Keynote Speaker

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Abstract:  Artificial Intelligence is transitioning from static model-centric paradigms to agentic ecosystems, where large language models (LLMs) and multimodal foundation models are scaffolded into autonomous, goal-directed entities capable of reasoning, tool use, planning, and self-refinement. This session will chart this evolution and highlight its implications for research and practice.

State of the Art: We begin with a survey of state-of-the-art generative and multimodal architectures that integrate text, vision, speech, and action, emphasizing advances in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), chain-of-thought reasoning, and memory-augmented inference. 

Agentic Architectures in Practice: Building on this, we examine how agentic orchestration frameworks—including open-source initiatives such as AutoGen, Simpliflow, and CrewAI—are enabling multi-agent collaboration, API/tool chaining, self-play, and emergent coordination across distributed environments.

Philosophical and Ethical Reflections: The talk also explores the epistemic and ethical dimensions of agency in AI: questions of alignment, controllability, interpretability, and value-alignment under autonomy, as well as the sociotechnical implications of embedding agentic systems in real-world workflows.

Finally, we project forward to the next frontier: scalable multi-agent societies, distributed cognition, trust-calibrated autonomy, robust reasoning under uncertainty, and the open research challenges that will define the trajectory of agent-based generative systems over the next decade.

This will be followed by Questions and Answers. 

Speaker:  Deven Panchal MS, BE, SMIEEE, FM Sigma Xi, MBCS

AT&T Labs, USA
VP- IP and Patents, AT&T I

BIO: Deven Panchal (MS, BE, SMIEEE, FM Sigma Xi) is a highly accomplished and widely recognized expert in the fields of AI, Next Gen Networking/Telecommunications, Software Systems and Open-Source. He is currently with AT&T Labs, USA.   Deven is a Keynote speaker at many International conferences, has served as a TPC Member, Editorial Board Member, Reviewer, etc. for more than 15 International Conferences like IEEE ITNAC, ICMLA, ICAIIC, ICOIN, ICNC, GCAIOT, ICMERALDA, GTSNZ, ICTMOD and International Journals like JAIBD, UJBM, AMLAI, JOSS, JENRS, AIA, AAES, JDSIS in the field of AI/ML. He participates in many IEEE Standards committees in the areas of AI, Generative AI, Safe and Trustworthy AI.  For his research contributions that have led to groundbreaking advancements in AI democratization and network automation, Deven has been elected to Senior Member position of IEEE and Full Member position of Sigma Xi.  Deven has helped build the World’s 1st Open-Source AI marketplace, was involved with AT&T’s 1st 5G VRAN/CRAN trials and has delivered solutions that today power many Global Telco Networks. His work has been widely cited around the world, has directly benefited millions of people around the world and has been featured in International media like Forbes, TechCrunch, Light Reading, TelecomTV etc. He is the author of multiple International publications, Open-source projects, and filed US patent applications. For spearheading the development of Industry-defining platforms like ONAP and Acumos AI, Deven has been the recipient of multiple ‘Best Paper’,  ‘Best Presenter’  awards, other important Industry awards like MachineCon 2024 USA AI100 Generative AI Leader award, D CEO’s ‘Emerging Leader’ Award, etc. for his contributions to AI and Open Source.  Deven also serves as the VP – Intellectual Property and Patents at AT&T Innovation Network and helps drive innovation and Emerging Tech education programs for around 200,000 employees in the company. Deven graduated with a Master’s in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech, USA, has completed programs from Wharton and Stanford and holds 20+ certifications in various Emerging Technologies.