Dr. B. K. Murthy is CEO of the Innovation and Technology Foundation at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhilai. He was Scientist G and Group Coordinator (R&D in IT) in the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), Government of India, where he was responsible for the promotion of R&D in the area of IT. He has been conferred the prestigious VASVIK Industrial Research Award for the year 2020 in the category of Information and Communication Technology. He spearheaded bringing out the National Strategy on Blockchain Technology from the Ministry of Electronics and IT which was released in December 2021. His research interests include artificial intelligence, software-defined networking, cloud computing, quantum computing, and blockchain technologies. He was awarded his Ph.D. degree by IIT Delhi. He has published andpresented more than 70 papers in various journals and conferences and is a regular speaker at international forums. Dr. B. V. R. Reddy is the Director of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Kurukshetra. Earlier he served as Professor at the University School of Information & Communication Technology (USICT), GGSIP University, India, for 22 years. He possesses an excellent academic track record both as a teacher and as a researcher besides administrative acumen in technology areas of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). He has also served in various positions as Dean of School of Engineering and Technology (USET), Dean of University School of Information and Communication Technology (USICT), Dean of University School of Architecture and Planning (USAP), Chairman and Librarian for University Information Resource Centre (UIRC), served at national institutes of repute as Faculty at NIT Kurukshetra, NIT Hamirpur and an alumnus of Andhra University, IIT Roorkee and NIT Kurukshetra. Dr. Nitasha Hasteer is Head of the Information Technology Department and Dy. Director (Academics) at Amity School of Engineering & Technology, Amity University, India. She has 21 years of teaching, research, and administrative experience in academics and industry and is a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering. Her interest areas are machine learning, cloud computing, crowdsourced software development, software project management, and process modeling through multi-criteria decision-making techniques. She has published more than 60 papers in various journals and international conferences in these areas and has guided many postgraduate students in their dissertations. She has been on the editorial board of many international conferences and obtained funding from government agencies such as the Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Science Technology (DST), Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO), Indian National Science Academy (INSA), and Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) for organizing conferences in the area of Information Technology. Dr. Jean-Paul Van Belle is a Professor in the Department of Information Systems, University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has been Director of the Centre for IT and National Development in Africa (CITANDA). His particular research focus and passion is the adoption and appropriation of emerging ICTs in a development context, i.e., development informatics, ICT4D, and Mobile for Development (M4D). He is the Prime Investigator of the Future of Work in the Global South (FOWIGS) Fairwork Network project and the Fairwork South Africa project. His other research and teaching specializations are social networking, decision support, business analytics, open government data, E- & M-commerce, E- & M-government, organizational impacts and adoption of IS, Open-Source Software, IT/IS architectures, and artificial intelligence.
