Infosys Science Foundation Announces Winners of the 11th Infosys Prize

Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) announced the winners of the Infosys Prize 2019 in six categories - Engineering and Computer Sciences, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences. The Prize celebrates the success of the recipients in science and research by recognizing their achievements in each category. The prize for each category comprises a pure gold medal, a citation and a prize purse of USD 100,000 (or its equivalent in Rupees) this year.

A panel of accomplished jurors comprising renowned scholars and professors shortlisted the winners of Infosys Prize 2019 from 196 nominations. With a history of awarding some of the best talent, who have earned prestigious international honors like Fields Medal and the Nobel Memorial Prize more recently, the ISF believes that this year’s winners too will leave an indelible impression in their domains.  The Infosys Prize not only recognizes these outstanding researchers and celebrates their achievements, but in doing so, creates role models who will encourage young minds to explore science as a career option.

S. D. Shibulal, Co-founder, Infosys Limited and President of the Infosys Science Foundation, said, “The Infosys Prize continues to recognize exemplary work in scientific research and enquiry. Many Infosys Prize laureates have gone on to contribute significantly in key areas like healthcare, genetics, climate science, astronomy and poverty alleviation, amongst other things. Their work has immediate implications for the human race and the planet. We hope it catalyzes social development.”  

Elaborating on the importance of Fundamental research at the event, N. R. Narayana Murthy, Founder – Infosys, Trustee – Infosys Science Foundation, said, “We should start helping our youngsters pursue fundamental research enthusiastically. They should be encouraged and equipped to become contributors to solving huge problems that confront us every day. I want India to be a place where discovery and invention happen every month.”

Winners of the Infosys Prize 2019 in the six categories are:

Engineering and Computer Science

The Infosys Prize 2019 for Engineering and Computer Science is awarded to Sunita Sarawagi, Institute Chair Professor, Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay for her research in databases, data mining, machine learning and natural language processing, and for important applications of these research techniques. The prize recognizes her pioneering work in developing information extraction techniques for unstructured data. Prof. Sarawagi’s work has practical applications in helping clean up unstructured data like addresses on the web and in repositories which then helps in more efficient handling of queries.

Humanities

The Infosys Prize 2019 for Humanities is awarded to Manu V. Devadevan, Assistant Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Mandi for his original and wide-ranging work on pre-modern South India. He critically reinterprets much of the conventional wisdom about the cultural, religious and social history of the Deccan and South India. Dr. Devadevan's primary research interests include political and economic processes in pre-modern South India, literary practices in South India and the study of ancient inscriptions from the region.

Life Sciences

The Infosys Prize 2019 for Life Sciences is awarded to Manjula Reddy, Chief Scientist, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad for her groundbreaking discoveries concerning the structure of cell walls in bacteria. Dr. Reddy and her colleagues have revealed critical steps of cell wall growth that are fundamental for understanding bacterial biology.  This work could potentially help in creating a new class of antibiotics to combat antibiotic resistant microbes. 

Mathematical Sciences

The Infosys Prize 2019 for Mathematical Sciences is awarded to Siddhartha Mishra, Professor, Department of Mathematics, ETH Zürich, for his outstanding contributions to Applied Mathematics, particularly for designing numerical tools for solving problems in the real world. Prof. Mishra's work has been used in climate models, in astrophysics, aerodynamics, and plasma physics. He has produced codes for complicated realistic problems such as tsunamis generated by rock slides, and waves in the solar atmosphere.

Physical Sciences

The Infosys Prize 2019 for Physical Sciences is awarded to G. Mugesh, Professor, Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru for his seminal work in the chemical synthesis of small molecules and nanomaterials for biomedical applications. His work has contributed to the understanding of the role of trace elements, selenium and iodine, in thyroid hormone activation and metabolism, and this research has led to major medical advances.

Social Sciences

The Infosys Prize 2019 for Social Sciences is awarded to Anand Pandian, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Krieger School of Arts & Sciences, Johns Hopkins University for his imaginative work on ethics, selfhood and the creative process. Prof. Pandian's research encompasses several themes such as cinema, public culture, ecology, nature and the theory and methods of anthropology.  His writing pushes the boundaries of how anthropologists render into words the worlds they encounter. His work breaks new ground. 

Infosys Finacle Digital Banking Suite on Cloud Powers Transformation at Shivalik Bank

 Infosys Finacle, part of EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Infosys ( NYSE: INFY),  and Shivalik Mercantile Co-operative Bank Ltd., a leading, multi-state, urban co-operative bank in India, today announced the successful implementation of the Finacle Digital Banking Suite on cloud. This will provide the bank superior agility to cost effectively manage scale and power its growth with an on-demand portfolio of products and services, ensuring a world class banking experience for its customers and seamless ecosystem connectivity.

Highlights:

·                     Delivered as a subscription, the service includes the Finacle Core Banking and Finacle Digital Channels solutions, with internet and mobile banking offerings. Using this model, over 300,000 unique customers have been migrated to the Finacle platform till date.

·                     Working with end-to-end managed services, the bank shifted its banking platform from a capital expense model to an operational expense model, ensuring that the bank only pays for what it uses without significant upfront investments.

·                     With in-built product factory capability and cloud elasticity, the bank can rapidly innovate and rollout products and services on-demand to meet the changing needs of the market.

·                     A robust open API (application programming interface) repository allows the bank to effectively implement Open Banking, and easily collaborate with its external ecosystem, including fintechs, digital businesses and non-banking financial service providers.

·                     The bank now has a future-proof platform, enabled to receive seamless updates and powered to accelerate innovation to provide highly personalized offerings to its customers.

·                     Cloud4C, a Finacle cloud technology partner, provided the highly secure, cost-effective, scalable cloud infrastructure and end-to-end managed services to support the bank’s operations with high uptime while ensuring regulatory compliance.

Venkatramana Gosavi, Senior Vice President & Global Head of Sales, Infosys Finacle, said, “Co-operative banks are at the forefront of driving financial inclusion and supporting economic expansion, with deep community connect and personalized customer service. With the ongoing digital disruption in banking, banks in this space need to modernize their legacy technology platforms, to ensure they remain relevant to their customers. Our cloud offerings provide a cost-effective way to transform business and to gain flexibility to scale at will. We are pleased to power Shivalik Bank’s business with the industry leading Infosys Finacle solution suite, to accelerate its aspirational journey to become one of the largest urban co-operative banks in India.”

Suveer Kumar Gupta, MD & CEO, Shivalik Bank, said, “Without technology modernization, cooperative banks face a persistent threat to their continuity, with big banks, fintechs and non-banking players investing to continuously expand their customer base. A cloud based, digital transformation solution is a cost-effective way to modernize and expand the business, while giving our customers a world class banking experience. Finacle’s integrated digital banking solution has helped Shivalik Bank achieve a transformational leap in its technology base, which together with our robust local knowledge, will help deliver high quality customer service and take forward the ‘Digital India’ Vision, especially among the underbanked population.”

Sridhar Reddy, CEO, Cloud4C, said, “We are pleased to partner with Shivalik bank and Infosys Finacle in this implementation. Shivalik Bank is now enabled with an end-to-end managed services cloud infrastructure, enabling the bank to scale quickly, and bring new innovations to market, a key requirement in the fast-paced banking environment of today.”

NIT Trichy director receives IEEE Best Teacher Award

NIT Trichy director receives IEEE Best Teacher Award

Dr. Mini Shaji Thomas, director of NIT Tiruchirappalli, received the IEEE Kerala Section 2019 Best Teacher Award in a glittering ceremony in Kozhikode in the presence of Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan of Infosys and Dr. SivajiChakraborti, director of NIT Calicut.

Mr.Satish Babu, Chairperson of the Awards Committee recognized her as “an outstanding teacher who has promoted values-based education that combines academic excellence with compassion and service to humanity.” He further added that she is “an inspiration to students and teachers alike.”

Dr. Mini Thomas in her acceptance speech, emphasized that she chose teaching profession out of love for imparting knowledge to others, as a service to society, although she had many other job offers and opportunities.  She was excited to receive an award for teaching and encouraged the younger generation to aspire to be teachers, as good quality teachers is the need of the hour for all educational Institutions.  It was also heartening that the award ceremony in Kozhikode brought her back to REC/NIT Calicut, after 3 decades, where she started her teaching career.

Recently, during the floods that ravaged large parts of Kerala and caused massive power shut down, Dr. Mini Thomas responded to a call from the IEEE Kerala Section by providing 500 low cost electric distribution boards as minimum power outlet, with the help of NIT Tiruchirappalli students and faculty.

An electrical engineer from IIT Delhi, Mini Thomas is internationally recognized for her work in the areas of Power System Automation and SCADA.  She was head of the electrical engineering department at JamiaMiliaIslamia before assuming charge as director, NIT Tiruchirappalli.

Under her able guidance, NIT Tiruchirappalli has improved in national and international rankings.  A 180-crore Centre of Excellence in Manufacturing was set up in partnership with Siemens.  The institute signed MoUs with Tata Motors for an augmented engineering program.  BHEL, Trichy is developing the prototype of an electrical vehicle at NIT Trichy.  The Institute developed the 5 year strategic plan last year and is on an implementation path now. The campus won two green awards last year and efforts are on towards a more green and sustainable campus.

Photo from left to right

Mr Satish Babu, Awards committee chair, Mr. Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-Founder Infosys, Mr. Amarnath Raja, CEO, Inapp, Dr. Mini Thomas, Dr. Sameer, Chair, IEEE Kerala Section.