T. V. Raman (born 4 May 1965) is an

Indian American Indian Americans are Americans whose ancestry originates wholly or partly from India. The terms Asian Indian and East Indian are used to avoid confusion with Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans in the United States, who ar ...

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

who specializes in accessibility research.Gibbs, W.W. (1996) ''Profile: T. V. Raman – Envisioning Speech'', ''

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it, with more than 150 Nobel Pri ...

'' 275(3), 52-54. His research interests are primarily in the areas of auditory user interfaces and structured electronic documents. He has worked on speech interaction and markup technologies in the context of the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables Content (media), content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond Information technology, IT specialists and hobbyis ...

Digital Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Businesses *Digital bank, a form of financial institution *Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) or Digital, a computer company *Digital Research (DR or DRI), a software ...

's Cambridge Research Lab (CRL),

Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), formerly Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American software, computer software company based in San Jose, California. It offers a wide range of programs from web design tools, photo manipulation and vector creation, through to ...

and

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American Multinational corporation, multinational information technology company. IBM Research is headquartered at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York ...

. He currently works at

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

Research. Raman has himself been

partially sighted Visual or vision impairment (VI or VIP) is the partial or total inability of visual perception. In the absence of treatment such as corrective eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment, visual impairment may cause the individual difficul ...

since birth, and blind since the age of 14.

Early life and education

He grew up in

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

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 ...

. Raman became blind at the age of 14 due to

glaucoma Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases that can lead to damage of the optic nerve. The optic nerve transmits visual information from the eye to the brain. Glaucoma may cause vision loss if left untreated. It has been called the "silent thief of ...

, being previously

and able to see with his left eye. To deal with his blindness he had his brother, his mentors, and his aide read out textbooks and problems to him. Although unable to see, he was able to solve Rubik's Cube with a braille version, write

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to Execution (computing), execute. It is one component of software, which also includes software documentation, documentation and other intangibl ...

s, and perform mathematics. Raman attended the

University of Pune Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Pune, is a public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganeshkhind. The uni ...

with a BS in mathematics,

IIT Bombay The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT- Bombay or IIT-B) is a Public university, public research university and Institute of technology, technical institute in Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. IIT Bombay is mainly known for the hig ...

with an MS in mathematics, and

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

earning an MS in computer science and a PhD in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...

under advisor

David Gries David Gries (born April 26, 1939) is an American computer scientist at Cornell University, mainly known for his books ''The Science of Programming'' (1981) and ''A Logical Approach to Discrete Math'' (1993, with Fred B. Schneider). He was asso ...

. His PhD thesis titled "Audio System For Technical Readings (AsTeR)" was awarded the

ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award The ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award is awarded annually by the Association for Computing Machinery to the authors of the best doctoral dissertations in computer science and computer engineering. The award is accompanied by a prize of US$20,000 a ...

in 1994.

Career

Recently Raman has incorporated these features in the Chrome browser."T.V. Raman's Audio Deja Vu: From Google, a Math-Reading System for the web"
/ref> Raman went on to apply the ideas on audio formatting introduced in AsTeR to the more general domain of computer interfaces

Emacspeak Emacspeak is a free computer application, a speech interface, and an audio desktop (as opposed to a screen reader). It employs Emacs (which is written in C), Emacs Lisp, and Tcl. Developed principally by T. V. Raman (himself blind since childh ...

. On 12 April 1999, Emacspeak became part of the Smithsonian's Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology at the Smithsonian's

National Museum of American History The National Museum of American History: Kenneth E. Behring Center is a historical museum in Washington, D.C. It collects, preserves, and displays the heritage of the United States in the areas of social, political, cultural, scientific, and m ...

. In 2005 he began work at Google. In 2018,

felicitated Raman with a Distinguished Alumnus Award

Work

* AsTeR – Audio System For Technical Readings * Aural CSS – producing rich auditory presentations from Web content *

– the complete audio desktop *

XForms XForms is an XML format used for collecting inputs from web forms. XForms was designed to be the next generation of HTML / XHTML forms, but is generic enough that it can also be used in a standalone manner or with presentation languages other tha ...

– Next Generation Web Forms *

XML Events In computer science and web development, XML Events is a W3C standard for handling events that occur in an XML document. These events are typically caused by users interacting with the web page using a device, such as a web browser on a personal ...

– A reusable eventing syntax for XML *

XHTML+Voice XHTML+Voice (commonly X+V) is an XML language for describing Multimodal interaction, multimodal user interfaces. The two essential modalities are visual and auditory. Visual interaction is defined like most current web pages via XHTML. Auditory ...

– Enabling the multimodal Web via voice interaction * RDC – Reusable Dialog Components * AxsJAX – Access Enabling AJAX * Google Accessible Search – for finding accessible Web content * Thinking Of Mathematics – Thinking Of Mathematics—An Essay on Eyes-Free Computing * Eyes-Free – Speech enabled Google Android applications. * ChromeVox – Screen reader from

Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, an ...

and

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes styled as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is an operating system designed and developed by Google. It is derived from the open-source operating system and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user ...

* Chakshumati At 10 "Chakshmuti in India"
/ref> Eyes-Free Stem Education In India and Chakshumati: Profile Of T.V. Raman "Chakshumati: Profile Of T.V. Raman"
/ref> * Inaugural Ceremony of T V Raman experiential Accessible Computer Science Lab Chennai on Jan 3 2025 at Karnavidya Foundation RR Tower Guindy, Chennai, India "Inaugural Ceremony of TV Raman CS Lab"
/ref>

Other interests

His favorite hobby is recreational mathematics, especially those that involve an intuitive feel for mathematics.Raman, T.V. and Krishnamoorthy, M. S. "Visual Techniques for Computing Polyhedral Volumes

/ref>

References

External links

T.V. Raman's Personal Home Page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Raman, T. V. Indian computer scientists Living people 1965 births Cornell University alumni Blind scholars and academics Indian blind people Scientists from Pune Google employees IIT Bombay alumni Scientists with disabilities