From 2012 to 2022, Christoph Herzog held key management roles at Elektrobit Automotive, focusing on operating systems, AUTOSAR, Safety, Security, and Connectivity. Since April 2023, Christoph has served as CTO at TASKING, overseeing R&D, Business Development, and Innovation. In April 2025, Christoph assumed the additional role of Co-CEO, driving strategic leadership alongside technology initiatives. 

Christoph leads TASKING’s integration efforts and advances key technology trends such as RUST and RISC‑V. Christoph holds a degree in International Business and Technology

Gerard Vink has been with TASKING for over 25 years, witnessing the evolution from simple 8-bit microcontrollers to complex heterogeneous multicore SoCs and advancing compiler and debugger technology accordingly. As former Head of R&D, he led development of TASKING's compiler technology stack. Today, he serves in the Business Development and Innovation team, where he specializes in the certification of software development processes and tools for safety-critical applications.

Gerard holds degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science. Before TASKING, he developed MCAD, a computer animation software.

With 29 years in embedded software and leadership in safety-critical industries like aerospace, defense, nuclear, automotive, rail, medical etc., Shinto Joseph excels in mentoring, innovation and tech regulation advocacy. He has built many successful teams and technology firms.

Shinto maintains active affiliations with prominent organizations in industry, academia, technology, government and social sectors. Along with corporate and technology regulation areas, his interests are also into macroeconomics, geopolitics and psychology.

He holds a B.Tech in Computer Science from TKM College of Engineering, Kerala and an MBA in Marketing from CHRIST Deemed to be University Bengaluru.

Anantha Govardhan Reddibattuni is a distinguished Mechanical Engineer and quality management expert with nearly four decades of experience in Quality Management, Statistical Quality Control, Total Quality Management (TQM), and Six Sigma. After beginning his career in the private sector, he transitioned to public service, where he has made significant contributions to India's defence quality assurance ecosystem.

He currently serves as Additional Director General (Radars and Missile Systems) in the Defence Quality Assurance Service (DQAS), Government of India, and is set to retire in May 2026. Throughout his career, he has played a pivotal role in the quality assurance and indigenization of critical defence systems, including missile programs, military hardware, and lithium battery technologies.

A passionate educator and mentor, Mr. Reddibattuni has taught quality management and Six Sigma at premier institutions across India and served as Senior Faculty and Director at the Defence Institute of Quality Assurance, Bengaluru. He is also a certified SQC professional and a dedicated yoga teacher, reflecting his commitment to both professional excellence and personal well-being.

Mr. Avik Chatterjee serves as the General Manager, Automotive Electronics Department at the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI). He specializes in advanced automotive technologies, with particular expertise in electric vehicles (EVs), automotive electronics, and automotive cybersecurity.

He holds a Bachelor's degree in Instrumentation and Control Engineering and a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (PGDBA) with a specialization in Operations Management. He has also completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Automotive Cybersecurity from BITS Pilani.

His professional career began in the fields of Quality and Electronics, followed by a tenure at Tata Motors, where he worked at the Engineering Research Centre on engine R&D activities. Since joining ARAI in 2009, he has contributed across multiple domains, including the establishment and operation of engine development laboratories and Bharat Stage VI (BS VI) emission testing facilities.

He has been actively involved in electric vehicle testing and certification at both component and vehicle levels, as well as in the assessment and implementation of various Government of India incentive schemes related to EVs. Currently, he is leading initiatives in automotive cybersecurity, focusing on the establishment of cybersecurity toolchains and vehicle type approval activities in accordance with AIS-189 and AIS-190 standards.

Mrs. Meghana Pote is a global regulatory and advisory professional with over 26 years of expertise in cybersecurity, AI, and data privacy compliance. Currently heading Digital Trust Services at Dekra TIC India, she specialises in OT, IoT, and AI regulatory frameworks across industries including Critical Infrastructure, Railways, Automotive, Pharma, and Energy.

Meghana has delivered compliance strategies that reduced certification risks by up to 40% and executive training programmes that cut phishing incidents by 50%. A QCI certified Standards expert, Cyber Law practitioner, and GDPR advisor, she is also a regular speaker at international conferences and contributes to global standards bodies including ISA and the TIC Council.

Functional Safety Technical Expert with 14+ years of experience, including 12 years in ISO 26262-compliant safety-critical automotive systems development. Proven expertise in the development of electric powertrain (350V, 800V), advanced braking systems, hands on touch detection steering and next gen passive safety systems across ASIL levels, with global exposure and leadership in safety architecture, safety analysis, testing and process implementation.

Group Leader with 19+ years experience in Automotive industry in Engine and Brakes systems for pass-cars and commercial vehicles. Currently responsible for System and Functional Development of Commercial Vehicle Brake Control systems at ZF Global Engineering Centre, Chennai. Leads a team delivering end‑to‑end system development for local markets, while supporting the global engineering footprint with state‑of‑the‑art, scalable brake solutions up to Autonomous Level 4. Hands‑on experience in developing and releasing safety‑critical systems across the full product lifecycle. Actively drives cross‑product synergy identification to create differentiated value for OEMs.

Shashi Kumar P. is a seasoned avionics leader with more than 43 years of deep expertise in avionics systems development, verification, Quality assurance, certification and technical leadership. He has successfully driven certification programs for major global aviation platforms, like Boeing, Airbus and Embraer.

An INCOSE-certified Expert Systems Engineering Professional (ESEP), Shashi specialises in DO-178C, aerospace system certification, and emerging AI/ML-based certification frameworks.
A strong advocate for talent development, he is passionate about mentoring engineers and fostering the next generation of safety-critical aerospace innovations.

Shashi is also an Indian Air Force veteran and previously served as Senior Engineering Manager at Honeywell Aerospace.

Rooparani Chandrashekar is a highly distinguished Engineering Manager and avionics professional with over 24 years of extensive experience in aerospace software development, verification, and certification. She has consistently exhibited exemplary leadership in the successful certification of multiple avionics systems, ensuring strict adherence to global regulatory standards, including those of the FAA and EASA. As a certified Technical Standard Order Specialist (TSOS), she is widely recognized for driving operational excellence, cultivating high‑performing teams, and enabling sustained process optimization and productivity enhancement across complex aerospace programs.

Prameela Paramasivam is distinguished avionics professional with over 17 years of experience in embedded software development and system certification for aerospace applications. She has consistently demonstrated strong leadership in the certification of multiple avionics systems, ensuring compliance with global regulatory standards, including those of the FAA and EASA. She is widely recognized for her technical expertise, significant contributions to AI/ML‑driven certification initiatives, and her comprehensive proficiency across the end‑to‑end product lifecycle.

Karthik Vaidhyanathan is an Assistant Professor at the Software Engineering Research Center, IIIT-Hyderabad, India, where he is also associated with the leadership team of the smart city living lab. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Gran Sasso Science Institute, Italy and did his postdoc at the University of L’Aquila, Italy. His main research interests lie in the intersection of software architecture and Artificial Intelligence (AI), with a specific focus on building sustainable software systems. His research focuses on how AI techniques can be leveraged to better architect self-adaptive systems and further how to better define architecting practices for developing AI-enabled systems. As part of his research activities, he serves as a reviewer/organising committee member in various workshops, conferences, and journals. He is also an editorial board member (SE Radio) of IEEE Software. Karthik also brings in more than 5 years of industrial experience as an employee and as a consultant in building and deploying ML products/services.

Shrikant is an Associate Vice President – Technical, LDRA specialising in the development, integration and certification of mission-and-safety-critical systems in avionics, nuclear, Industrial safety and automotive domains. He is a “Certified Functional Safety Professional” in accordance with ISO 26262 and a “Functional Safety Certified Professional” in accordance with IEC 61508/IEC 61511 and also an ISO/SAE 21434 Cyber Security Practioner.

With two decades of experience and a solid background in software development, software testing and real-time operating systems, Shrikant guides organisations in selecting, integrating and supporting their embedded systems from development through certification

He is also an active contributor to various technical forums on functional safety and cybersecurity subjects.

With over 20+ years of core experience in design and development of embedded and real-time systems, Kavitha specialises in emerging IoT, Edge AI, Functional Safety, and Cybersecurity applications. Being a TÜV SÜD-certified ISO 26262 Functional Safety (FuSa L2) Professional, she is also involved in FDA MedTech IVD and Cybersecurity initiatives. She contributes to several industry standards bodies, including IEEE Mobility as a Service, the IEEE P2851 Safety and Reliability Working Group, and the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. Her current work focuses on safety hardening of open-source AI infrastructure, including TVM with LLVM for Automotive & Robotics NPU edge platforms, as well as MCP-enabled AI agent connectivity and works on LDRA tools for her customers.

Anil is a “Functional Safety Certified Professional” in accordance with IEC 61508/IEC 6151. He has over 19 years of experience in the development and verification of real-time embedded systems. He is the Co-Chair of the Embedded Systems Working Group for Defence Standards under the Ministry of Defence, India. Additionally, he is an internal auditor for ISO 13485:2016 Medical Devices Quality Management System, ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System, and ISO 27001:2013 Information Security Management System.

Anil has guided several customers to achieve Object Code Verification on various target platforms involving complex development environments as per DO-178B/C DAL A objectives, making him a key expert in software verification and compliance for aerospace and defence projects.

Mohamed Zuhair is an Electronics Engineer with over 18+ years of industrial experience in the development and testing of automotive electronics. He has contributed extensively to the advancement of functional safety tools, including compilers and debuggers, serving OEMs and Tier 1 customers in the automotive semiconductor space.

Currently, Mohamed Zuhair leads the Application Engineering team for the Asia region and provides strategic support to a broad customer base across India. His key areas of interest include multi-core systems with a strong focus on safety and security in automotive and other domains. He holds a Master’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Anna University.

Prathu Baronia is an operating systems engineer with over 7 years of experience
working deep in the software that powers modern chips. He has built &
maintained core system software at Qualcomm and Google, from secure firmware to custom kernels, and the Linux kernel itself. He now leads the business building an indigenous, formally verified real-time OS for safety-critical systems. He holds a BTech & M.Tech in Electronics from IIT Bombay.

Neeraj Upadhyay is an operating systems engineer with over a decade shaping the Linux kernel at AMD and Qualcomm, and a co-maintainer of its RCU subsystem. His career spans server virtualization & scalability, automotive CPU software, and hardware bring-up across generations of mobile and IoT chips. He now leads the technology building an indigenous, formally verified real-time OS for safety-critical systems. He holds an M.Tech in Computer Science from IIT
Roorkee.

Bharathwaj Baskaran is a QMS Architect with over a decade of experience in quality management and process improvement. He focuses on enhancing the organization's Quality Management Systems (QMS) and brings expertise in Functional Safety, ASPICE, cybersecurity, quality auditing, and assessments. He holds multiple Six Sigma certifications, including Black Belt accreditation. Bharathwaj is committed to driving innovation and efficiency through technology-driven quality solutions and is passionate about collaborative problem-solving, continuous improvement, and operational excellence.

Air Vice Marshal K. N. Santosh (Retd.) served in the Indian Air Force from 1989 to 2024, holding senior leadership appointments in avionics, operational networks, and aircraft systems. A specialist in software engineering and weapon system integration, he played a pivotal role in the Su-30MKI programme, contributing to one of India's most advanced fighter aircraft platforms. In recognition of his distinguished service, he was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal. Beyond his military career, he is a sought-after motivational speaker and an accomplished sportsman, bringing valuable insights on leadership, teamwork, resilience, and excellence.

Dr. Yogananda Jeppu is a Technical Fellow at Boeing and a distinguished aerospace systems engineer with over 38 years of experience in control systems, aerospace simulation, safety-critical verification and validation, Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), and Formal Methods. He has made significant contributions to landmark Indian aerospace and defense programs, including the DRDO Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) and the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) flight control system, while also leading innovations in UAV and radar technologies recognized through multiple U.S. patents.

Recognized by the Government of India for his contributions to aerospace, Dr. Jeppu received the prestigious INCOSE Systems Engineering Influencer Award 2023. Beyond his industry leadership, he is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer and serves as Adjunct Faculty at the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT)** and the **Manipal Institute of Technology (MIT)**. His work bridges industry, academia, and research, advancing the engineering of complex, safety-critical aerospace systems and mentoring the next generation of systems engineers.

Gopakumar Thekkedath is Co-founder and CTO of SecurWeave Research Labs, where he leads the design of embedded hypervisors and trusted computing platforms for safety- and security-critical systems. Over the past 25 years, he has worked extensively on virtualization, operating systems, BSPs, firmware, and hardware-assisted security, with previous leadership roles at NVIDIA, FireEye, Ericsson, NetApp etc.
His experience spans both security hypervisors for cyber defence and embedded separation hypervisors for safety-critical systems, giving him a unique perspective on the convergence of safety and security in modern embedded architectures. He has contributed to the FreeBSD bhyve hypervisor and holds multiple patents in virtualization and PCI Express technologies

Dinakar Medavaram is an embedded systems veteran with 24 years of experience across the full stack — from bootloaders and device drivers to hypervisors and secure SoC architecture. He has held senior engineering roles at Qualcomm, Xilinx, NetApp, and Motorola Mobility, with early experience building hard real-time control systems for nuclear fuel-handling robotics at NPCIL. He holds patents in PCIe error reporting and SoC governor circuits.
As Co-Founder of SecurWeave Research Labs, Dinakar now focuses on hardware-rooted security for next-generation embedded systems, bringing a practitioner's perspective on building dependability and security into embedded platforms from the ground up.

Sowmya is an Automotive Functional Safety Consultant at Drivvize with over 20 years of experience in the automotive industry. She is a recognised expert in Functional Safety, specialising in System Safety, Software Safety, and Safety Management, with extensive experience in developing safety solutions for complex software-driven automotive electronic systems.

She has led the development of System Safety Concepts for complex ECUs and has successfully guided engineering teams in implementing ISO 26262 best practices throughout the safety lifecycle—from concept and architecture to software development, verification, validation, and safety case development.

Sowmya has supported numerous customer RFQs, Functional Safety assessments, audits, and supplier evaluations across multiple product domains, global regions, and leading automotive OEMs. Her expertise also extends beyond automotive, having supported FMEA activities for safety-critical marine steering systems.

Known for combining deep technical expertise with a pragmatic engineering approach, she helps organisations use assessments as a design input at the beginning of a development cycle and not as a post mortem.

She is also the author of the widely followed Functional Safety First blog (https://www.functionalsafetyfirst.com/), where she regularly shares practical insights, best practices, and industry perspectives on Functional Safety, Automotive Cybersecurity, and Software Engineering.