Path-breaking innovations put four Indians in MIT's prestigious innovators list

It seems it is the year for Indians who are making the country proud by acquiring top notch positions and path-breaking innovations.

In the recent development, four Indians made it to the MIT Technology Review’s prestigious list of ‘35 Innovators Under 35’.

Rahul Alex Panicker, Saurabh Srivastava, Rohan Paul and Aaswath Raman are four Indians whose innovations were recognised.

Panicker, co-founder of Embrace Innovations which makes infant warmers that do not need continuous power, has been acknowledged as a humanitarian for his work in medicine and biotechnology.

While Srivastava of Xerox India researcher developed voice and gestural interfaces that could make digital technologies available to the world's poorest people, Paul, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, developed 'SmartCane' for the blind that vibrates when it detects obstacles through ultrasonic sensors.

Paul has termed his $50 device for the blind a "people's product" and "a humble tribute to the Mahatma".

Meanwhile, Raman crafted a unique material with "optimum levels of thermal radiation and solar reflection" which, when used to coat a roof that's not insulated, would keep the insides cool.

The post-doctoral researcher at Stanford has received $3 million funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy to develop his technology.

"Over the years, we've had success in choosing young innovators whose work has been profoundly influential on the direction of human affairs," MIT Technology Review editor-in-chief and publisher Jason Pontin was quoted as saying.

Pontin said previous winners include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the cofounders of Google, Mark Zuckerberg, the cofounder of Facebook and Jonathan Ive, the chief designer of Apple.

Last year's edition of MIT Tech Review's 35 winners included three Indians: Tanuja Ganu, for her work in coming up with a simple device to monitor India's power grid cheaply and easily, Manu Prakash, for his innovative, "frugal" scientific instruments such as a $5 microfluidic chemistry lab, and Shyam Gollakota, for his prototypes of battery-free wireless devices.

(Image: Reuters)