Bala S. Manian is an

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n-born

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

entrepreneur who has started a string of medical technology companies such as ReaMetrix, Digital Optics and Quantum Dot Corporation. Some of the resulting technologies have also had applications in the film industry, earning Manian an

Academy Award The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence ...

certificate for technical achievement.

Early life

Bala Manian was born in

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

(formerly

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

) India in 1944. He lost an eye in a childhood accident at age three and has seven siblings. His elder brother N. Vaghul has been chairman of

ICICI Bank ICICI Bank Limited is an Indian multinational bank and financial services company headquartered in Mumbai with a registered office in Vadodara. It offers a wide range of banking and financial services for corporate and retail customers throu ...

. Manian earned a BSc in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

from

Loyola College, Madras Loyola College is a government aided private Catholic higher education institution run by the Society of Jesus in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. It was founded in 1925 by the French Jesuit priest, Francis Bertram, along with other European Jesuits ...

and a postgraduate level diploma in instrumentation from the Madras Institute of Technology at Madras before earning a Master in optics at the

University of Rochester The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...

. He then earned a PhD from

Purdue Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, United States, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donat ...

in 1971, conducting research in the Applied Optics Laboratory of the College of Engineering. From 1971 until 1974, Manian held a position as a senior research associate and assistant professor at the University of Rochester's Institute of Optics.

Career

As a consultant for various companies, he helped develop the first compact "under the counter" barcode laser scanner for supermarkets, several laser scanner-based stereo mapping instruments at the

Defense Mapping Agency The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a combat support agency within the United States Department of Defense whose primary mission is collecting, analyzing, and distributing geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) to support national se ...

and image quality control instrumentation for

photo reconnaissance Aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance for a military or strategic purpose that is conducted using reconnaissance aircraft. The role of reconnaissance can fulfil a variety of requirements including artillery spotting, the collection of image ...

systems. He also consulted on

computer vision Computer vision tasks include methods for image sensor, acquiring, Image processing, processing, Image analysis, analyzing, and understanding digital images, and extraction of high-dimensional data from the real world in order to produce numerical ...

for online

quality control Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements". This approach plac ...

at several companies, including

Ford Ford commonly refers to: * Ford Motor Company, an automobile manufacturer founded by Henry Ford * Ford (crossing), a shallow crossing on a river Ford may also refer to: Ford Motor Company * Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Company * Ford F ...

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

, Corning,

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company, referred to simply as Kodak (), is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in film photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorporated i ...

, and the

Union Pacific Railroad The Union Pacific Railroad is a Railroad classes, Class I freight-hauling railroad that operates 8,300 locomotives over routes in 23 U.S. states west of Chicago and New Orleans. Union Pacific is the second largest railroad in the United Stat ...

. Manian then founded various other companies Digital Optics Corporation, an optical instrumentation and systems development company, which developed the first three-color laser, film reader/writer system. These techniques allowed filmmakers to insert or merge special effects into movies using computerized digital imaging. Working with

David DiFrancesco David DiFrancesco, (born Nutley, New Jersey, 1949), is a photoscientist, inventor, cinematographer, and photographer. He is a founding member of three organizations which pioneered computer graphics for digital special effects and film with Edwin ...

and Tom Noggle, he created a technology that was transferred in 1983 to

Industrial Light and Magic Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) is an American Film, motion picture visual effects, computer animation and stereo conversion digital studio founded by George Lucas on May 26, 1975. It is a division of the film production company Lucasfilm, which Lu ...

. It has been used in the production of numerous movies, including "

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'' is a 1989 American action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Jeffrey Boam, based on a story by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes. It is the third installment in the Indiana Jone ...

" and "

Return of the Jedi ''Return of the Jedi'' (also known as ''Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi'' is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas. The sequel to '' The Empire ...

." In February 1999, Manian was awarded an

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of adva ...

Technical Award for this advance in technology. The same technology was then further developed to write the

CAT scan A computed tomography scan (CT scan), formerly called computed axial tomography scan (CAT scan), is a medical imaging technique used to obtain detailed internal images of the body. The personnel that perform CT scans are called radiographers ...

and

MRI Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to generate pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes inside the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and rad ...

images used in

medical diagnosis Medical diagnosis (abbreviated Dx, Dx, or Ds) is the process of determining which disease or condition explains a person's symptoms and signs. It is most often referred to as a diagnosis with the medical context being implicit. The information ...

directly onto film. This required a special film developed by

for optimum results. Manian sold Digital Optics in 1984 for $7.5 million to the Matrix Corporation. Manian remained as Chief Technical Officer for Digital Optics through 1985 and then acted as an investor and independent consultant to several

venture capital Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...

firms before becoming the founder and Chief Technical Officer for two startups,

Molecular Dynamics Molecular dynamics (MD) is a computer simulation method for analyzing the Motion (physics), physical movements of atoms and molecules. The atoms and molecules are allowed to interact for a fixed period of time, giving a view of the dynamics ( ...

and Lumisys, a company dealing in laser-based

x-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

film digitizers. He then founded Biometric Imaging and became the Chief Technical Officer. The company has developed a technology that allows doctors to examine the

blood cells A blood cell (also called a hematopoietic cell, hemocyte, or hematocyte) is a cell produced through hematopoiesis and found mainly in the blood. Major types of blood cells include red blood cells (erythrocytes), white blood cells (leukocytes), ...

of seriously ill patients and determine the nature and extent of their disease. It also gives

pharmaceutical Medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal product, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the ...

companies the ability to perform cell function analyses on the discovery and development of pharmaceutical drugs. Manian co-founded the company Surromed and Quantum Dot Corporation in 1998. Quantum Dot Corporation (QDC) developed and sold novel solutions to accelerate the discovery and development of functionally validated novel drug targets at the cellular level. QDC's products and services employ quantum dot (Qdot) particles. Bala Manian founded ReaMetrix in May 2003 and serves as a science and business advisor for a number of entrepreneurial companies (Galileo Labs, Biocon India, ICICI Knowledge Park and APIDC -VC). Currently, he is also an advisor to the startup TeliportMe.

Notes

References

*
Purdue 2000 Distinguished Almnus

Import the science, but implement it in the local context

External links

Reametrix

Biocon

Manian.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manian, Bala S. 1944 births University of Rochester alumni Purdue University College of Engineering alumni Indian emigrants to the United States Living people American people of Indian descent American businesspeople

Early life

Career

See also

Notes

References

External links