Swami Manohar, otherwise known as Manohar Swaminathan, is a co-founder and the CEO of PicoPeta Simputers Pvt. Ltd. He completed his undergraduate program in

electronics and communication engineering Electronic engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering that emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current flow ...

Coimbatore Coimbatore (Tamil: kōyamputtūr, ), also known as Kovai (), is one of the major Metropolitan cities of India, metropolitan cities in the States and union territories of India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located on the banks of the Noyy ...

during which he was a part of a campus team that designed an electronic voting machine in the year 1981, which was actually the first designed in India. After obtaining his PhD in computer science from

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

he was a faculty at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...

for two years and then was at the Indian Institute of Science ( IISc),

Bangalore Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...

, between 1990 and 2005. He was on the faculty of the department of Computer Science and Automation (CSA) and the Supercomputer Education and Research Center (SERC) at the institute. He has been a visiting faculty at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

and the

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

. While at IISc, he co-invented the

Simputer The Simputer is a self-contained, open hardware Linux-based handheld computer that was first released in 2002, developed in, and primarily distributed within India. The product was envisioned as a low-cost alternative to personal computers. The ...

, was awarded the Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation in IT, and pioneered the faculty entrepreneurship activity at IISc, which has since catalyzed similar activity in IITs and other educational institutes in India. He co-founded Strand Life Sciences (formerly Strand Genomics), and String Labs, the first academic incubating company in India. Manohar has contributed to research in computer graphics, visualisation, virtual reality and CAD for rapid prototyping. He has been the thesis advisor for over forty graduate students, including three PhDs. As CEO of PicoPeta he was instrumental in converting the prototype of the

into a real commercial product, the Amida Simputer, India's first commercial handheld product. His broad interest is in the area of societal impact of information and communication technologies. In 2005, PicoPeta was acquired by Geodesic Information Systems, and Swami Manohar assumed the additional role of chief IP and strategy officer of Geodesi

Elina Networks has elected Manohar to its board of directors. He is a founder and managing director at Limberlink Technologies Pvt. Ltd. Th
Jed-i Gifted Engineering
program is started by Manohar and Dr V Vinay, who are former professors of computer science at the Indian Institute of Science. It is their way of sharing the joy of engineering, design and innovation with young engineers who they hope will go on to build the next generation of global companies out of India. Swami Manohar is currently at Microsoft Research as senior principal researcher in the Technologies for Emerging markets group. Currently working on technologies for accessibility
improving the productivity of blind programmers
and IoT for emerging markets.

Academic interests

* Parallel and VLSI architectures and algorithms for graphics and visualization * Interactive sculpting * Voxel-based CAD tools for layered manufacturing * Virtual Reality Modeling Language * Internet Technologies

References

External links

Ten breakthroughs that made India proud

In search of creative engineers

Resurrection of Indian Research (Video)

* ttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/jul/09/internetnews.uknews Handheld PC bridges digital divide
The academics' challenge

* ttp://simpact-india.blogspot.com/ SImpaCTManohar's blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Manohar, Swami Scientists from Karnataka University of Missouri faculty Businesspeople from Bengaluru Academic staff of the Indian Institute of Science Living people Year of birth missing (living people)