Workshops announcement

1. Mayur Madnani, engineer at JioHotstar will conduct a hands-on workshop on fine-tuning SLM models with LoRA: building specialized on-device story generators
2. Kiran Kulkarni and Utkarsh Dighe from Unravel.tech will teach a workshop on building and optimizing agents that survive production. More details at https://hasgeek.com/fifthelephant/build-optimize-ai-agents-workshop/

Confirmed talks

The following talks are confirmed for the conference:

1. Transforming ecommerce item catalogue stewardship using GenAI and vision computing by Neha Dixit and Mudit Pati from Target
2. Agentic AI for airline scheduling and complexities in optimization by Karthika Iyer of Sahaj Software
3. Building the systems that build the software by Atharva Raykar of Nilenso
4. Interrogating your twin: causal reasoning in manufacturing systems by Prasanna Bhogale of RomulanAI
5. Agentic intelligence fabric for smart buildings(https://hasgeek.com/fifthelephant/2026-pune/sub/agentic-intelligence-fabric-for-smart-buildings-3KyoeqznrmctRSqWFYA4cS) by Himanshu Agrawal

About The Fifth Elephant Pune edition

The Fifth Elephant Pune edition brings together practitioners building, deploying, and scaling AI in real-world systems - across software engineering, manufacturing, and digital transformation. This edition focuses on how AI is reshaping core workflows, not in theory, but in production.

Expect deep technical talks, grounded case studies, and hands-on workshops led by people solving real problems in industry.

Theme: AI at the heart of industry & innovation
📅 27–28 February 2026
Workshops on 27 February
Conference on 28 February
📍Venue: Nutanix Technologies India Pvt Ltd, Panchshil Business Park, Baner
Fnal call for submissions open till 10 January at http://has.gy/otZf

Conference tracks

Track 1: AI in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) - how AI is transforming the way software is designed, built, tested, secured, and operated — from product discovery to production and beyond.
Explore real-world applications of AI in coding and refactoring, test automation, AIOps, DevSecOps, and building responsible, trustworthy engineering workflows.

Track 2: AI in Manufacturing & Digital Transformation - how AI is driving operational intelligence, efficiency, and sustainability across manufacturing and industrial systems.
Learn from practitioners applying AI to predictive maintenance, smart factories, computer vision, supply chains, real-time analytics, and sustainable manufacturing.

Conference editors

Yash Gandhi, co-founder at OrcaSheets: A third-time founder building AI products at scale, focused on making billion-row analytics as intuitive as the web.
Pragati Chopade, Lead for GenAI Initiatives at Johnson Controls: An AI practitioner driving real-world GenAI systems for smart buildings, with deep expertise across Edge AI, analytics, and industrial applications.

Who should attend?

This edition is designed for practitioners working at the intersection of AI, data, and systems, including:

• Software engineers and platform engineers integrating AI into products
• Data scientists and ML engineers deploying models in production
• Manufacturing engineers and digital transformation leaders
• DevOps, SRE, and security practitioners exploring AI-driven workflows
• Product managers and tech leaders shaping AI-enabled systems
• Researchers and architects working on applied AI systems

Why attend The Fifth Elephant Pune edition?

• Practitioner-first content: Learn from teams shipping AI in production.
• Cross-industry insights: See how AI patterns transfer from software to manufacturing and operations.
• Community-driven learning: Peer-reviewed talks, open discussions, and hands-on workshops.

Sponsor The Fifth Elephant Pune Edition

Sponsoring The Fifth Elephant Pune edition gives you access to a highly engaged audience of senior practitioners and decision-makers working on AI and data systems.

Why sponsor:

• Showcase your technology through real use cases and demos
• Engage directly with engineers, architects, and data leaders
• Position your brand at the center of applied AI conversations
• Support a practitioner-led, community-driven conference

How to attend

The Pune edition is open for The Fifth Elephant Annual members.

The annual membership gives you access to

• Pune edition - conference and workshops
• The Fifth Elephant workshops and meetups - held round the year
• A year-long relationship with the community

Learn more about The Fifth Elephant annual membership from https://hasgeek.com/fifthelephant#membership

Queries, contact information

💬 Comment on the discussion forum
📞 Call: +91 7676332020
📧 Email: info@hasgeek.com