Bengaluru-born Suresh Among 3 Indian-origin Scientists to Get Marconi award

By Little India Desk | September 13, 2017

Ananda Theertha Suresh, an Indian American scientist working with Google, has been awarded the Paul Baran Young Scholar Award for 2017, according to the Marconi Society. The award will be presented to him at a ceremony in New Jersey on Oct. 03.

Suresh, 28, who hails from Bengaluru, currently works on latest communication opportunities for people with low bandwidth and basic devices.

Besides him, the Marconi society will also honor Thomas Kailath and Arun Netravalli, with Lifetime Achievement Award and the Marconi Prize, respectively.

Solution for Logjam Problem

“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 Marconi Society said in a statement.

“Suresh’s work is used by millions of people within speech and keyboard input applications in Google products. His research focused on understanding the most efficient ways to use information, data and communication,” the statement added.

Explaining more about his technology, Suresh told IANS that when a person using a basic feature phone does an internet search through a slow connection, his query is sent to a distant server and he has to wait for the feedback.

“The glitch for the delay is the uplink which connects to the network. A logjam means a long wait and a mounting data bill for the user. If the information is stripped of all nonessentials and compressed, it will travel faster,” he said.

The Marconi Society recognized Suresh’s efforts in the direction. “Access and opportunities in the developing countries are limited by low-bandwidth and low-end devices with limited storage and intelligence. Suresh’s algorithms reduce data sent and data costs immensely,” it said.

This society was set up in 1975 by Gioia Marconi Braga, the daughter of Nobel Prize winning inventor of radio, Guglielmo Marconi. It presents annual awards to individuals whose scope of work and influence emulate the principle of “creativity in service to humanity” that inspired Marconi.

Ananda Theertha Suresh: All You Need to Know

Suresh was born in Bengaluru. His late father had a printing press, while his mother is a homemaker. After completing his schooling at the Sri Rajarajeshwari Vidya Mandir, he joined the National College in the city, and obtained a science degree. He was the first one to attend college in his family. Later, he obtained a PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California, San Diego.