TECHNOLOGY

Indian scientist at Google to receive Marconi award

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The algorithms designed by a young Indian scientist at Google Research, New York, are helping make web search easier and faster for users challenged by slow internet connections and basic feature phones.

Ananda Theertha Suresh began work on the algorithms as a doctoral student at the University of California, San Diego. He addressed a problem faced by many owners of basic feature phones in countries like India, where internet connections are slow. Every time one makes a search, all the information about the keyword is sent to a distant server and the information with the search result has to travel back to the phone. With slow internet, this can be a pain.

ananda-suresh Ananda Theertha Suresh

Suresh's work helped strip the data flow to essentials, then compressed it further so that even basic phones could do quick searches. At Google after obtaining his PhD, Suresh refined his work to provide sophisticated communications capabilities to people with low bandwidth internet connections and low-end devices.

Dr Michael D. Riley, principal research scientist and manager at Google Research comments: “Ananda’s research has already led to algorithms that give better compression than we have previously used. This work is now used by millions of people within speech and keyboard input applications in Google products.”

The US-based Marconi Society, a non profit body dedicated to furthering scientific achievements in communications and the internet bestowed on Suresh, the 2017 Paul Baran Young Scholar Award. The 28-year-old researcher will receive the award at a ceremony in Summit, New Jersey on October 3.

His PhD guide at UC San Diego, Alon Orlitsky, says: “Ananda applied his philosophy to several important tasks In all these problems he derived crisp, insightful, and surprising results that often required broad vision, keen intuition, and mastery of diverse technical skills, a highly unusual combination for such a nascent researcher.”

Suresh who did his schooling in Bengaluru, obtained his Bachelor's degree in Engineering Physics at IIT Madras in 2010 and went to the US where he pursued his Masters and PhD at UC San Diego between 2010 and 2016. Marconi Young Scholars receive a $4,000 prize. Three other Young Scholars were also selected this year. More than the cash prize, Young Scholars are offered valuable mentoring and guidance by some among Marconi Society's distinguished roster of engineering greats.

Interestingly at this year's Marconi awards, three persons of Indian origin will be honoured. While Suresh receives his award in the Young Scholar category, former Bell Labs chief Arun Netravali, known as 'father of digital video',will receive $100,000 Marconi Prize and Stanford University Professor Emeritus, Thomas Kailath is being honoured with the Marconi Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Topics : #Google

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