Amitava Biswas
amitavabiswas-at-ieee-dot-org
biswasamitava-at-yaho*-dot-com
PhD, Texas A&M University (expected 2010)
MS, Concordia University, Montreal, 2005
MBA, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, 1997
B.Tech (Hons), Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, 1993
Industry work
My expertise can be found here. Some of my past projects are described here. I also worked briefly for research organizations like IBM research and Hexagram. My research experiences can be found below.
Partner, Posterus Technologies, Montreal. May '06 - Nov '06
After completing my Masters in Computer Eng., I had setup this technology services business in Canada, with offshore software development facility in India. This provides business application development services to Canadian small and medium businesses. Profits from this operation had supported a scholarship fund for disadvantaged students in India.
Software Development Manager / Head–Product Development, NMSWorks Software Limited, India. Sept '01 - June '03
NMSWorks was a technology startup funded by Polaris Software, Ray Stata of Analog Devices and supported by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. I was sent from Polaris Software Limited to productize and commercialize an idea conceived by the academic researchers of Tenet group at IIT Madras.
I supervised design, development and installation of Network Management Systems for national and regional telecom operators. I had the opportunity to lead a very bright team of Indian software developers and engineers. Being the first manager in that startup, I had contributed in organizational development of NMSWorks. I had established software engineering processes, quality systems, human resource management and administrative procedures. This team soon grew up and recruited more middle, senior level managers and technical staff. Some of my activities -
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Made the 1st delivery, booked the 2nd order, supervised the 1st installation and field trial for NMSWorks.
Supervised design and development of network provisioning application for a national telecom operator for their Wireless Local Loop (WLL) network, which was deployed at 1000 sites.
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Directed development and implementation of network management systems for wireless network for a regional telecom operator, executed site trial with 0% unscheduled network down time.
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Managed entire product development life cycle, scheduled and delivered product releases, supervised a team of 20+ engineers and developers.
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Defined system and product specifications based on requirements, identified project deliverables, planned and established task deadlines, scheduled and delegated work to achieve deadlines.
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Designed systems and solution architectures, led engineers to develop the designed systems, organized coding, system integration, testing and performance engineering of existing components.
Principle Consultant, Maveric Systems Limited, India. Jan '01 – Sept '01
Maveric Systems was funded by Polaris Software. While on an engagement with Citibank (erstwhile client of Maveric/Polaris before mearging with Polaris), as a functional expert, I supervised validation of banking applications. I developed a methodology to analyze, identify rare exceptional use cases, this reduced the number of post-implementation technical support calls.
I also provided information system consulting services to government, private sector and international clients. I received bonus for my performances in these projects.
Past roles
TIIM Consultants and Solutions & Services, India. June '97 - Dec '00
I supervised this business to provide IT services to medium business and large public sector banks. Some of my activities -
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Profit center responsibility, directed a technical team of 5 members -recruited, trained technical staff, identified project deliverables, planned, scheduled and delegated tasks.
Provided subject matter expertise, technical and consulting services for Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and materials requirement planning (MRP), supply chain management (SCM), Management Information Systems (MIS) solutions to medium sized businesses.
Performed market analysis for an ERP product for SME market segment, forecasted sales, developed marketing and sales strategy, carried out the designed sales program and achieved forecasted sales.
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Analyzed enterprise information systems requirements, generated specifications, prepared project estimates, technical and commercial proposals.
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Negotiated business, booked orders and supervised service delivery to clients, managed sales channel partners.
- Automated 15 bank branches of Corporation Bank (a public sector bank) in Gujarat, India. Designed and implemented Novell Netware SFT III based LAN system to minimize capital costs.
Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Limited, India. July '93 – May '95
L&T is the largest engineering firm in South East Asia. I started my career at the Control and Automation division of L&T. I had worked for these two intensive years with embedded, real-time and fault tolerant systems for industrial control and automation applications. I was the technical expert for Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) product line at L&T. I also received training in engineering management and developed an inclination towards technology business management. In addition to trouble shooting mainframe PLCs, I completed the following projects -
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Developed and commissioned industrial control system for metallurgical plant at Rourkela Steel Plant of Steel Authority of India Limited. This was the 1st installation for L&T in large steel manufacturer market segment.
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Conceptualized and demonstrated fault tolerant designs for nuclear power plant safety system with PLCs for Engineers India Limited (client of L&T).
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Contributed in designing PLC CPU as the testing expert of the design team.
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Developed and commissioned automated test systems for microprocessor and embedded systems for L&T's own PLC manufacturing unit.
Research experiences
Research Intern , IBM Research Austin Lab, TX, US. Summer' 07
I worked for a few months on data center thermal management problem. Some of my activities -
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Demonstrated that simpler inexpensive models of the data center cooling systems can give better insights than expensive and very detailed Computational Fluid Dynamics models. Specific details of this work are proprietary in nature.
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Identified avenues of improving cooling and energy efficiency in a data center.
- Improved cooling efficiency of the Austin Research Lab's data center using my techniques.
Researcher (Engineering), Mobile Digital Commons Network (MDCN), Hexagram, Montreal. Dec '04 - Mar '06.
MDCN was an art and technology research project at Hexagram, a federal funded multi-disciplinary research organization. I worked here on part time basis while I was completing my MS degree. I developed wireless sensors, for context aware applications and games. These project received $700,000 federal research funding. While working with artists I developed a very different perspective about role of technology in society.