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
Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which 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 ...
in
Government College of Technology,
Coimbatore 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 he was a faculty at the
University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sys ...
for two years and then was at the Indian Institute of Science (
IISc),
Bangalore
Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
, 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 (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...
,
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded ...
and the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
. While at IISc, he co-invented the
Simputer
The Simputer was a self-contained, open hardware Linux-based handheld computer, first released in 2002. Developed in, and primarily distributed within India, the product was envisioned as a low-cost alternative to personal computers. With ini ...
, 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.
Swami 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
Simputer
The Simputer was a self-contained, open hardware Linux-based handheld computer, first released in 2002. Developed in, and primarily distributed within India, the product was envisioned as a low-cost alternative to personal computers. With ini ...
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 Dr. Swami Manohar to its board of directors. He is a Founder and Managing Director at Limberlink Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Th
Jed-i Gifted Engineeringprogram is started by Dr Swami 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 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 proudIn search of creative engineersResurrection of Indian Research (Video)*
ttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2001/jul/09/internetnews.uknews Handheld PC bridges digital divideThe academics' challenge*
ttp://simpact-india.blogspot.com/ SImpaCTManohar's blog
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Scientists from Karnataka
University of Missouri faculty
Businesspeople from Bangalore
Academic staff of the Indian Institute of Science
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)