Houston: Indian entrepreneurs Vikram Akula, founder of SKS Microfinance, and Sameer Sawarkar of Neurosynaptic Comm are among the ten South Asian origin persons awarded the 2006 Global Indus Technovators Awards by the Indian Business Club at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Akula and Sawarkar are the winners n the Grassroots category.
Akula, founder of SKS Microfinance – one of the fastest growing microfinance organisations in the world, has been felicitated for having provided over $33 million in loans and helping over 300,000 people in becoming economically self-reliant.
Sawarkar, founder Neurosynaptic Communications Pvt, Ltd, works in the areas of remote medical diagnostics and telemedicine, and has developed ReMeDiV solution for rural telemedicine.
The winners in Biotechnology/Medicine/Healthcare are Anita Goel (Nanobiosym Inc), Krishna Kumar (Tufts University) and Shiladitya Sengupta (MIT).
Goel is the President of Nanobiosym Labs and Nanobiosym Diagnostics Inc, which focus on developing next-generation diagnostic capabilities.
Kumar, Chairman of the Department of Chemistry at Tufts University, is an expert on peptide therapies and has authored patents with an immense potential to impact cancer management.
Sengupta, co-founder of ANGENIX Ltd., also the winner of the TR35 Innovator Award in 2005 for one of his biggest innovations, the nano cell.
Sengupta's research focuses on understanding the basic relationships at the cellular level that define a pathological state, and using this knowledge to develop novel strategies or medicines for treating disease.
The innovators, all under the age of 40, were recognised for their commendable contributions in four broad categories – Grassroots Technology, Biotechnology, Medicine, Healthcare, Materials and Devices and Information Technology.
Materials and Devices category winners are Aref Chowdhury (Bell Labs), Rajeev V Ram (MIT) and Adam Rasheed (GE).
In the Information Technology arena, the award recipients are Anuj Batra (TI) and Rajit Manohar (Achronix Semiconductor).
Batra, who currently works on high-speed digital communication technology at Texas Instruments (TI), is highly acknowledged for his developmental efforts of ultra wideband (UWB) technology.
Rajit Manohar, cofounder of Achronix Semiconductor, was one of the young TR35 innovators in 2005.
The awardees were selected from a pool of over 100 nominations.
"The nominees were rigorously screened and judged by an eminent panel of judges, including Dr Arun Netravali (Former President, Bell Labs), Mr S Ramadorai (CEO, Tata Consultancy Services), Dr Kiran Mazumdar (Managing Director, Biocon Group of Companies)," IBC spokesperson said.
The Global Indus Technovators Awards, instituted in 2003, recognise and felicitate distinguished young innovators of South Asian origin working at the confluence of technology-based research and entrepreneurship.
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