Ananda Theertha Suresh, Bengaluru-born 28-year-old Google research scientist, who is based in New York, has won the Paul Baran Young Scholar award for 2017, the US-based Marconi Society said on Tuesday.
“Suresh has been selected for this year’s Young Scholar award for creating technology that makes search faster and easier even on low-end mobile devices, with basic Internet,” the Society said in an e-mail to DH. The release said Suresh’s work is used by millions of people within speech and keyboard input applications in Google products.
Suresh will receive the award from the Society at a special ceremony in New Jersey on October 3. The award consists of a cash prize of $4,000 (Rs 256,000) and expenses to attend the annual ceremony.
Suresh, who did his schooling at Sri Rajarajeshwari Vidya Mandira in Bengaluru and obtained a science degree from National College in south Bengaluru, went to the US in 2010 after graduating in engineering physics from IIT-Madras. He also took a master’s and PhD in the same subject from the University of California-San Diego by 2016.
“I am humbled and honoured to be in the company of the Society’s past and present award winners. I will also interact with them, as learning from them will inspire me to tackle the challenging problems in the world over,” he said. Suresh’s late father ran a printing press in the city. His mother is a homemaker.
The four-decade-old Society, named after Noble Laureate Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), who invented the radio, is also honouring two other Indian-born scientists — Thomas Kailath with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his stellar contribution to modern communications, and Arun Netravalli with the Marconi Prize for his pioneering work in digital video technology used in mobile phones and television sets.
Published 12 September 2017, 20:07 IST