This year, we will recognize two people for TRIZ Champion Award: Dr. Alicja Adamczak and Dr. Gopichand Katragadda.
Dr. Alicja Adamczak
Polish lawyer, legal adviser, university teacher, patent attorney, from 2002 to 2019 president of the Polish Patent Office.
Alicja Adamczak provided personal assistance and made an invaluable personal contribution to the propagation of TRIZ methodology in Poland. Directly participated in the organization of conferences, seminars, workshops. As the head of the Polish Patent Office, she supported the publication of books and articles on the methodology. Promoted TRIZ in educational institutions, companies, firms. She warmly supported any initiatives related to TRIZ development in Poland organized by local or foreign TRIZ experts.
In 1971, she graduated from law studies at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw. In 1996, in the Białystok branch of the University of Warsaw, she obtained a doctor of law degree based on a thesis entitled Plenipotentiary in patent proceedings. She also completed judicial training and obtained the qualifications of a legal advisor and patent attorney. As an academic teacher, she is associated with the Faculty of Management and Computer Modeling at the Kielce University of Technology. He specializes in issues related to industrial property. For two terms, she headed the Polish Chamber of Patent Attorneys and the National Council of Patent Attorneys. She participated in the creation of legal regulations (including industrial property law). She was also the editor-in-chief of the periodical “Rzecznik Patentowy”. She became a member of, among others, National Committee for Cooperation with the European Association of Science Managers (EARMA) of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
On July 1, 2002, she took up the position of president of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland. She headed this office until May 2019.
In 2000, for outstanding contributions to the creation of industrial property protection law, and for her contribution to the Association of Patent Attorneys, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski awarded her the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta.
Dr. Gopichand Katragadda
Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Myelin Foundry
Dr. Gopichand Katragadda is the Founder and CEO of Myelin Foundry, an AI company with a vision to transform human experiences and industry outcomes. He is an Independent Director of Bosch India Limited and ICICI Securities. He is also the Vice President of the IET, Board of Trustees UK, and a member of the NASSCOM governing council for the Centre of Excellence for Data Science & AI.
Till January 2019, Gopi was the Group Chief Technology Officer and Innovation Head of Tata Sons. At Tata Sons, he facilitated the development of pioneering products and services, strategic technology collaboration, and innovation across the $100 Billion Tata Group. Previously, as the Chairman and Managing Director of GE India Technology Centre, he helped grow GE’s largest R&D Centre – the John F. Welch Technology Centre, to be amongst the world’s leaders in intellectual property generation.
Gopi is the past Chairman of the CII National Technology Committee and the CII Western Region Innovation Taskforce. He is a GE Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Gopi helped establish the Advanced Materials CoE at IIT-Madras and the Advanced Manufacturing CoE at IIT-Kharagpur. He has framed the CII-Tata Communications Digital Transformation CoE. Gopi also set up and managed the ongoing Tata research collaborations with Harvard and Yale.