Sponsored Keynote: GraphQL, BFFs and AI

Anant Jhingran is the CTO for IBM Software. He came into this current role when StepZen was acquired by IBM in February 2023. He was the CEO of StepZen, which he co-founded in early 2020 along with a couple of his Apigee colleagues. StepZen delivers GraphQL APIs using declarative approaches that he learnt from his decades of experience building out IBM's databases. He has shipped deeply technical products that have been deployed in 1000s of enterprises. Before founding StepZen, he helped take Apigee public, as well as its acquisition by Google. He has a PhD in database systems from UC Berkeley and is accomplished in his professional career (IBM Fellow; CTO of IBM's Information Management Division; Distinguished Alumnus, IIT Delhi). His products have delivered billions of dollars of revenue at IBM and Apigee, and he has led large teams of researchers, engineers and product managers during his career. He has received several awards including IBM Fellow, IIT Delhi Distinguished Alumnus Award, IBM Corporate Award for contributions to DB2, President's Gold Medal for highest GPA at IIT Delhi, and IBM Academy of Technology. He is the author of over a dozen patents and over 20 technical papers and is frequently giving keynotes in industry and academic conferences.