Dina divides her time between London and Mumbai. With a background in sociology and anthropology, Dina has more than twenty-five years specialising in qualitative research and ethnography. Her company Convo is an ethnographic and UX research firm operating in India and Bangladesh. The practice is built on a deep understanding of human behaviour and nuancing of cultural context and in facilitating meaningful conversations for organisations. Working with multi-disciplinary and often leadership teams, Dina’s work has benefitted global organisations such as Meta, Google, Intel, Airbnb, Duolingo, Nokia, Bose, Wikipedia, Procter and Gamble and others. Dina has also guided many online networking communities and non-profit organisations, and calls herself an accidental information activist. Her perspectives, blogging and participation in social media have earned her acclaim, and she is a TED Fellows. She has presented many papers at Indian and global conferences, and Convo has been a long-standing supporter and sponsor of EPIC Conference.

Deepak Menon is Vice President at Microsoft India, leading the Product Experience, Design and Research teams across products in the Experience & Devices (E+D) at Microsoft India. They include products like Windows, Teams, Office, Edge, Search, Bing, OneDrive, SharePoint, Outlook, and Loop. Deepak’s team helped define the enquiry around ‘What is productivity for billions of mobile-only users’ which has led to product innovations like Microsoft Office and M365 on the phone – products that help businesses connect with their value chain to collaborate and complete consumer and business workflows. He was also the driver for the Microsoft Centre for Information work which reimagined the future of productivity and won the IDSA gold reward in 2003. Deepak has worked at Google leading User Experience teams in India and Seattle. He was also the Chief Product and Customer officer at Myntra where he led teams across multiple functions. Deepak completed his B.Arch. from REC (NIT) Trichy, his M.Arch. on a fellowship and M.F.A. from The Ohio State University.

Apala has been viewed as a global expert on cross-cultural research, design and contextual innovation. Apala started the Human Factors International (HFI) India operations in 1999 as Managing Director. She continued as MD, HFI India and then VP, HFI Asia, before assuming her previous role as Global Chief of Technical Staff. She is also the CEO of the Institute of Customer Research. She has worked with global giants such as HP Labs, Adidas, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, NCR, and Intel, among others. Apala was past Chair of the IAMAI Design Committee, a member of ACM Publications Board. Apala has co-edited the Taylor and Francis published book Innovative Solutions: What Designers Need to Know for Today’s Emerging Marketspace apart from contributing to numerous other publications. In addition to her usability certifications (CXA and CUA), Apala holds an MSc with distinction in User Interface Design from London Metropolitan University.