Colonel KPM Das

Colonel KPM Das is an Adjunct Fellow with the Takshashila Institution and the National Cybersecurity and Trust Officer for Cisco driving the emerging cyber security initiatives in India and Asia Pacific. Earlier, he had business leadership roles in the IT services industry, first with Persistent Systems, Aztecsoft and later with MindTree, during which time he built teams of sales and operations addressing product engineering services market needs.

Formerly with the Indian Army until 2003, he graduated from the National Defence Academy and Defence Services Staff College, Wellington. Among international assignments, he had a one-year stint with the United Nations in Angola as a Military Observer, overseeing post-election political processes in 1994. Colonel Das set up the Information/Cyber Warfare Cell in the Military Operations Directorate at Army HQ during Operation Vijay and later extended the team into an inter-services cohort during 1999-2000. He commanded an Infantry Division Signal Regiment during Operation Parakram in 2002. Colonel Das has also been an Instructor at the Military College of Telecommunication Engineering as a Faculty in the Department of Computer Engineering, teaching data structures, algorithms and systems programming.

An author and contributor in areas of Information and Non-Lethal Warfare, Internet of Military Things and C3I to journals, Colonel Das is also a keen follower of Wargame theory and development and developer of First Battle BC, a Battalion to Corps Wargame. The intersection between military operations and technology is an area of interest, and he led the team that architected and deployed SATHI (Situation Awareness Tactical Handheld Information- a mobile platform/device) in 2001 for use by infantry soldiers in counter-terrorist Operations.