Biography:Mr. Sanjay Awasthi associated with the sugar Industry for the last 33 years in various positions as Production Head, Plant Head and Chief Executive for one of the biggest sugar groups in India and presently Business Head of Isgec Heavy Engineering Ltd. (8000 crore Turnover company and largest Sugar and Distillery machinery in the World). He is also associated with Sugar Technologists Association India (STAI), The South Indian Sugar Cane & Sugar Technologists’ Association (SISSTA), India & Deccan Sugar Technologists’ Association (DSTA), India. Youngest and Longest serving president of STAI (8 years). Mr. Awasthi is also associated with various International associations like International Society of Sugar Cane Technologists’ (ISSCT), Philippines Sugar Technologists’ Association (Philsutech), Sugar Industry Technologists (SIT), etc., and as Member of Sugar Development Fund Sub Committee of Govt. of India, Advisory Board of National Sugar Institute (NSI), Kanpur India, Sugar Standard Committee National Sugar Institute, Kanpur India, Bureau of Standard and CII Green Sugar Advisory Group. He is a member of Panel of Referees for International Sugar Journal, Landon (ISJ) and Sugartech Journal.
Mr. Awasthi performed the role of a planner, designer and chief executor of more than 150 sugar plants, distilleries, sugar refineries and expansion in India and abroad with capacity ranging from 2500 TCD to 24000 TCD. He published more than 180 research papers in National and International journals including “International Journal for Scientific Research & Development” and “International Journal Engineering Research & Technology” & conventions and also holds various copyrights and patents for sugar machinery equipment.

Biography: Mr. Guilherme Nastari is the Director, DATAGRO, since 2005. Director of the Brazilian Sugar ‎and Ethanol Exporters Association (AEXA), since 2009. Since 2005, he has been engaged in ‎several Sugar and Ethanol Market Advisory Projects at DATAGRO.‎

Biography:Mr. Arvind Chudasama is the Editor of International Sugar Journal. He has been editing the journal for the past 10 years. Over this period, he has witnessed significant developments in the biorenewables sector via significant advances in industrial biotechnology, which has opened up new revenue streams for sugar producers. Mr. Arvind entered the publishing industry over 20 years ago after a spell in agricultural development that included assignments in various countries in Africa. He has Master's in Tropical Agronomy and Information Studies from Queensland and Sheffield Universities, respectively.

Biography:Dr. Melvin Bolton attended graduate school at North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND. During this time, Dr. Bolton was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to study at Wageningen University, the Netherlands where he studied effector proteins from the tomato pathogens Cladosporium fulvum and Verticillium dahliae. After completing his Ph.D. in 2006, Dr. Bolton joined the United States Department of Agriculture as a postdoctoral scientist at the Plant Science Research Unit in St. Paul, MN where he focused on leaf rust of wheat. Dr. Bolton accepted a position as a Research Plant Pathologist at the Sugar beet and Potato Research Unit in Fargo, ND in 2008 and has served as the Unit’s Research Leader since 2016. Dr. Bolton is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Plant Pathology at NDSU. Dr. Bolton serves on several regional, national, and international boards, councils, and committees. Dr. Bolton’s research primarily focuses on fungicide resistance management and the molecular biology of fungal and viral diseases of sugar beet.

Biography:Isabel Lima is a research chemist with the United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service at the Southern Regional Research Center in New Orleans, Louisiana since 1997. She received her undergraduate degree in Food Engineering from the Superior School of Biotechnology in Portugal, in 1989. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. at the Biological and Agricultural Engineering Department of University of California, Davis, in 1992 and 1996, respectively. Dr. Lima’s research focuses on improvement of technologies for sugar processing and conversion for the sugarcane and sugar beet industries. Specifically, Dr. Lima has looked into improving sugar quality and processing while reducing costs. Another component of Dr. Lima’s work has been to develop new coproducts to increase the profitability for farmers and processors, and in that regard, Dr. Lima’s has focused on finding value-added alternatives for the disposal of field and processing residues from harvesting and processing sugar crops, such as bagasse, leafy field residue and beet pulp. She has created, developed and characterized biochars for environmental remediation and soil amending applications. These technologies can help the sugar processing industry to become more sustainable.

Biography: “Ambition is the path to success, persistence is the vehicle you arrive in” Prof. Narendra Mohan, an inspiring teacher, admirable research worker and an esteemed government official has a long and distinguished career of working in sugar industry and at the institute. An author of 6 books, more than 150 papers been published in various reputed journals and many patents to his credit, indicates his passion for innovative work. He has played a pivotal role in converting sugar industry into clean & green industry producing bio-chemicals, other bio-products and bio-energy apart from sugar. Prof. Mohan is associated with many prestigious International scientific societies and organizations. He has been instrumental in taking the institute to across the globe and today National Sugar Institute is providing its services to various sugar producing countries and in fact also providing consultancy to set up a Sugar Institute at Nigeria. He has visited extensively to Switzerland, Indonesia, Nigeria, France, Kenya, Thailand and Iran etc. to deliver lectures and provide technical consultancy. His merit and commendable work carried out for improving productivity of sugar industry has been acknowledged globally for which he has been conferred with many prestigious awards, Dr Bansi Dhar Gold Medal, Industry Excellence Award, Innovative Leader of Asia Award, Outstanding Academic Leader of the Year, Best Director of the year award, ABP News” Award and Noel Deerr Gold Medal etc.

Biography: Mr. Emmanuel Majid Sarir is the Founder, CEO and President of Carbo Solutions International (CSI). CSI is a USA-based innovation company that has served the sugar industry for the past 25 years. Its core strength is Sugar Technology, Research, and Development, and it offers several patented high-performance process aids for the sugar market, to increase plant productivity, reduce energy consumption, and lower operating cost. Mr. Sarir has published and co-authored over 26 technical papers at CSI events and prestigious conferences worldwide, like CSI Events, ISSCT, SIT, SASTA, AVH, STAI, PSST, PHILSUTECH, Thai EXPO and Asian Sugar conferences.

Biography: Gary Secor is a Professor of Plant Pathology at North Dakota State University in Fargo, North Dakota in the USA. Secor is a native of Bozeman, Montana and has a BS and MS degree from Montana State University, and a PhD from the University of California at Davis. He began his career in Montana as director of the of the first potato virus testing lab in the US, and has worked with numerous other potato diseases during his 46 year career at NDSU, concentrating on disease discovery, diagnosis, management and grower education. He works closely with the potato breeding program at NDSU and has been interim potato breeder. Secor also works closely with the sugar beet industry for disease management, concentrating on fungicide resistance, forecasting and management of Cercospora leaf spot and Fusarium wilt. He teaches classes, has graduate students, enjoys lake time and international travel and work, and is the recipient of numerous honors. .

Biography: Dr Prakash Lakshmanan is an internationally recognized sugarcane scientist with more than thirty-five years of research and research management experience in academia, and government and industry research and development institutions.
Dr Lakshmanan started his career as a Research Scientist in Thehans Laboratories, a plant biotechnology company in Singapore in 1988 and then became a faculty member of the Department of Biological Sciences at The National University of Singapore in 1990.
In 1995 he joined Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations (BSES) in Australia, one of the oldest and well-known sugarcane research institutes in the world, where he led a wide-range of pre-breeding research on genetic improvement of sugarcane including molecular breeding, GM sugarcane, new traits development, clean seed production and adoption, and sustainable crop production.
He is a recipient of multiple awards for R&D excellence from the Australian Government, Australian sugar industry, the Australian Academy of Sciences, Chinese Government and Chinese sugarcane industry.
Currently Dr Lakshmanan is Director, Sugarcane Research Institute, Nanning, China, and Professor at Southwest University, Chongqing, China. He serves in the Editorial Boards of several international journals and an Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland, Australia.

Biography:Prof Luo Ting is an accomplished sugarcane scientist with 20 years of basic and applied research and research management experience. Prof Ting joined Guangxi Academy of Agricultural Sciences as a scientist in 2005 and embarked on crop improvement programs with a focus on subtropical crops grown in Southern China. After completing PhD in 2010 researching on sugarcane biological nitrogen fixation, Prof Ting went on to investigate the extent of biological nitrogen fixation occurring in Chinese sugarcane germplasm, which led to the isolation of valuable sugarcane basic germplasm with high efficiency biological nitrogen fixation currently used in introgression breeding. These studies also unravelled various edaphic, microbial and plant regulatory aspects of sugarcane biological nitrogen fixation and discovered sugarcane-associated nitrogen fixing microbial strains tolerant to high acidic soils. Trained in sugarcane breeding in CSIRO Australia, Prof Ting contributed to the development of five sugarcane varieties grown in Chinese sugar industry. Prof Ting is a recipient of prestigious Chinese government funded national key R&D and National Natural Science Foundation projects, Guangxi provincial projects, and various awards. Prof Ting’s current research include sugarcane soil health, sugarcane soil acidity and aluminum tolerance, and sugarcane yield stability. Prof Ting is in the Editorial Boards of SCI journal Sugar Tech, and authored numerous scientific papers.

Biography:Ana Vettorazzi is a Research Analyst of soft commodities at S&P Global Commodity Insights, based in London, UK. Previously, she worked as a Research Analyst at ED&F Man, where she developed expertise in market analysis of sugar and molasses. Ana holds a degree in Agricultural Engineering from the University of São Paulo in Brazil. At S&P Global Commodity Insights, a provider of energy and commodities information, she contributes to delivering insights that shape decision-making in the physical commodity markets.

Biography:Mohsin is the Country Head of Fortek International Ltd, a Mauritius-based organization engaged in ‎providing the best products and services to the industry from renowned manufacturers across the ‎world. ‎
As a seasoned professional with 20 years of experience in the field of technology, Mohsin is a ‎qualified mechatronics engineer who began his career as a service engineer for high-technology ‎machines, dedicating a decade to mastering technical operations before transitioning to a sales role ‎in the sugar industry. Mohsin has presented papers at international forums and successfully ‎delivered products and services to over 30 countries. Fluent in five languages and able to converse ‎in another few, he enjoys reading and exploring innovative solutions that bridge technology and ‎culture.‎

Biography:Mr. Sanjeev Chopra joined Indian Administrative Service in the year 1990. He has experience of over 33 years in different positions in State and Central Government.
He is currently serving as Secretary, Department of Food & Public Distribution (DFPD) Government of India, from 31st October, 2022. As Secretary (DFPD), he deal with matters relating to foodgrain management in the country including procurement, storage and movement of wheat, rice & coarse grain for its further distribution through Public Distribution System Outlets. He also deals with policy formulation for the sugar and edible oil sectors in the country. Administration of National Food Security Act, 2013 is one of the major responsibilities of his present position.
In the past, he has served as Agriculture Production Commissioner and Secretary of Departments such as Home, Industries, General Administration and Agriculture in the State Government of Odisha. He has a rich experience of serving in State PSUs such as Odisha Mining Corporation, Industrial Infrastructure Development Corporation and Industrial Promotion and Investment Corporation. Mr. Chopra also served as Joint Director in LBSNAA, Mussoorie where he was closely involved with the design and delivery of mid-career training programme for officers of Indian Administrative Service.
Mr. Chopra holds an M.Sc. in Urban Planning from London School of Economics, MBA from FMS, Delhi University and B.Com (H) from Shri Ram College of Commerce.
He has been recipient of National e-Governance Award for Excellence in Government Process Re-engineering for Digital Transformation in the years 2020 and 2021.