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4 Indians Among MIT’s Top 35 Innovators

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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.

Ajit Narayanan:

Ajit Narayan MIT, USA

There is an estimation of around 10 million people in India to suffer from speech impediments. Ajit 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 moves into speech. This tech innovation of Ajit comes under the category of Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) technologies. Narayanan wants to bring out an affordable device with cuts the cost of the device to one tenth of the original price. He wants to make it widely available in India and in different languages.

Aishwarya Ratan:

Aishwarya Ratan, MIT, USA

She has developed an electronic ballpoint pen to write in ledgers placed on a slate furnished with software which identifies the handwritten numbers. Finally the feedback about the total record completion and legibility is given by the late. The storage of these feedbacks is also possible. The feedback is given on the screen and also verbally in local language. The database can be shared with the nongovernmental organizations and banks that support the co-operatives. She is a partnering with an NGO and is doing studies on improving the technologies that can help the poor people monetarily. In June she became the director of Microsavings and payments innovation initiative at Yale University.

Bhaskar Krishnamachari:

Bhaskar Krishnamachari

Bhaskar Krishnamachari aspires to simplify the increasing digital congestion of air waves and welcome new applications for wireless communications. So he created a smarter wireless networks that would handle the mobile devices and intervening more efficiently than Wi-Fi‘s and cellular networks. So his innovation is about opening an additional bandwidth which will for free of cost.

Piya Sorcar:

piya sorcar

Piya Sorcar the founder and CEO of TechAIDS developed interactive software that educated the children about HIV that’s sensitive to the Indian tradition. Sorcar made the decision to develop this device when she realized that the way of awareness spread among the children and adults in India is not that effective. The reason is the cultural back ground which doesn’t allow people to be open minded or out spoken to discuss on these topics detailed way. Now her software has been approved and is dispensed among the Indian states where other sex education is banned. In Botswana, a country located in southern Africa has approved for this software to be distributed in every school. Sorcar is expecting to distribute this software to all countries within 5 years.

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Chennai innovator gives voice to the voiceless

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After a master’s from IIT-Madras, Ajit Narayanan headed to the U.S. like many of his batchmates. But the entrepreneurial bug soon bit and he returned home. What followed was a speech synthesiser for spastic children and a recognition by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as one of the world’s top 35 young innovators.

Narayanan, 30, is the founder and chairman and managing director of the city-based Invention Labs Engineering Products Pvt Ltd. He has been named one of the 35 outstanding men and women innovators under 35 years of age by Technology Review (TR) magazine, published by MIT.

He got the acclaim for his product Avaz, a tablet-like communication device for spastic children.

“It is a prestigious award and I feel happy about it. Not many engineers work in this field and it is a nice feeling that fellow engineers appreciate and award products like ours,” Narayanan told IANS in an interview.

Completing his master’s in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) in 2003, Narayanan went to the US to work for American Megatrends.

“I came back here in 2007 mainly to become an entrepreneur. Some of the IIT professors were doing some work for spastic children and they told me to look at development of a product that would help such children,” Narayanan said.

It was then that he decided to develop a cost-effective speech synthesiser.

Avaz costs around 30,000 ($650), while similar products in the US cost upwards of 500,000 ($10,800).

“The major challenge was designing the product that will be easily used by a spastic child. As they do not communicate, we had to discuss with the teachers and parents to understand spastic children and design the product,” Narayanan said.

He said some four million people in India suffer from cerebral palsy and other disabilities that make it difficult or impossible for them to speak.

“These children’s condition is worse than the hearing- or speech-impaired,” he said.

A person can use Avaz to construct phrases that are spoken out loud by an artificial voice through in-built speakers. The user can press icons and even type sentences, which the device then converts to voice.

According to him, the total investment in developing the product was around 4 million out of which there was a central government subsidy of 1 million.

Speaking about marketing, Narayanan said: “We are targeting the schools for special children and there are parents who buy this equipment after coming to know about Avaz from the teachers.”

“Selling to special schools will have more impact on the users. We would like to make a bigger positive impact on children than looking at retail sales alone.

“I’ve seen parents weep when Avaz allows them to talk with their child for the first time,” Narayanan said.

He is currently working with the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, to improve the quality of speech synthesis. He also plans to use mobile application stores to distribute a version of his software with about 90 percent of the Avaz system’s functionality.

The company has sold around 100 units since its launch in 2010.

“If this device is made eligible for 10,000 subsidy by the central government under its scheme for purchase of equipments for differently-abled, then the sales would go up,” Narayanan said.

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