price in India. This company, together his Scandinavian partners, pioneered Potatoes, Vegetables and Seafood processing & packaging in India. In addition to a formal degree in engineering, he went in the year 1993, for an Advance Management Program of few weeks, to a well known institute in Stockholm, Sweden.Mr. Niraj Sharan (Batch of 1976)Founder, Chairman & CEO Aura Inc.Mr. Niraj Sharan is the Founder-Chairman and CEO of Aura Inc., since 1989, a leading Global enterprise catering to the global ENERGY sector through Engineering, Manufacturing & System Integration. He is also Founder & Co-Chairman, Aurys s.r.l, Italy, a leading Technology Consulting and full service Engineering Company in Oil & Gas sector. He sits on advisory Board of several For Profit and Non-Profit companies out of USA, India & EUin Technology, Health Care and Clean Energy verticals. He is “Member, Technical Expert Committee - Government of India,under Department of Science & Technology since June 2009.”, “Special Invitee” to the US Endowment Board on US – India Joint Commission on Science and Technology formed under agreement of President Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.Mr. Sunil Jain (Batch of 1977)Chief Operating Officer & Head-Wind, Green InfraSunil is the COO of Green Infra. He has over 27 years of experience in the engineering industry, particularly in the auto and infrastructure sectors. He has extensive experience in business development, both in the domestic and international markets, and in handling commercial negotiations with customers and vendors alike. Mr. Sunil is also the President, Northern Region Council and Member National Council of Indian Wind Power Association. Sunil is a Mechanical Engineer from BIT Mesra and holds an MBA from Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University.Mr. Rajiv Nag (Batch of 1971)Founder and Chairman, CyberQ Consulting & Senior Advisor at KPMGSenior Advisor of KPMG ,The founder and Chairman of CyberQ Consulting Pvt. Ltd., Dr. Rajiv Nag is amongst the world's top-notch consultants in the areas of Process consulting who has helped organizations put their processes in place. With over 25 years of experience around the world in the areas of Software Project Management, Quality Assurance and System Testing, Development of Software Integrated Management Systems, Functional and System Integration, Application Systems Development, System design, Strategic management consultancy, Development of Quality Management Methodology and Information Security initiatives.Shri T. Venkatesh, I.A.S. (Batch of 1979)Chief Vigilance Officer (CVO) & Board Member, NTPCShri Venkatesh is an Indian Administrative Service officer of 1988 batch of U.P. Cadre. Prior to his assignment as Jt. Secy. (DOPT) in the Ministry of Personnel & Public Grievances & Pension, he held various administrative posts including DM (Bareilly), Commissioner (Gorakhpur) and Secretary (PWD) in the state of Uttar Pradesh. He is looking after the work of CVO and also on Board of Directors of NTPC since October, 2009. He has done Mechanical engineering from BIT Mesra and is post graduate in same.Mr. Ashutosh Pande (Batch of 1983)Managing Director (India) and Global Vice President & GM ISBU at CSR Technology (India)Mr. Ashutosh specializes in market creation for new technology and products. Strategist, visionary and sharp thinker, he is currently Member Governing Council at Association of Geospatial Industries and also heads an incubation unit within the company where they are exploring avenues that will allow CSR to diversify beyond chipsets into services. He holds MS in Electrical Engineering from University of Alberta, USA and B.E. in Electronics & communication from BIT Mesra.Mr. Nirankar SaxenaDirector, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI)Mr. Saxena heads the Business Information Services Network Division (BISNET) at FICCI and manages multiple project portfolios. His responsibilities include networking with leading senior Government officials,industrialists‟ and the diplomatic corps in India as well as the visiting foreign dignitaries. Prior to joining FICCI, he was Chief Executive Officer of Osprey Software Technology (P) Ltd and Director of Team Computers (P) Ltd. He holds a Page on b.e.in ComputerSciences from BIT Mesra.Mr. Ajay Pathak (Batch of 1977)Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road & Surface Transport, GOIFormer Joint Secretary at Ministry of Finance, he is now Jt. Secretary at Ministry of Road and Surface Transport. He has done his Civil Engineering from BIT Mesra.Mr. Jagdish Mitra (Batch of 1988)Chief Executive Officer of CanvasMAt CanvasM, he leads a team of over 600 associates that are focused on providing solutions that enable customers and enterprises take advantage of the mobile ecosystem. With over 20 years of experience in the areas of business development and marketing in the global information services market. Under his leadership, CanvasM has been awarded the “Best Start-Up Company” at the Mobile Content Awards 2008 held in London.Mr. Atul Kansal (Batch of 1984)Founder and Managing Director, INDUS EnviroMr. Kansal is Founder and Managing Director of INDUS Enviro and is responsible for its activities in India and the neighboring countries. He has more than 18 years of diversified consulting experience in Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) Management particularly in EH&S Compliance and Due-Diligence Auditing. Over last 18 years, he has worked on more than 350 environmental projects in a variety of sectors. He has done his Civil engineering from BIT Mesra and Masters from IIT Roorkee.Mr. Annup Damani (Batch of 1979)Managing Director at Alloy CastMr. Damani is Managing Director at Alloy Cast (P) Ltd. Today, under his leadership, the company now boast of a capacity of over 3, 50,000 to 4, 00,000 castings per month. It has factories to cater diversified range of products and services encompassing industries like automotive, hardware, plumbing and heating controls.Mr. Abhishek Sinha (Batch of 1995)Co-founder & CEO of Eko India Financial Services Private LimitedEko democratises access to formal financial services using mobile phones as a financial identity for people at the bottom of the pyramid. Eko stands out for simplicity of user experience while still ensuring secure transactions.Eko has partnered with 1,500 retail stores bringing banking services at the next-door grocer for close to 1 million customers. Eko processes over $ 1 million every day and has processed close to half a billion dollars in transactions so far! Eko listed amongst top 10 most innovative companies in India by Fast Company | Business + Innovation!SOURCE:- www.bitmesra.ac.in

It’s All About Product Positioning!Instead of some “best, faster, cheaper” analysis, this post will take a deep dive into the history of the consumer drone market and how products have been positioned within it. To understand these products and how they have shaped the market, first let’s look at the major players and their chronology.DIY Drones and 3DRWe owe “drones” as we now know them to Chris Anderson and DIY Drones (Full Story). In 2008, Chris created the online community DIY Drones to start thinking about flying robots and offer support/guidance. They borrowed vehicle designs from academia and low cost electronics from a frenzied cell phone market that had just seen the introduction of the iPhone, but there was a missing piece. The hardest part of making an early drone was attempting a DIY flight computer, so Chris’ newly formed drone company 3DRobotics partnered with a Swiss University (ETH Zurich) to create the PX4 open hardware platform and ArduPilot, a similar, but comparatively less robust system based on the Arduino prototyping platform.This dramatically spread interest in quadcopters among hobbyists and created a new branch of the already well-established model aircraft community represented by the AMA (Academy of Model Aeronautics).So now we have quadcopters, and they’re really fun to build and fly, but we’re still figuring out what to actually do with them. Enter Parrot.ParrotAt CES 2010, Parrot introduced the AR.Drone, our first example of excellent product positioning. It was a relatively cheap ($300) and mostly foam toy, designed to be controlled by wifi and a mobile interface. What was the most important word in that last sentence? Toy. It was an extremely successful toy for 4 reasons:These products were specifically marketed (and very well at that) as a toy in both the US and Europe, effectively penetrating these markets through Apple Stores and other prestigious electronics distributors, yet they kept a very attractive price point.Easy to operate / flyThe mobile interface allowed for control via “motion events,” a.k.a. tilting or rotating the device in order to command the drone to go forward, backward, etc.High crash tolerance and low propellor riskThe foam shell, overall low weight, and flexible / ducted propellers made the drone very safe and crash friendlyThe system was “ready to fly.”Being “ready to fly” is hugely important, as you no longer need a hobbyist level of understanding / skill to get your flying robot off the ground. No more sifting through forums to find solutions to common problems, no more researching obscure replacement parts, significantly fewer fly-aways -- it works out of the box. “Ready to fly” was a big step in solving the largest problem facing drones, which is best described by the question, “When I take off, is the drone going to do what I want it to do?”The importance of making drones reliable and less buggy, with fewer fly-aways and fewer crashes, has been a key narrative in the evolution of the consumer drone industry. However, with quickly improving hardware, safety, reliability, and capability, we are confronted with an even deeper and more troubling question: “What the heck do we actually do with these flying robots?”Enter DJI.DJIDJI has defined and cornered the consumer drone market. Let’s look at how and why.(Forbes’ Ryan Mac on DJI’s history) In 2006, Frank Wang moved from prototyping flight computers in his dorm room to manufacturing and selling them in Shenzhen. Like Apple, DJI began by designing and manufacturing the technological building blocks (a.k.a. enabling hardware) for a market they would both soon define.Back to the ever-persistent question, “So what if the robot flies, what does it actually do?” Many people don’t understand why this is important because they look at the consumer drone market as a collection of flying robots. To better understand this, you need to reframe how you view the market. Try this: tell yourself that there are no drone companies. Stop imagining DJI, Parrot, and Yuneec as just selling drones. Parrot sells many things from headphones to navigation equipment. They also sell some great flying toys.What does DJI sell? They are a camera company. DJI sells cutting-edge camera equipment, which in some instances, happens to fly. “But,” you retort, “DJI has sold around $1B worth of quadcopters in 2015 and the Phantom often defines what most people think of when they reference a drone! How then, can they be a camera company?”This brings us back to our initial question. The most obvious use for drones was slapping on a camera and collecting video from a previously inaccessible area. The problem was that for a drone to move around, the entire airframe (what we call an aircraft’s skin and chassis) needs to rotate in some way, causing the thrust from the propellers to not be pointed straight down, but in a direction that angles the drone. The problem arrise that every time you need to move your drone through space, you inadvertently change where your camera is pointing.Roomba Creator Cyphy solves this with skew propellers and clever control system design. A fantastic solution when flying in still air, but largely ineffective when dealing with winds and intense accelerationTo finally get smooth and usable video, we use a gyro-stabilized gimbal, a motorized camera-mounting device that measures how a body (the body of our drone in this case) is rotating, and then uses those measurements to calculate the exact opposite rotation. The motors immediately perform this opposite rotation, which causes the mounted camera to remain still. This system is what we refer to as a steadicam and under the hood, so to speak, it is very similar to an autopilot. http://gph.is/1okvsd4The autopilot also measures how the drone body is rotating, but instead of calculating the opposite rotation, it calculates how the drone would need to rotate to be in a stable hover. So DJI, who is very good at making autopilots, finds they are also very good at making gyro-stabilized gimbals.We now have all the ingredients for the Phantom 1 and a suitable answer to our question. The Phantom 1 was huge, the catalyst for DJI and the aerial photography market. It was a ready to fly camera drone that actually took good pictures and video. Finally, people weren’t just flying robots around, they were creating value by capturing data, a big leap in overall drone usefulness. I keep harping on value and utility because that’s what defines DJI as a camera company. At the end of the day it does not matter that this robot left the ground, moved around, and then landed. What matters is the data it was able to collect and the value of that data. This robot could video data that a real estate broker can use to advertise a house, multispectral data that shows crop health in a farm, or just a great drone selfie that you just want to watch over and over.Now the explosive growth happens, but we haven’t said why. As it turns out, photo and video is THE use case for drones, and the Phantom is the first drone to do this well. Yes, delivery by drone is exciting, but it’s still a ways off. Search and rescue, infrastructure inspection, agriculture, insurance, marketing are really just subcategories of aerial photo/video and the Phantom can tackle them all. This marks the beginning of a trend we still see today: drones as a platform for software. As we move through the Phantom 2, Inspire 1, and now the Phantom 3 (I’m really hoping DJI’s March 1st announcement is the Phantom 4), DJI consistently improves their ready-to-fly-ness, ensuring fewer fly-aways, better usability, and an easier and easier pilot learning curve. They accomplish this primarily with better software while also improving the quality of their cameras and flight hardware.Enough with the history, what about the future?!Well, to talk about the future, let’s start with the present and project forward.DJI and the continued dominance of the PhantomDJI has great flying cameras that out-perform and undercut every other photo/video drone. This is why even a heavily venture-backed and high performing company like 3DR will struggle immensely when competing with DJI’s hardware.What’s in store for 2016 then? First off, it’s not the Phantom X. I view this purely as a market research study to test by means of public comment if DJI should invest in Lily Drone-like features and technologies. I’ll go into detail on these when talking about Lily below.DJI will continue to improve its breadwinning photo/video products, the Phantom and Inspire series, while further testing the waters in other areas. DJI is exploring agriculture hardware with the Agras MG-1 as well as R&D hardware with the Martice M-100 and guidance kits for advanced computer vision. However, the prime directive is still to deliver increasingly better products for creative aerial imaging. So far we have only seen one investment from the DJI/Accel Partner’s Sky Fund in DroneBase, an aerial imaging services marketplace. In contrast, DJI’s largest investment was purchasing a minority stake in Hasselbald (a centuries-old Swedish camera maker); their priorities for high-quality imaging hardware seem clear. This makes sense as nearly ALL of the money being made in drones today comes from photo/video drone hardware sales. Often overlooked in DJI’s growing video empire is the Osmo, which is defining and driving the handheld steadicam market, a big hint that DJI may not be a one trick pony that struck gold with the Phantom. The Osmo was extremely well received by Vloggers and other online content creators who make up one of the fastest growing areas of photo/video. The Osmo could also be a major player the next progression of action camera technology as we react the limits of digital image stabilization.DJI continues to champion risk and innovation in their R&D and product design. Over the summer they opened a R&D center in Palo Alto headed by Apple's previous director of antenna design and Tesla’s previous director of autopilot design. Perhaps the most important DJI initiative that will influence 2016 is their quickly expanding mobile SDK. A robust SDK will allow DJI’s flagship products to truly become platforms for mobile software. In this way, the past competitive dynamics of the cell phone market will shape those of the consumer drone market: high quality and standardized hardware will enable cost-effective applications for every use case. This, mixed with favorable regulation and better safety/ATC systems (DJI also picked up the guy that build Uber’s public policy team from scratch), is what the collective startup that is consumer drones needs to continue growing. Without them, there is no definitive reason that drones will be guaranteed to become mainstream in the next 5-10 years.A make or break year for 3DRThe Solo drones’ 4 smart shots and GoPro compatibility were not a strong enough product differentiator for large adoption in 2015, despite excellent marketing.Considering the poor GPS performance, gimbal shipment delays of almost 4 months, and the $1800 total price tag, the Solo needed to display earth-shattering performance or assisted piloting / smart shot features that 10x’ed the market.However, the poor GPS performance nullified the small value added by the smart shots, which quickly became a standard adopted by competitors (DJI, Parrot, Yuneec, EHang, and Hexo+).So going back to my final point on DJI, I would like to see 3DR abandon the Solo to focus their efforts on standardized, market-leading flight computers and open source software like the immensely valuable DroneCode and DroneKit projects. With their simple, market-leading, and beautiful products, as well as their expansive but closed source SDK, DJI is truly stepping up as the Apple of consumer drones. 3DR is then the best positioned and most capable player to rise as the Android analoge. I strongly believe it will be nearly impossible for them to compete with DJI on hardware, but they can dominate software, which history has consistently shown to be the winning bet in the Silicon Valley.ParrotThe Parrot Bebop aimed to fill a known gap in the market, a smaller, easy to use, sub $500 drone that can also take high-quality video. So they created a compact, wifi-based (i.e. cheap communications), $500 quadcopter with a gimbal-less software-stabilized 4K camera. These were all great design choices that, in theory, would have well positioned the Bebop. However, with poor connectivity from the wifi and a camera that was primely positioned to take the brunt of any crash and even then only took so-so video, the Bebop was also a no go. “But the sky controller,” you say. Well, now the Bebop cost $800 and is still greatly outperformed by the $500 Phantom 3 Standard. Unfortunately, the Bebop 2 failed to fix any of these fatal flaws while raising the base price to $550, smh.To win in 2016, Parrot should continue to improve their minidrones, which are excellently positioned toys, and try one more iteration of the Bebop, but with a substantial redesign. The purpose of this is to position the Bebop a less complex and less expensive Phantom that will rise above the almost innumerable low cost Phantom copies produced by what drone analyst calls China Inc.For the Bebop to be successful it needs to be <$400 (a $300 price point is preferable), easy to fly, easy to transport/carry, better protected camera lens, crisper video picture, and most importantly it must maintain a reliable connection (I’m talking >90% uptime) at 500ft range. Parrot currently claims the Bebop 2 has 300m range (~1000ft), however, this cannot be allowed to happen, ever.Yuneec: A Well Supported Challenge To DJIYuneec began making radio controlled model aircraft in 1999 and over their 17 years in business they have been a pioneering force in brushless electric motors, radio equipment, and electric powered manned vehicles including light-sport, ultralight, and general aviation aircraft. In a logical progression from model aircraft, yuneec used their radio and motor technology to lead the very early hobbyist quadcopter market as its largest manufacturer. It’s important to note that until very recently Yuneec and always white labeled their products to be marketed and distributed by US partner companies, most notably Horizon Hobby. This is why Horizon’s Blade Chroma series looks almost identical to Yuneec’s Typhoon and why it features the same integrated display on the controller. In all of this Yuneec has proven to be a manufacturing powerhouse, delivering 1 million units per year for the past 10 years.Yuneec made a huge splash in August when Intel Capital announced they were investing $60M in the drone maker. Just 2 weeks later, Qualcomm introduced the SnapDragon Flight, a version of their flagship mobile processor designed specifically for UAS and announced that Yuneec would be the first OEM to use the chip. So, Intel and Qualcomm made their bets, on the same pony...This lead Yuneec to win nearly all the CES drone awards this year (most notably from Engaget and PCMag) with its Intel RealSense enabled Typhoon H. The new Typhoon, however, did not use the Snapdragon Flight, which was instead was demoed on Tencent and Zerotech’s Ying drone. Regardless, Yuneec has the track record and support to truly challenge DJI’s dominance, but this will be a longer play that extends beyond 2016. Despite the hype, Yuneec still has a ways to go before the Typhoon and Tornado can adequately take market share from the Phantom and Inspire. Both sets of competing products are relatively close in terms of performance, cost, and positioning. The one key differentiator is Yuneec’s integrated display, which, unlike DJI products, does not require an additional mobile device to access key features such as live video feed, telemetry data, and autonomous mission planning. The major differentiator is the modular sensor bay that can hold a 360 degree sonar, Intel RealSense, or infrared camera array. These sensors have already been integrated to enable sense and avoid technology developed by recent Intel quisition, Ascending Technologies. AscTech has been the go-to high end research drone for academia making notable appearances in almost every groundbreaking UAS technology demonstration by UPenn’s GRASP Lab, ETH Zurich, and Intel themselves back in early 2015. AscTech has been sucessfully by selling state of the art drone hardware and processors with relatively open firmware. This is immensely important to researchers because if they were to use a DJI product to test new autonomous or sense and avoid technology, they would have to remove all of DJI’s proprietary firmware and rebuild it from scratch to incorporate whatever hardware and software they are testing. Yikes. So in exchange for easy to develop and open software/hardware, their products cost a small fortune only affordable to top universities and Intel.What does all of this mean for 2016? In the short term Yuneec will take a small amount of market share from DJI in photo/video drones, but their real play is for 2017 when truly autonomous UAS enter the market. As was said before, it is very difficult to compete with DJI current products, however, autonomy is poised to change who’s hardware dominates and the first mover will have a tremendous advantage, similar to what DJI enjoys today. This is a nice segway into autonomous drones and new technology/advancements that will actually matter in 2016, so let’s start with the crowd favorite, the Lily Camera.The Madness Of Lily And The Challenges Of AutonomyLily exploded onto the web last May with their ridiculously viral product announcement video and a hugely successful preorder champaign. This got them $34M in presales and $15M series A round lead by Spark Capital, but to make their $999 price point and deliver on the wide array of features shown in the promo video, they’ll need every penny. To understand my reservations about Lily and “follow me” drones we need to look at the state of the art for intelligent autonomous systems.A flying robot that follows you around requires a list of increasingly complex things. First, it needs to be able to maintain a stable hover in one place. Companies have figured this out by using GPS and downward facing optical flow cameras that watch how the robot moves with respect to the ground to catch drifting. Now that the robot can reliably stay in one place, it needs to move, just not into the nearby tree. So the robot needs information on its environment which it can get from cameras, sonar, or LiDAR. In each case, the incoming data needs to be heavily processed to be useful so most systems employ what know as SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping). SLAM first uses the data to build a 3D model/map of the robot’s environment and then figures out where it is in that map. This process involves taking thousands of sensor measurements to create a cloud of data points that make up the 3D model. Now our robot needs to figure out where its target is and plan how to get there. After calculating hundreds of options, it selects the the best path and finally the autopilot calculates what how fast each motor should spin to move the robot in the right direction.RECAP: Be stable, build map, find yourself on map, find where to go, plan steps to get there, execute first set, and repeat, one thousand times per second.Now we see why some AscTecs come with a i7 processor and 4GB of RAM yet can only autonomously move at a walking pace. The time required to figure out the perfect move only allows for limited amount of moves per second. Researcher have worked around this by collecting less data, planning less paths, and accepting greater overall error. This allows the robot to move quicker, but it’s no longer making perfect choices and risks a crash. This is the greatest barrier for intelligent autonomous systems.SidebarYou make have seen videos of autonomous drones moving very quickly and completing incredible precise missions. These systems cheat by using an array of infrared cameras that track markers on the robot. This is called a motion capture or MoCap system and they take care of the SLAM process as long as the robot is in the middle of at least 4 extensively calibrated cameras (if the camera is moved at all, the recalibration process is slow long I could only find a timelapsed example).Who has the best autonomous drones and what are they capable of? Besides the mysterious work of Skydio, the most advanced demonstrations go to DARPA, MIT, Intel, and Qualcomm. This means that Lily is attempting to compete with Yuneec’s manufacturing prowess, Intel’s processors and cameras, and AscTec’s years of autonomous UAS R&D. Why do this? So a robot can follow me around and take pictures… I think we need to have a serious conversation about ROI.Why Certain Drone Technologies Are Less Important (Spoiler Alert, it’s ROI)Remember when we discussed how photo/video was the best use case for drones? That’s because aerial photo/video holds the best ROI. This is the same reason drones have yet to revolutionize agriculture. In their UAS economic impact report, AUVSI predicts 100,000 drones will be sold for precision agriculture by the end of 2016, which is roughly 1 drone for every 10 US farms with annual sales >$10,000. For all of these farms to benefit from UAS, every dollar they spend on buying and operating the drone must create more than one extra dollar in crop sales. For now, manned aircraft and satellite imaging continue to be more cost effective than agricultural UAS. This is the same reason slight advances in battery technology don’t matter just yet. The 20-30 minute flight times that most consumer models enjoy is enough for almost every application and swapping batteries, while annoying, remains cost effective. Another factor is the FAA’s ban on beyond line of sight drone operations, which is also why we are unlikely see drone logistics and package delivery until 2020.