Nihar earned a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical engineering from the University College of Engineering Burla in the year 1997 and later in the year 2014 received his M.B.A. from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management with a focus on Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He is passionate about creating innovative digital solutions for big problems and has been involved in start-ups and incubators for several years. In the year 2016, he founded his own company, Performalytic Corp, and is currently working as a Managing Partner at Performalytic with offices in Chicago, USA, and Bhubaneswar, India. Nihar brings years of digital strategy, analytics, and leadership experience from multiple industries, including Accenture, Ecolab, General Electric, and a few other Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Nihar is a vivid runner and has completed several Marathons in recent years. He lives in Chicago with his wife and daughter of 13 years old.

Sasi is from Berhampur and has lived in San Jose, CA for the last 20 plus years. Besides VSSUT OAA, Sasi also volunteers for most Odia community activities. Sasi loves to make new friends and loves to talk to people. Sasi is active in the pmi.prg Silicon Valley chapter where he helps people looking for a career in project management.

Susanta Dash has worked as an engineer in the PC manufacturing company PSI Kalinga in Bhubaneswar. He has worked as a scientist in the LRDE lab of DRDO. In the USA he has worked in the semiconductor industry in individual contributor and leadership roles for 20+ years. He is a PMP since 2010, has done MSC Engineering from SJSU and currently works at KLA.

Premchand graduated from VSSUT (UCE) in 1989 with a BSc Engineering in Electronics and Telecomm. He started his professional career as an Industry Promotion Officer, Government of Odisha at Sambalpur, and then as Engineer Trainee at SAIL, Rourkela prior to joining as Lecturer at VSSUT, Burla in December 1990. He studied PhD in the De Montfort University, United Kingdom in 1998 and Postdoctoral at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea in 2001 utilizing Overseas Scholarship and Brain Korea-21 Fellowship, respectively. Premchand moved to the USA in 2007, and he is currently working as a tenured Full-Professor in the Department of Industrial Technology, California State University, Fresno, CA. His academic expertise is in the areas of Distributed Control Systems (DCS). He is the author and editor of 5 books and 200 technical articles. For the past 30 years, Premchand has guided more than 500 students at the Undergraduate, Graduate, and PhD levels. Besides advanced Industrial Technology, Premchand’s interests include gardening and music. Premchand currently lives in Clovis CA with his wife Suprava and kids Abhijit and Manjit.

Dillip has been living in the Bay Area for the last 20 years. He has a small family that includes Lucky, Ayush & his most lovable puppy Gelo. He loves to spend time outdoors like nature walk/hiking during his spare time.

Vinay graduated from VSSUT (UCE) in 1985 majoring in Civil Engineering. He worked for two years in Civil construction with Orissa Synthetics Limited, Dhenkanal and Rural Development with Tata Motors, Jamshedpur. Vinay joined the IT Services department with Tata Steel, Jamshedpur in May 1987 as Programmer Analyst. He played a key role in implementation of the first Railway Receipt computerization for the Steel industry. He moved with his family in August 1996 to the USA and worked in IT consulting for Transportation, Automobile, and Insurance industries. Vinay is currently leading the IT engineering team in developing applications for a leading Grocery Retail Industry based in Pleasanton, CA. Vinay has led the Digital, Marketing and Merchandising initiatives and is an active participant in the Asian Network Group. Vinay resides in the San Francisco East Bay Area with his wife, Pratibha and two kids, Bhavna and Viraj.

Priyadarshy Dash, graduated from UCE in 1982 majoring in Electronics & Telecom. He is a Masters in Computer Science from Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. Started his career in VLSI Design at Semiconductor Complex Ltd and Space Research at ISRO. Worked for major multinationals Oracle Corp, PriceWaterhouse Coopers , Accenture, Fujitsu Consulting and VISA Corporation. He is now a Principal at a Data and Analytics consulting firm, Prisoft.