2021 Technical Experts

Prof. Alex Siow
Professor (Practice), School of Computing
National University of Singapore

Prof. Anupam Chattopadhyay
Associate Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering
Nanyang Technology University

Ashish Thapar
Vice President & Head Security Consulting(Asia Pacific)
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone

Prof. Anupam Chattopadhyay
Associate Professor at NTU
Prof.Anupam Chattopadhyay received his B.E. degree from Jadavpur University, India, MSc. from ALaRI, Switzerland and PhD from RWTH Aachen in 2000, 2002 and 2008 respectively. From 2008 to 2009, he worked as a Member of Consulting Staff in CoWare R&D, Noida, India. From 2010 to 2014, he led the MPSoC Architectures Research Group in RWTH Aachen, Germany as a Junior Professor. Since September, 2014, he is appointed as an Assistant Professor in SCSE, NTU and also holds an honorary adjunct appointment at SPMS, NTU.
In the past, he was visiting Professor at Politecnico di Torino, Italy; EPFL, Switzerland and Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. During his doctoral studies, he worked on automatic RTL generation from the processor description language LISA, which led to a spin-off, and subsequently was acquired by a leading EDA vendor. He developed novel high-level optimisations, verification techniques, and proposed a language-based modelling, exploration and design framework for partially re-configurable processors – many of which resulted in successful technology transfers to the EDA and Semiconductor IP industry.
Prof.Anupam currently heads a team of 20+ researchers, overseeing projects in the area of cyber security, computer architectures, design automation and emerging technologies. His research advances has been reported in more than 150 conference/journal papers (ACM/IEEE/Springer), multiple research monographs and edited books (CRC, Springer). Prof.Anupam’s research in the area of emerging technologies has been covered by major news outlets across the world, including Asian Scientist, Straits Times and The Economist. He is a series editor of Springer book series on Computer Architecture and Design Methodologies. Prof.Anupam received Borcher’s plaque from RWTH Aachen, Germany for outstanding doctoral dissertation in 2008, nomination for the best IP award in the ACM/IEEE DATE Conference 2016 and nomination for the best paper award in the International Conference on VLSI Design 2018. Prof.Anupam is a member of ACM, senior member of IEEE and fellow of Intercontinental Academia.

Prof. Abhik Roychoudhury
Provost Chair Professor of Computer Science at NUS
Prof.Abhik Roychoudhury is a Provost’s Chair Professor of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore, where he has been since 2001 after receiving his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 2000. He is the Director of the National Satellite of Excellence in Trustworthy Software Systems at Singapore (2019-23). He has also helped set up the Singapore Cyber-security Consortium , which is a consortium of 25 companies in the cyber-security space engaging with academia for research and collaboration.
Prof.Abhik’s research focuses on software testing and analysis, software security and trust-worthy software construction. His research team is known for contributions to automated program repair, and fuzz testing. Prof.Abhik is a member of the Steering committee of the flagship conferences in Software Engineering, International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) and Symposium on Foundations of Software Engineering (FSE). He has served as an Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE), IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing (TDSC) and ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM). His former doctoral students have been placed all over the world as academics (Peking University, University College London, Max-Planck Institute, University of Melbourne, Beihang University, SUSTech, SUTD).

Ashish Thapar
Vice President & Head Security
Consulting(Asia Pacific) at NTT
Ashish Thapar is the Vice President & Head for Security Consulting Services – Asia Pacific at NTT Ltd.. He brings more than two decades of Information Security experience and has been leading and managing security consulting teams across APJ region; spanning across multiple security practices including: Security Strategy; Threat & Vulnerability management; Governance, Risk and Compliance; Payment Security; Incident Response; Digital Forensics; and Cyber Threat Intelligence.
Along with his vast leadership experience, he also accomplished a number of global domain certifications including CISSP, CISM, CISA, SANS GCFA, CCSK, ISO 27001 LI and CDCP. In addition, he has also been an accredited PCI QSA, PFI and PA QSA for several years.
He is an active speaker at numerous security industry events/seminars throughout Asia, including coverage on live TV programmes and radio/podcast interviews. He also serves as a Lead Mentor and SME Panelist for Cybersecurity domain helping Singapore CSA, ICE71 and other organizations to help strengthen the overall cybersecurity ecosystem in the region.

Prof. Alex Siow
Professor (Practice) at NUS
Prof Alex Siow is Professor (Practice) in the department of Information Systems and Analytics of the School of Computing, NUS since 2015.
Prior to the current appointment, Prof Alex was the Managing Director, Health & Public Service at Accenture Pte Ltd. Alex started his career as a Structural Engineer in the Housing & Development Board in 1981 and rose through the ranks to become the Chief Information Officer in 1989. In 2003, Alex joined the private sector and became the Senior Vice-President in StarHub Ltd. At StarHub he held various roles including Head, Business Markets, CIO and Head, Enterprise Risk Management. In 2012, he joined Accenture as a Managing Director, Health and Public Service.
Alex held various appointments in the IT community including President of Singapore Computer Society, President of IT Management Association and President of PMI Singapore Chapter. He is currently the Chairman of the Cloud Security Alliance Singapore Chapter.
Alex is currently in a number of boards, including Toffs Technologies, DART Consulting, Red Alpha, SUSS, THK Moral Charities, Findjobs, KSC Consulting, Tee International and AMK-THK Hospital.
Alex’s book “Leading with IT: Lessons from Singapore’s first CIO” was published in Feb 2021.
