Executive Bios

	D. R. Roberson (Randy) Advisor \| President Figment A/V Inc, Huntsville, AL Randy has over 25 years of experience in the industry. He has held several excutive positions for startups and large corporations. Randy has worked for IBM, AT&T, Motorola as VP of Digital Communications, Sr VP General Instruments and VP/GM of Texas Instruments Wireless division. Randy has been CEO of startups like Tantivity, Southern Cord Inc. He holds several patents and has a Bachelors and Masters in Transient Electromagmentics from University of Kentucky. View Detailed Bio » Randy started his career at IBM, during career he received 3 Division awards, filed several patents and lead his team to develop and license the XGA standard. Randy worked for AT&T, Randy worked for Motorola as VP of Digital Communications, in this role his team developed the BitSurfR ISDN modem, participated in the V.34 standards, and developed many components for the first cable modem. Randy then moved to General Instruments, in San Diego (now Motorola) where as Sr. VP he managed over 1000 engineers, doing all GI VLSI, satellite set top products, uplink products, conditional access, etc. During this period his team developed and shipped many VLSI components, performed many significant cost reductions and enhancements on the set top boxes and head end equipment, and developed GI’s cable modem. After leaving GI, Randy took the role as CEO of Tantivy Communications Inc, a startup technology company focused on developing low-cost wireless broadband communication systems. He raised over $70M in startup funding for Tantivy and helped develop and oversaw many industry aliences/partnerships. He also guided the team to a successful trial product demonstration in Seoul Korea. After Tantivy, Randy first ran the Wireless LAN, then added the DSL chipset BU for Texas Instruments. During his tenure he consolidated and solidified: customer relationships and confidence, and chipsets. Returning the BU to a respectful position among competitors. Randy has a BSEE and a MSEE in Transient Electromagnetics from the University of Kentucky. He holds several patents, and has held executive and senior executive positions in some of the largest and very respected technology companies (IBM, AT&T, Motorola, General Instrument, and Texas Instruments), as well as founded and participated in several startups.
	Jayant Somani Advisor \| Sr. Director and BU Manager, Cypress Semiconductor In his current role, he runs data connectivity business unit out of India for the worldwide market. Jayant is associated with the electronics industry for the past 16 years. He has Marketing and Business Management experience in consumer electronics and automotive industry. Prior to Cypress he has also worked for Conexant Systems, Texas Instruments and Lucent Technologies in various Marketing and Engineering Management Positions. Jayant received his MBA from Wharton School and, graduate and undergraduate degrees in Electrical Engineering from BITS, Pilani. He holds two patents and was a board member of the WiFi Alliance.
	Dr. L. K. Maheshwari Advisor \| Professor Emeritus & Advisor to Chancellor, BITS Pilani He has received ‘Scientist of the Year -1995’ by Gyan Chand Jain Memorial Foundation and ‘Science Councellor Award - 2007’ ,ISHEER award for contributions in education, research, and university-industry linkage programmers. He has held several Acemedic positions like Vice Chancellor, VP IETE,Pilani and Director in his 40 years academic career. He has published over 100 papers in National International Journals & Conferences and has published 5 books.
	Ashish Garg Advisor \| CEO of BITS Pilani Alumini, International, San Jose, CA Ashish is a Product Marketing Manager at Cypress Semiconductor and an MBA candidate at the Wharton School of Business. Ashish is passionate about education and has worked closely with his alma mater - BITS Pilani since graduating in 2001 to further this passion. He started the first Cypress PSoC (Programmable System on a Chip) lab in India at the BITS Pilani Goa campus in 2007. This lab has since then become a Center of Excellence for top-notch Embedded Design engineers in the country. In 2006, Ashish also organized India's first FPGA-based design contest, Innovate India, for University students in partnership with Altera and BITS Pilani. 216 teams from 150+ schools in India participated in this design contest. At BITSAA, Ashish joined as a volunteer in 2004 and then held different positions including Chief Editor, BITSAA Sandpaper 2.0 (Alumni Magazine), Secretary of the BITSAA Silicon Valley Chapter and eventually the CEO from 2006-2008. Ashish has a BE in E&I from BITS, Pilani and an MS in EE from University of California Santa Barbara.
	Sumita Somani Founder \| CEO, Adormi Solutions Sumita has more than 16 years experience worldwide in IT and operations.She has held management level positions at Harris Corporation, Lucent technology ,Sungard and Cirro Energy. Prior to Adormi she was Head of IT for Aruba Networks. She has extensive experience in Energy, Education, Defense and Telecom industry. She holds a BE in EE and MS, Computer Science from University Of Colorado.