4 Indians among MIT’s top 35 innovators

[ben10]

Two Indians and two persons of Indian origin figure among Top 35 Innovators under-35 in the latest list of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Technology Review, the world’s oldest Technology Magazine established in 1899.

Ajit Narayanan, Invention Labs, Chennai and Aishwarya Ratan, Yale University, who were part of TR35 India Winners announced in March 2011, have made it to the annual list of people who exemplify the spirit of innovation in business and technology.

The honourees are blazing new paths in a wide range of fields, including medicine, energy, communications, IT, consumer technology, entertainment, and robotics, Cambridge, Massachusetts, based institution announced Wednesday.

Chennai—based Ajit Narayanan, 30, was selected for his work on affordable speech synthesizers. He is currently working with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, to improve the quality of the speech synthesis. He also plans to use mobile app stores to distribute a version of his software with about 90 percent of the full Avaz system’s functionality.

Aishwarya Ratan, 30, was working with Microsoft Research in Bangalore when she won the prestigious honour for her work on converting paper records to digital in real time. Ratan has since moved to Yale University, but the NGO that she was partnering with continues to test the slate in villages.

Two winners of Indian origin include Bhaskar Krishnamachari, 33, University of Southern California who has been selected for his work on smarter wireless networks and Piya Sorcar, 33, for Teachaids software that can be localised to teach taboo topics.

The TR35 will present their work and be honoured at an awards ceremony during the 2011 EmTech MIT conference, taking place Oct 18—19 at MIT’s Media Lab, USA.

 

[ben10]

Ajit Narayanan

Invention Labs

It is estimated that around 10 million people in India suffer from speech impediments.

Narayanan's device can benefit such people.

His innovation, AVAZ, is a portable and battery operated communication device for people with speaking disorders who suffer from cerebral palsy, autism, mental retardation and aphasia.

This device converts the limited muscle movements like head and finger movements into speech.

This technological innovation comes under the category of Augmentative and Alternative Communication technologies.

Narayanan wants to bring out an affordable device that cuts the cost of the device to one tenth of the original price.

He wants to make it widely available in different languages in India.

 

[kavish]

nice....
as usual... indians every where....

 

[ben10]

Aishwarya Ratan

Yale University

In 2009, while working with Microsoft Research India, Ratan spent 15 months figuring out how to help local microcredit co-ops, which often struggle with handwritten entries that are illegible, incorrect, or incomplete.

Her solution combines digital technology with the familiar paper notebooks that villagers prefer.

Co-op members use an electronic ballpoint pen to write in ledgers placed on a slate equipped with software that recognizes handwritten numbers.

The slate provides feedback on whether the records are complete and legible, stores them in a database, and gives real-time balance updates, both on a screen and verbally in the local language.

The database can be shared with the non-governmental organizations and banks that back each co-op.

Piya Sorcar

TeachAids

Despite considerable educational efforts by experts and organizations alike, public awareness in India about the growing HIV epidemic has remained low.

So Piya Sorcar, founder and CEO of TeachAIDS, has developed interactive software to educate children about HIV in a way that's sensitive to the country's cultural mores.

When Sorcar travelled to India in 2005, she found that even children and young adults who received training on HIV didn't learn much: cultural taboos prevented educators from speaking frankly about how the virus is transmitted.

As she designed her software, she took pains to ensure that it didn't run afoul of those taboos.

She analyzed cultural responses to every image used.

She recorded narration with correct local accents, created gender-specific versions of each program, enlisted local celebrities for voice acting, and tested to see how much information children retained, even long after the lessons were over.


Bhaskar Krishnamachari

University of Southern California

By creating smarter wireless networks that can handle mobile devices and interference more efficiently than today's Wi-Fi and cellular networks, Krishnamachari aims to ease the increasing digital congestion of the airwaves and open the door to new applications for wireless communications.

For example, Krishnamachari is working with General Motors on a vehicle-to-vehicle network that lets cars in motion swap information about traffic flow and road conditions.

His design can reliably route data within a shifting network of cars and other vehicles across freeways and city streets without having to tax the congested cellular network.

 

[Whiplash]

You have to be a fool to be proud of this.
I am a student at IIT Roorkee. And I want to be a scientist one day. I used to be absolutely sure that I would not leave the country and participate in this 'brain drain'. But After coming here I know what a thankless pathetic job Indian scientists have.
Now I don't want any of you trigger happy military junkies out there to bullsh!t me about 'Security'.
But we live in a country where we pay 500 Crore rupees for ONE SINGLE FIGHTER PLANE and the entire annual budget of each IIT is only 300 crore. And that includes research grants too. WTF is that fighter plane gonna do? Sit in a hanger? Participate in training exercises? I have the most brilliant minds I have ever seen around me here. Some of them probably among the worlds smartest. Kids of 19 who can develop mind boggling algorithms. Literally prodigies. And you want them to stay here? In our 'prestigious' institutes? And let their Scientific/Engineering careers go to hell? You guys can go on about the 'reverse brain drain' and all that other cr@p all you want. But the truth is no scientist worth his salt is coming back. Because Science transcends nationalism. And the situation here is much worse coz unlike China and South Korea, we speak immaculate English. All we have to do is hop on a plane and apply to a university. Blergh I don't know id I'm reaching out to any of you. But the truth is we don't need planes and tanks and ships with the RCS of a winged rat. We need minds. Lets slash the defence budget. Lets invest in education. Especially the highly specialised fields. And Lets be that one country that may not be the most powerful militarily, but far far ahead in science. Look at Japan, for example. When we're dead many many years from now, you think it matters which country had the most planes? Nobody shall ever forget which country was the most scientifically advanced.

 

[ben10]

You have to be a fool to be proud of this.
I am a student at IIT Roorkee. And I want to be a scientist one day. I used to be absolutely sure that I would not leave the country and participate in this 'brain drain'. But After coming here I know what a thankless pathetic job Indian scientists have.
Now I don't want any of you trigger happy military junkies out there to bullsh!t me about 'Security'.
But we live in a country where we pay 500 Crore rupees for ONE SINGLE FIGHTER PLANE and the entire annual budget of each IIT is only 300 crore. And that includes research grants too. WTF is that fighter plane gonna do? Sit in a hanger? Participate in training exercises? I have the most brilliant minds I have ever seen around me here. Some of them probably among the worlds smartest. Kids of 19 who can develop mind boggling algorithms. Literally prodigies. And you want them to stay here? In our 'prestigious' institutes? And let their Scientific/Engineering careers go to hell? You guys can go on about the 'reverse brain drain' and all that other cr@p all you want. But the truth is no scientist worth his salt is coming back. Because Science transcends nationalism. And the situation here is much worse coz unlike China and South Korea, we speak immaculate English. All we have to do is hop on a plane and apply to a university. Blergh I don't know id I'm reaching out to any of you. But the truth is we don't need planes and tanks and ships with the RCS of a winged rat. We need minds. Lets slash the defence budget. Lets invest in education. Especially the highly specialised fields. And Lets be that one country that may not be the most powerful militarily, but far far ahead in science. Look at Japan, for example. When we're dead many many years from now, you think it matters which country had the most planes? Nobody shall ever forget which country was the most scientifically advanced.

first of all correct your sentence. why are you fighting vd me man. im just posted what i hav seen in net. ok

 

[Subramanian]

You have to be a fool to be proud of this.
I am a student at IIT Roorkee. And I want to be a scientist one day. I used to be absolutely sure that I would not leave the country and participate in this 'brain drain'. But After coming here I know what a thankless pathetic job Indian scientists have.
Now I don't want any of you trigger happy military junkies out there to bullsh!t me about 'Security'.
But we live in a country where we pay 500 Crore rupees for ONE SINGLE FIGHTER PLANE and the entire annual budget of each IIT is only 300 crore. And that includes research grants too. WTF is that fighter plane gonna do? Sit in a hanger? Participate in training exercises? I have the most brilliant minds I have ever seen around me here. Some of them probably among the worlds smartest. Kids of 19 who can develop mind boggling algorithms. Literally prodigies. And you want them to stay here? In our 'prestigious' institutes? And let their Scientific/Engineering careers go to hell? You guys can go on about the 'reverse brain drain' and all that other cr@p all you want. But the truth is no scientist worth his salt is coming back. Because Science transcends nationalism. And the situation here is much worse coz unlike China and South Korea, we speak immaculate English. All we have to do is hop on a plane and apply to a university. Blergh I don't know id I'm reaching out to any of you. But the truth is we don't need planes and tanks and ships with the RCS of a winged rat. We need minds. Lets slash the defence budget. Lets invest in education. Especially the highly specialised fields. And Lets be that one country that may not be the most powerful militarily, but far far ahead in science. Look at Japan, for example. When we're dead many many years from now, you think it matters which country had the most planes? Nobody shall ever forget which country was the most scientifically advanced.

I know,IIT Guwahati 2006.I agree.