Many Indians honored at MIT’s EmTech
A technology conference hosted by Technology Review, an independent media company owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has honored 20 Indians below the age of 35 for their contribution in innovation in the fields of biotechnology, entertainment, software development, semiconductors, transportation, energy and new materials research.
The conference is usually organized in the US but has been hosted in India for the second year in a year. The conference showcases the latest technology for the future.
Some of the technologies in which the innovations were showcased include, green computing techniques, clean transport alternatives, more efficient energy grid and wireless technologies to connect India.
Among other's awarded were, Hardik Sanghvi who is a co-founder of vMukti which has developed a product to beam e-learning content to remote learning centers, Rikin B Gandhi who is founder of Digital Green, Bangalore which found solutions to help farmers adopt better farming techniques. Gandhi was named social innovator of the year.
Ashish Bhat co-founder of Mumbai-based Ideaforge Technology was awarded for developing the world's smallest and lightest autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle to help in anti terrorist operations.
The only woman to have won the award is Indrani Medhi who has developed a text-free user interface for illiterate and semiliterate users. The youngest innovator, 23-year old Manoj Kumar Mandelia developed a solution to deal with wastewater management by using it to generate electricity.
On the tele-density of country, Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a professor at the of electrical engineering, IIT Madras and founder Tenet Telecom said "In the next year and a half, about 800 million Indians will perhaps be able to access mobile phones across the country."
He said that the mobile phones are being used for to deliver education content, health related services and also specific services to farmers while the next big service would be funds transfer on the mobile which will fulfill the aim of financial inclusion.
Another processor who spoke at the conference, S Sadagopan who is founder director of IIIT, Bangalore said in about three to four years the telecom sector will be the largest contributor to the GDP while the landlines connections will continue to drop.
The event saw many advanced technologies being showcased by the researchers from the MIT media Labs through out its first day here.
