Thiru Vikram (Thiru Vikram Suresh; born July 25, 1995) is an

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea, or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

, who is the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of Buffalo Automation, a

private company A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose Stock, shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in their respective listed markets. Instead, the Private equi ...

headquartered in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

, that provides autonomous navigation technology for commercial ships and recreational boats.

Early life and career

Vikram attended the

Lawrence School, Lovedale The Lawrence School, Lovedale, is a fee-charging co-educational public boarding school located at Lovedale, a hill station on the Nilgiri Mountains in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. History Formerly known as Lawrence Memorial R ...

, in

Ootacamund Ooty (; officially Udagamandalam (), anglicized: Ootacamund , abbreviated as Udagai, ) is a town and municipality in the Nilgiris district of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is located northwest of Coimbatore, and is the headquarters of N ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

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 ...

. Vikram was a

Head Boy The two Senior Prefects, individually called Head Boy (for the male), and Head Girl (for the female) are students who carry leadership roles and are responsible for representing the school's entire student body. Although mostly out of use, in some ...

and a member of the

Robotics Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...

Club at Lovedale. He studied

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

and

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the

University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences The University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, or UB Engineering, is the largest public engineering school in the state of New York and is home to eight departments. Established in 1946, UB Engineering is ranked 59th by U ...

, where he founded Buffalo Automation with fellow students. The company was founded to design and build an

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

system called AutoMate that enables ships and boats to self-navigate. In 2016, Vikram left the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public university, public research university in Buffalo, New York, Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. ...

to focus on the company full-time. However, in 2021, Vikram was recognized as a distinguished alumnus by the

despite having dropped out. Although

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-national of a country acquires the nationality of that country after birth. The definition of naturalization by the International Organization for Migration of the ...

in 2016 as an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

, Vikram is originally a

Dravidian Dravidian, Dravidan, or Dravida may refer to: Language and culture *Dravidian languages, a family of languages spoken mainly in South India and northeastern Sri Lanka *Proto-Dravidian language, a model of the common ancestor of the Dravidian lang ...

from

and is a

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

descended from the Kamma section of the erstwhile Poligars of

South India South India, also known as Southern India or Peninsular India, is the southern part of the Deccan Peninsula in India encompassing the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana as well as the union territories of ...

, belonging to the few remaining

households A household consists of one or more persons who live in the same dwelling. It may be of a single family or another type of person group. The household is the basic unit of analysis in many social, microeconomic and government models, and is impo ...

that still speak

Old Telugu Old Telugu () is the earliest attested stage of the Telugu language. Old Telugu is attested in various inscriptions, labels and as early loanwords in the literature of several other languages. Etymology The term పాత తెలుగు ...

due to their split from the

Andhras The Āndhras were an ancient non-Aryan tribe of south-central Indian subcontinent, whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. Andhras were mentioned in the ancient Hindu scriptures such as the '' Aitareya Brahmana, Ramayana, Mahabharata ...

many centuries ago, when they left

Kammanadu Kammanadu (or Kamma-nadu, also Kamma-rashtram) is a historical region in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It consisted of parts of the present day Guntur and Prakasam districts. According to historian and geographer K. Iswara Dutt, Kammanad ...

to lead the Nayaka armies of the

Vijayanagara Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also known as the Karnata Kingdom, was a late medieval Hinduism, Hindu empire that ruled much of southern India. It was established in 1336 by the brothers Harihara I and Bukka Raya I of the Sangama dynasty, belongi ...

and, subsequently, settle in their present family seats in modern-day

Tiruppur district Tiruppur District is one of the 38 districts of the Indian States and territories of India, state of Tamil Nadu, formed in 22 February 2009. Dharapuram was the largest taluk by area in the district. The district is well-developed and industria ...

. Vikram served in the

US Army Reserve The United States Army Reserve (USAR) is a reserve force of the United States Army. Together, the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard constitute the Army element of the reserve components of the United States Armed Forces. History Origi ...

as a

combat engineer A combat engineer (also called pioneer or sapper) is a type of soldier who performs military engineering tasks in support of land forces combat operations. Combat engineers perform a variety of military engineering, Tunnel warfare, tunnel and l ...

under the

Military Accessions Vital to National Interest Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) is a recruitment program by the United States Department of Defense, through which legal non-immigrants (not citizens or legal permanent residents of USA) with certain critical skills are ...

program.

Awards and recognitions

Vikram was awarded first place in the 2018

Entrepreneurs' Organization Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) is a global non-profit organization formerly known as the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization (YEO), that was founded in 1987. History In 1987, 22 young entrepreneurs founded an organization initially known as ...

Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards Western NY Competition. In 2022, Vikram was featured as one of the United States’ 18 Top CEOs in the Assistive Technology Startup Space and among the Top 44 in Navigation by Boardroom Media.

Inventions

Vikram is listed as an inventor in a few patents, including: # A sensor system for maritime vessels. # A

deep learning Deep learning is a subset of machine learning that focuses on utilizing multilayered neural networks to perform tasks such as classification, regression, and representation learning. The field takes inspiration from biological neuroscience a ...

intelligent sensing system integration. # Training a

system for maritime applications. # A deep learning intelligent sensing system for port operations. # A lane and object detection systems and methods.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vikram, Thiru American engineers 1995 births Living people American inventors United States Army soldiers University at Buffalo alumni Indian emigrants to the United States American chief executives