Future.AI

James R. Scapa brings more than 35 years of engineering experience to his dual role of chairman and CEO of Altair, a title he has held since the company’s inception in 1985.

Through Scapa’s leadership, the company is now a global technology company that provides software and cloud solutions in the areas of product development, high performance computing (HPC) and data analytics. Today, the company employs over 3,000 engineers, scientists and creatives with more than 86 offices in 25 countries.

With more than 11,000 customers globally, Altair software enables customers to enhance product performance, compress development time and reduce costs.

Scapa earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and a master of business administration degree from University of Michigan.

Mark Do Couto is a passionate sales leader with over 15 years of technology sales experience, currently focused on Data Analytics. He is the VP of Worldwide Sales for Data Analytics at Altair, where he has held multiple roles over the last 7 years. Mark has worked closely with Fortune 500 financial services companies, retailers and insurers across the globe to help them solve the most complex problems facing their organizing such as minimizing risk, increasing revenue and expanding their customer engagement. Before coming to Altair, Mark held a numbers of sales roles at IBM Canada.

As chief technology officer, Srikanth (Sam) Mahalingam is responsible for overseeing the development and dissemination of Altair’s simulation, HPC, and AI technology and portfolio of products and solutions.

With more than 20 years of experience in software development, software architecture, technical management, and project management, Mahalingam previously served as Altair’s chief technical officer for the company’s cloud and HPC strategy where he shaped current products and identified new solutions to ease cloud adoption and mobile strategies for Altair customers.

During his time at Altair, Mahalingam has worked on various products and projects across custom services and product teams. He then joined a start-up as a joint promoter to launch a disruptive virtual try-on product that was later acquired by a large software services firm in India. Mahalingam rejoined Altair in 2005 to spearhead new product initiatives and eventually became Altair’s thought leader for enterprise software strategies.

Mahalingam earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering and an executive master’s degree in business administration from the Indian School of Business.

Dr. Vishal Sikka is the Founder and CEO of Vianai Systems, a Human-Centered AI platform and products company launched in 2019 to address the unfulfilled promise of enterprise AI. Based in Palo Alto, California, the company is backed by many of the most influential investors in the industry, has a rapidly growing customer base and includes a leadership team with unmatched expertise in building breakthrough products and delivering customer success. Dr. Sikka serves on Oracle’s Board of Directors, the Supervisory Board of the BMW Group, the GlaxoSmithKline Board of Directors, and the Advisory Council for Stanford University’s Institute for Human-centered AI (HAI). Dr. Sikka is widely considered one of the world’s leading experts in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, and frequently advises C-suites of the largest and most respected companies in the world on AI strategies to transform their businesses. From 2014 to 2017, Dr. Sikka was the CEO and Managing Director of Infosys, a $10B+ revenue global technology services company. As the first non-founder CEO of Infosys, he led the company through a generational shift in a time of significant changes in the services industry, changes brought on by cost pressures and the rapid advancements in technology. He implemented a “Renew + New” strategy that helped clients renew their existing IT landscapes to drive down costs using automation, while simultaneously bringing breakthrough innovation using design thinking and next-generation technologies like artificial intelligence to transform their customer experiences. Prior to Infosys, Dr. Sikka served as a member of the Executive Board of SAP SE, leading all products and technologies, including driving all product development and innovation globally. During his 12 years at SAP, he was instrumental in bringing a culture of innovation and intellectual renewal across the entire company. Dr. Sikka is credited with articulating the principles of “Timeless Software,” and creating SAP’s breakthrough in-memory data platform SAP HANA, the fastest growing product in SAP’s history. With the support of SAP’s founder/Chairman Dr. Hasso Plattner, Dr. Sikka also led the once in a generation transformation of SAP’s entire product portfolio and its development processes.

Dr. Sikka has a distinguished background in the field of Artificial Intelligence. His Ph.D. was in AI from Stanford University. Prof. John McCarthy, known as the father of AI, was the head of his qualifying committee. Dr. Sikka’s thesis on integrating “specialist” AI techniques into general purpose reasoning, addressed a foundational problem in AI that is still a weakness of AI techniques. In addition to his Ph.D. from Stanford, he has an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Queensland in Australia. He is an adjunct professor of Computer Science at East China Normal University, Shanghai, the largest teaching university in China, and an adjunct professor of Computer Science at Stanford. Dr. Sikka has also served as the co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s council on AI. Dr. Sikka is a champion of technology as an amplifier of human potential and his passion for applying software in purposeful ways to address some of the biggest global challenges. He, along with his wife Vandana Sikka, sponsor and support various initiatives to promote access to computer science learning and education for women, minorities and other under-represented communities. In his spare time, Dr. Sikka likes to read, write, cook and also surf along the pacific ocean’s shores in California and Hawaii.

Starting as a Data Analyst for an insurance firm, Miriam has worked in the data industry since graduating from university, most recently as Global Director of Data at Centrica Hive before joining Sky in August 2020. Miriam has won a string of awards for her role as a Data Leader, and was selected as one of 2022’s 100 Most Influential Data Leaders by DataIQ. At Sky Miriam leads the Data and Applied Analytics team and work on things like personalization, predictions and pro-active care.

Ritu Jyoti is Group Vice President, Worldwide Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Automation Research with IDC’s software market research and advisory practice. Ms. Jyoti is responsible for leading the development of IDC’s thought leadership for AI Research and management of the Worldwide AI and Automation Software research team. Her research focuses on the state of enterprise AI efforts and global market trends for the rapidly evolving AI and Machine Learning (ML) innovations and ecosystem. Ms. Jyoti also leads insightful research that addresses the needs of the AI technology vendors and provide actionable guidance to them on how to crisply articulate their value proposition, differentiate and thrive in the digital era.

Roshni is the Director of Customer Engineering for Google and looks after Google Cloud’s Enterprise and Select business in the Central US. Prior to Google, Roshni served in various roles in the technology industry at Deloitte, Dell, EMC and Amazon Web Services (AWS), spanning general management, partner sales, operations, consulting and sales. Roshni is passionate about talent development, diversity, and growth of careers in STEM. She serves on the board of Lumity and The-Network, which are non-profit organizations based in Chicago

Roshni is a frequent speaker and panelist at multiple cloud and industry events such as Google Cloud Next, AWS Summit and Evanta CIO Symposiums. She was the recipient of Diversity Inc’s “Top 100 Diversity Executives under 50” award in 2015. She holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree from BIT, India and an MS in Computer Science from Northern Illinois University.