Schedule: India Science Festival 2026
Venues
Horizon Theatre (Auditorium)
Curiosity Field
(Kho Kho Ground)
Cosmos Hall
(Smt. Indrani Balan Science Activity Centre)
Wonder Space (Amphitheatre)
EXPERT TALK
Ctrl+Alt+Ethics: Navigating AI Without Losing Your Way
Nolita Coelho (Vice President - Product, Paperpal at Cactus)
EXPERT TALK
Building Future Innovators for India: Where Science, Society, and Scale Converge
Payal Rajpal (Director, Robotex India)
GAMES
Experiments for kids (TIFR Mumbai)
PANEL DISCUSSION
Launch, Land, Lead: India's Space Odyssey
Prof. Yashwant Gupta (Director, NCRA-TIFR)
Srinath Ravichandran (Co-Founder, Agnikul Cosmos)
Dr. Srimathy Kesan (Founder, SpaceKidz)
Dhruba Chakrabarti (Founder, WhyCosmos)
GAMES
Grand Show
Science Activity Centre, IISER Pune
PANEL DISCUSSION
Good Data, Great Stories: Bringing Research to Public Understanding
Shane Rydquist (Associate Vice President, Cactus Communications)
Dr. Karishma Kaushik (Science Communication Expert)
Prof. Arnab Bhattacharya (Director, HBCSE)
Prof. GV Pavan Kumar (Professor, IISER Pune)
EXPERT TALK
Graduate Training Through Academia - Industry Collaboration
Prof. Arvind Gupta (Professor, University of Toronto)
EXPERT TALK
The Engines of Truth are Stalling: The Decline of the Western University and the Opportunities for India
Dr. Thomas Barlow (Director, Barlow Advisory)
EXPERT TALK
Revealing Secrets of Our Mysterious Universe Using Radio Eyes: The Story of Radio Astronomy
Prof. Yashwant Gupta (Director, NCRA-TIFR)
EXPERT TALK
Digital Epigraphy at the Mythic Society, Bengaluru
Udaya Kumar (Honorary Director, The Mythic Society)
EXPERT TALK
Stem Cells and Organoids: Guiding Innovation for Therapy
Prof. Maneesha Inamdar (Director, InStem)
PERFORMANCE
SparkX: Startup Pitching Event
Invention Engine
PANEL DISCUSSION
Systems That Think: Mathematical Insights meet AI Engineering
Prof. Nick Jones (Professor, Imperial College London)
Dr. Srinath Sridhar (Assistant Professor, Brown University)
Prof. Debdeep Mukhopadhyay (Institute Chair Professor, IIT Kharagpur)
Dr. Neil Gaikwad (Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
Prof. Anand Kulkarni (Professor and Associate Director at MIT WPU)
EXPERT TALK
Vijay Jerome, Chief Digital and Information Officer (CDIO), Digital & IT, Bajaj Auto Ltd.
EXPERT TALK
Randomness in Computing: Why Do We Care and Where Can We Get It
Dr. Eshan Chattopadhyay (Associate Professor, Cornell University)
PANEL DISCUSSION
From Model to Market: Building Scalable AI Startups in India
Dr. Manish Gupta (Senior Director, Google Deepmind)
Omkar Raikar (CTO, Desible.AI)
Anirudh Bhardwaj (CTO, Recur Club)
Sunit Gajbhiye (3X Founder)
Shailendra Jha (Co-founder, Change Engine)
EXPERT TALK
What's next in AI? Spatial Intelligence & World Models
Dr. Srinath Sridhar (Assistant Professor, Brown University)
FIRESIDE CHAT
Dr. Shivkumar Kalyanaraman (CEO, ANRF)
Sheel Kapoor (CEO, FAST India)
EXPERT TALK
“Every Contact Leaves a Trace”: Microarchitecture Leakages in Modern Computing Systems
Prof. Debdeep Mukhopadhyay (Institute Chair Professor, IIT Kharagpur)
PANEL DISCUSSION
Building India's Quantum Edge
Prof. Arun K. Pati (Director, QTECI)
Prof. Umakant D. Rapol (Professor, IISER Pune)
Dr. Bhaskar Kanseri (Associate Professor, IIT Delhi)
Dr. Sreejith G. J. (Associate Professor, IISER Pune)
EXPERT TALK
Science of War
Lt Gen Dr. Subrata Saha (Former DCOAS and Member National Security Advisory Board.)
HIGHLIGHT
Shubhanshu Shukla (Group Captain and Test Pilot with IAF)
HIGHLIGHT
Inauguration of India Science Festival 2026
PANEL DISCUSSION
Rising Minds of India: A Dialogue on Excellence
Varun Aggarwal (Founder, FAST India)
Prof. Arnab Bhattacharya (Director, HBCSE)
Prof. Surhud More (Professor, IUCAA, Pune)
Ananya Ranade (TIFR Mumbai)
Rajit Gupta (IIT Bombay)
EXPERT TALK
The Search for Life Beyond the Solar System
Prof. Nikku Madhusudhan (Professor, University of Cambridge)
DEBATE
The World is an Illusion: A Quantum Perspective
Prof. Sourav Pal (Professor, Ashoka University)
Prof. Arun K. Pati (Director, QETCI)
Dr. Ashish Arora (Assistant Professor, IISER Pune)
EXPERT TALK
AI Compass: A framework to find AI use cases that are likely to deliver highest ROI
Dr. Anuj Gupta (Founder and CEO, Gradient Advisors)
PERFORMANCE
Portrait of Living Pictures: A Neuro-Aesthetic Dance Performance
Experience art with live display of audience's neuro-physiological data
ARISA Foundation
PANEL DISCUSSION
Operation Sindoor: Steering India's Defence Strategy with Science
Lt Gen Dr. Subrata Saha (Former Deputy Chief of Army Staff)
Prof. K. VijayRaghavan (Former Principal Scientific Adviser to GoI)
Ashok Atluri (Chairman & Managing Director, Zen Technologies)
EXPERT TALK
The Transformative Power of AI and Open Challenges
Dr. Manish Gupta (Senior Director, Google Deepmind)
EXPERT TALK
India’s Deep-Tech Moment: Building What the World Thought Was Impossible
Vivek Wadhwa (CEO, Vionix Biosciences)
