Prof. Krishnan B.| He X-Rays Bridges & Planes | He Left USA to Build Non-Destructive Testing | Ep. 8

1. 0:00 – 2:00

   Introduction

   1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian0:00

      Unlike X, SpaceX is not going to go away that easily, okay? If anything, Space- SpaceX will keep growing. That's my belief, that when you have deep tech... So we are just not curating ideas, we are curating entrepreneurs.

   2. SPSpeaker0:14

      Right.

   3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian0:14

      We are curating faculty who become entrepreneurs. Uh, Reliance actually say, "I'm, uh, going to actually support this work, and what- whatever we help you productize it, and we want you to try it out on our... And we will also buy 200 of these sensors if it works." [upbeat music]

   4. SPSpeaker0:47

      Hi, my name is Amrit. We've heard that IIT Madras is the best place to build. [upbeat music] So we've come down to the Sudha and Shankar Innovation Hub. We want to meet some people. These are builders. We want to talk to them about their work, and also ask them, "What makes IIT Madras the best place to build?" [upbeat music] Hi, welcome to the Best Place to Build podcast. We are sitting today with Professor Krishnan Balasubramanian, who is a professor at, in mechanical engineering at IIT Madras. He's a very well-accomplished and very well-loved professor, award-winning professor. Recently, uh, in 2017, won the Abdul Kalam National Innovation Fellowship. Uh, welcome to the podcast, Professor.

   5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:38

      Thank you, Amritash.

   6. SPSpeaker1:40

      Professor-

   7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:40

      Very happy to be here.

   8. SPSpeaker1:41

      Uh, and, uh, also, I might just start off by saying that I was a student of yours in, in your class in 2003, '4, uh, first year, second year. So I have memories from the class also. So really happy that I'm meeting you again after so many years. Uh, Professor, you've had a long, um,

2. 2:00 – 3:30

   Professor Balasubramanian's Journey at IIT Madras

   1. SPSpeaker2:00

      career in IIT Madras, and you're obviously associated with a lot of things. But let's start from the beginning. Uh, your- can you talk to us about your research area and, uh, the work that you do as a pr- as a faculty member?

   2. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian2:13

      Thank you, Amritash. Um, it's, it, it looks, feels lo- uh, very short, but it's probably 24, 5... It's getting to be close to 25 years since I returned back from US and joined IIT Madras. Um, my area of expertise is in an area called as non-destructive testing, which, to many of you, may be foreign language. But essentially, you all remember that whenever you have anything to do with your health, you go to a doctor, and then the doctor says, "Go, go get an ultrasound done. Go get an X-ray done." What you do is you look inside your anatomy, and you're able to find out if there everything is okay or if something is not okay. Now, imagine the number of the, uh, you know, engineered, uh, structures and components that you use every day, whether it's a car, so you're taking a flight, you are in a train, you're using the rail, you're using the bridge, crossing a bridge. You have pipelines, you know, transporting gas to your h- home. You have, uh, sewage lines. Each of them are all good when you're building it, and then over a period of times, things start to go wrong. And when things go wrong, either you-

3. 3:30 – 6:30

   Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Explained

   1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian3:30

      things become unavailable to you. Imagine suddenly that you have a flight that's canceled because of some maintenance issue. Now, if I can prevent that by letting you know that this c- plane has a problem, and then when it's not being used, you fix it, then it becomes available for you every time. Of course, you can also look at it from a different perspective, that we are looking at safety. So if you look at the number of catastrophic incidences that happen, uh, if I can prevent many of them, then that is a mission that we are embarked on. So we look inside materials, we look inside components, engineered component, we look inside structures, just the way a diagnostic center just down the road from you looks inside your anatomy and says whether you have a valve that is not working or whether it's a heart that is, you know, blocked. Exactly the same thing we do, but big difference is that your anatomy has not changed in zillion years. On the contrary, engineered materials change almost every year. Components are, I guess, redesigned every couple of years. So our problem and challenges are evolving on a daily basis, and we have to keep solving newer and newer problem because we have new materials, new problems associated with new materials. I can give you an very- one good example. Um, I remember many years ago, the railways came to me and says, told me that the wheels are cracking up, and there have been accidents because of that. And the reason why that happened was because they changed the brake pad from a metal brake pad to a composite brake pad. Why did they do that? They did that because composite brake pads actually stop your train much closer. So within about, uh, 500 meters, you could stop the train, before the train was, would take two me- kilometers to stop. So that looked like a brilliant advantage. But what they didn't realize or, uh, or probably what the challenge here was, that the kinetic energy that you have has to be dissipated in 500 meters what was dissipated in two kilometers. So now you have heat that's heating up your wheels a lot faster, and then your metallurgy is not able to take it. So now they wanted to know whether I can predict which wheel is going to fail so that they can remove it out before anything bad happens. So-... we can do this by many of the NDT methods that are available today. So thank you.

   2. SPSpeaker6:09

      I remember in class you said, uh, you'd mentioned that the idea of non-destructive testing implies that there's, uh, destructive testing, right? So then-

   3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian6:19

      Right

   4. SPSpeaker6:19

      ... like, what, what would that look like?

   5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian6:23

      So eventually, destructive testings are things that you would not want to do in real life.

4. 6:30 – 9:45

   Destructive vs. Non-Destructive Testing

   1. SPSpeaker6:30

      Yeah.

   2. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian6:30

      Destructive testings are ones that you do in your laboratory-

   3. SPSpeaker6:33

      Mm

   4. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian6:33

      ... and to confirm certain hypothesis. Doing the same in, uh, real life, it is like, uh, I, I would give you an example. Again, going back to the medical field. Suppose I, um, want to look inside your heart, and I wanna find if one of your arteries is blocked. Imagine that I have to cut you up and then go to the artery and find if the artery is, is blocked. What are the chances that I'm doing the right thing? You may wind up in a worse situation afterwards.

   5. SPSpeaker7:06

      Right.

   6. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian7:06

      So e- the idea is not to do that. The idea is to make sure that you find what's inside you, and do it in a way by which your performance or your activities are not hampered at all. That is non-destructive testing.

   7. SPSpeaker7:19

      Right. So anything that is, uh, like a, uh, like a civil engineering structure, like a bridge or a building, but also, like, ships and pipelines and, uh, um, sewage pipelines, you mentioned water pipe.

   8. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian7:34

      Pretty much anything you talk about, right from this mug that is manufactured, to the plane that you're gonna fly out, the airport that you're gonna land on, the tarmac that you're gonna walk. All of them need to be maintained.

   9. SPSpeaker7:53

      Right.

   10. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian7:53

       So we actually come at primarily two areas. One is when I'm manufacturing, is it good or bad? So defects or, you know, anomalies happen when you manufacture. So for instance, one of the biggest, uh, challenges is welding. Welding is used very commonly. It's probably the most used joining method in the world. And when you weld, there's still o- you know, we know... We've been working on welding for the last maybe 50, 60 years. Interestingly, I, I had, uh, hosted the Americans Welding Society's Vice President, Richard, only yesterday, and we had a very similar conversation. And the question that I asked him was, 50, 60 years of research, advancement of welding, the industry is asking, "Can I weld and be assured that every weld I do is good enough?" We are not able to do that even today because we- this, uh... And the answer he gave me was one word. He said, "Entropy". Krishnan, we do not have the control over the entropy, and the entropy in a welding process-

   11. SPSpeaker9:07

       Is very high

   12. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian9:08

       ... is hard. So we haven't gotten there yet. Then my question to him was, "Will we get there?"

   13. SPSpeaker9:15

       Mm.

   14. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian9:17

       And his answer is, "Probably never." Because every time we get- we think we have found the solution, the challenge changes. New welding processes happen.

   15. SPSpeaker9:29

       Correct.

   16. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian9:29

       New materials have to be welded.

   17. SPSpeaker9:30

       Yeah.

   18. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian9:31

       I'm just giving you welding as an example, but you can e- extrapolate that to any other-

   19. SPSpeaker9:35

       Any manufacturing

   20. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian9:36

       ... anything, any manufacturing process. So, so at manufacturing, we need to ensure quality. We need to make sure that the quality is acceptable,

5. 9:45 – 11:45

   Real World Applications of NDT

   1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian9:46

      and do it without destroying it.

   2. SPSpeaker9:48

      All right.

   3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian9:48

      Okay? Now, once you put anything in the service-

   4. SPSpeaker9:53

      Mm

   5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian9:54

      ... again, things are not going to remain the same. Just the way your human body deteriorates, your joints start to give you trouble once you cross a certain age limit.

   6. SPSpeaker10:05

      Yeah.

   7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian10:06

      Same thing happens with materials. So three years, five years, 10 years down the road, engineering structures start to show weaknesses.

   8. SPSpeaker10:14

      Mm.

   9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian10:15

      You have a big problem with a pro- a thing called corrosion.

   10. SPSpeaker10:20

       Yeah.

   11. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian10:20

       If you know, want to know what corrosion is, just go outside your building and look at some of the metallic pipes. You'll see this brown-looking tinge on the walls or nearby. That's corrosion.

   12. SPSpeaker10:34

       Yeah.

   13. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian10:35

       Okay. Corrosion is, uh, today, a $5 trillion problem for the worldwide.

   14. SPSpeaker10:43

       And it's also a problem that we... Like, when, when I move around in a city and there's, like, these metro structures, and there are some, some metal parts are exposed, right? And you can see that they've started corroding. Um, and in my mind, I'm always wondering whether the corrosion is only outside [chuckles] or inside also, right?

   15. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian11:04

       Exactly. Exactly. You, you hit the nail on the head.

   16. SPSpeaker11:08

       Mm.

   17. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian11:09

       What NDT does is actually look inside. So for instance, you take a bridge or any concrete structure, there is as much steel as there is cement-

   18. SPSpeaker11:21

       Mm

   19. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian11:21

       ... or probably more.

   20. SPSpeaker11:23

       Yeah.

   21. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian11:25

       If you take a tire, your automotive tire, there's more metal inside the tire than rubber.

   22. SPSpeaker11:31

       Mm.

   23. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian11:33

       And metals corrode. They corrode aggressively, to be honest with you. If they get exposed to oxygen, they ex- get exposed to anything that's like water, and if there

6. 11:45 – 14:15

   Technologies Used in NDT

   1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian11:45

      are any minerals that, you know, help the corrosion, corrosion happens very aggressively.

   2. SPSpeaker11:51

      So this is the use case for NDT. What are the technologies that are used in, in actually doing NDT?

   3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian11:59

      Very similar to medicine. We use X-rays, we use ultrasound-... we use infrared imaging. I mean, every time you walk through a, a airport, you remember that, uh, there's a camera that's looking at you, and that's the infrared. That's looking at the emission, the heat that your body is emitting. So we can use that. Nowadays, we can use many others. Radar is used very extensively today for certain materials. You can also use a new technique called terahertz imaging. Now, if anybody wants to watch terahertz, if you go to, again, to the airport, and now we have these body scanners. You know, you go and you stand and, and then it does a scan. That's a terahertz. That's a terahertz scanner. But the guy will say, "You're holding your ticket in your pocket. Remove that." They can pick out a pa- p- piece of paper behind, uh, your cloth, leave alone a metallic object, like a weapon. So we are able to look behind materials and look inside materials. We are able to find anomalies or defects that are as small as several microns to are as large as, uh, uh, as I said, uh, maybe several inches big. Now, depending on the application, for instance, if you say an application of ISRO, for instance. For ISRO, it's almost they have to look at that nothing that is going up is... has even a .0001% chance of failure. So their requirement is, is almost, quote, unquote, "have to be defect free." On the con- contrary, if I'm building a railway, uh, carriage, I can probably live with much lesser stringent requirements. So depending upon the application, depending on the material, for instance, ceramics cannot tolerate very large defects. Certain metals can tolerate much larger defects. Concrete, for instance, can tolerate very large defects. If a, if anything, the concrete floor on which we

7. 14:15 – 17:15

   Evolution of NDT

   1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian14:15

      are standing or sitting has actually got a lot of cracks, but then it can withstand these large cracks and stay okay for 50 years, 100 years. So depending on the material, depending on the application, what we are looking for is different.

   2. SPSpeaker14:34

      Did you imagine when you entered the field of NDE, um... I guess the field has itself expanded a lot. Um, and when I-- you, you joined IIT Madras in 2000, at the time, were there other professors who were working in NDE?

   3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian14:50

      Uh, not really. Uh, there wa- there used to be some work going on, uh, before I joined, but then that professor, Professor Prabhakar from Metallurgy, uh, retired, uh, in 1996, if I'm not mistaken. I joined in 2000, so things were not, uh, much happening, but there was tremendous interest. In fact, IIT Madras, I was in the US. I was working in the field of NDT in a university. IIT Madras solicited me. Okay, they said: "We realize that there's a tremendous potential to create a research facility and a research center of excellence in the field of non-destructive testing. There's a lot of support from the industry. We have, uh, nuclear power plants coming up just 50 kilometers away. We have a airline industry that's growing very significantly. We have a manufacturing industry that's growing very well. So we believe that we need to put a center for NDE in IIT Madras. Would you be interested?" So that's kind of what prompted me to sort of look into IIT Madras, and then director, Professor Natarajan, said, uh, "Come on board." And I also had a very good friend, uh, one of the, uh, probably my mentor, Dr. Baldev Raj, who was the director of the Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research, uh, in Kalpakkam, which is, uh, 50 kilometers away. He, he basically said what Lord Krishna said, "Put faith in me and come." So I put my faith in both Professor Natarajan and Dr. Baldev Raj, and I packed my bags, sold my house in US, and I just landed here, and I said, "Here I am. What do I do?" [chuckles] I landed on 1st of February, 2000. Okay. And then they gave me a small office and said, "Do something."

   4. SPSpeaker16:40

      Mm.

   5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian16:41

      Uh, so it took me a while. It took me... But I must say, I'm incredibly encouraged by the support I have had from IIT Madras administration, support from all the industries, particularly the atomic energy industry, the, uh, space industry, ISRO, and others, the defense industry. They were the first supporters. Very soon, private industry also started pitching in, right? So interestingly, I landed here with nothing, uh, except my, uh, you know, my, my suitcase on

8. 17:15 – 21:00

   Setting Up the Center for NDT at IIT Madras

   1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian17:15

      1st of February, 2000. 1st of April, 2001, we inaugurated 1,500 square feet Advanced Research Center for Center for NDE.

   2. SPSpeaker17:28

      This is the Center for NDE, CNDE.

   3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian17:30

      CNDE. As you see today, the, the, the, the, the, the main block was done in 2001, and we got it done within, what? Seven, eight months, right? And we had started getting projects, uh, quite actively, and I realized why I was asked to come back.

   4. SPSpeaker17:51

      And, uh, in the last 20 years, of course, CNDE has grown hugely. Lots of industry consultancy work, uh, lots of startups. I think, uh, before the interview started, you in- informed me that the startups that have come from CNDE itself have employed over 1,200 high-skilled professionals.

   5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian18:07

      Professionals.

   6. SPSpeaker18:08

      Yeah. Um, of which 100 are abroad. There are seven, eight countries you operate in.... so it's, it's a very high-impact center, right?

   7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian18:18

      Thank you. Yeah.

   8. SPSpeaker18:19

      Yeah, I mean, amazing, really amazing. Um, and to imagine that it started from just a 1,500 square feet building, a 1,500 square feet room, I guess.

   9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian18:28

      From a suitcase.

   10. SPSpeaker18:30

       From a suitcase, right. But Professor, you grew up in Chennai, right?

   11. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian18:34

       To some extent, yes.

   12. SPSpeaker18:35

       Okay. It must, must have also been like a homecoming for you.

   13. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian18:39

       Absolutely.

   14. SPSpeaker18:40

       And was there a trend at the time, uh, where, uh, professionals were coming back from the US?

   15. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian18:47

       I would say I was in the, uh, probably the first wave.

   16. SPSpeaker18:50

       Mm.

   17. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian18:51

       Uh, you know, I, I would say I don't know whether it is the, uh, the way that ch- things were changing in India on one side, uh, or whether it was the dot-com bust, as they used to call it in those days, the late '90s. I don't know what it was, but we were, uh, uh, probably I was probably one of the first wave of people that started coming back to India. And, um, it was a very different India compared to what it is today.

   18. SPSpeaker19:16

       Right.

   19. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian19:17

       But you could see the writing on the wall, that India was on the upswing, so it was better for us to get on the growth curve early on. And, uh, it was harder to get on the growth curve, but definitely the payoffs are a lot bigger.

   20. SPSpeaker19:34

       Yeah.

   21. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian19:34

       So that w- that was a sort of the motive. But as I said, uh, um, for me, it was very simple. IIT said they wanted me to come back, and I, I've always to, uh, told the people in, uh, my friends here that if the right opportunity presents, I will give it a shot. Coming back from US after spending about 16 years in the US, it's not an easy task.

   22. SPSpeaker19:58

       Yeah.

   23. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian19:59

       You're scared. You're scared whether you will be able to adjust back.

   24. SPSpeaker20:02

       Yeah.

   25. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian20:03

       Uh, you have to learn to do things very differently. Uh, I got lucky, let me put it this way. I think there was... It was meant to be, as a good thing. So it really, a lot of good things and a lot of good friends, and a lot of good support enabled me and convinced me that I don't have a better choice but to be and do things for IIT Madras and in India.

   26. SPSpeaker20:31

       That's amazing. Uh, can we just like... You know, today, looking at this place, of course, we say it's the best place to build. There are a lot of startups. There, uh, there's a Center for Inno, In- Innovation, CFI, there's the research park, there's a... It feels like everything is set. You can just come and do something. But that journey that you're talking about from when you came back to now has had, you know, many building blocks that have come into place, and I think, um,

9. 21:00 – 24:30

   ICSR: IIT Madras’ Window to Industry

   1. SPSpeaker21:00

      I would like to hear from you. Um, maybe outsiders, uh, may not know so much, but there's this structure called the ICSR, uh, which sort of forms a bridge between what IIT does and the outside world. Can you tell us what ICSR does and how its influence has grown, and-

   2. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian21:16

      Sure.

   3. SPSpeaker21:17

      So of course, just to set the context for the audience, Professor was the dean for ICSR for, um-

   4. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian21:22

      Six years.

   5. SPSpeaker21:23

      A long time. Yeah, six years.

   6. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian21:24

      Six years.

   7. SPSpeaker21:25

      Right.

   8. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian21:25

      2012 and 2018.

   9. SPSpeaker21:27

      Right.

   10. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian21:28

       So yeah, uh, the ICSR is, uh, the IIT's window to industry. It's also ICSR's window for research that is funded by any other organizations, like the Government of India entities or the quasi Government of India entities. Now, IIT as a whole, used to be initially, you know, over the, uh, you know, from 1959 to probably the mid-'90s, the mandate primarily was to teach, teach undergraduate students, and teach it well, and hopefully, their students go out and make a difference. Now, as India, as a country matured, we realized that if you look at the US or the Europe, most institutions like MIT are also known for their research. So the... So I think, uh, there's, there's a t- a transformation of thought process to say that we're just not gonna be only a, a teaching institution, we need to be a research institution also. So when you say research, you have two types of research. One type of research is where you don't need money, much money to do the research, where you can write equations and, you know, solve problems sitting in your room. But a lot of research, particularly in the field of engineering and largely also in science, requires a lot of money. You need equipment, you need manpower, you need supplies, you need chemicals, you need electronics, you need, uh, you know, to travel. That requires a lot of money. So the transformation or the mindset of a faculty or the admin- or the institution as a whole, to say, "Hey, money is required to do world-class research," was what prompted, uh, the gen- uh, genesis of a institute, a small organization, or a center within IIT Madras called the ICSR. It's ha- it started probably in the early '90s, or maybe even earlier than that. I think we celebrated the 50 years just a year or so ago. So but then it was still a small part of the campus. So I took over in 2012. By that time, the processes were in place and fairly mature. But there were a few things that I realized that we could do better. So some of the things that we probably took upon ourselves to change and do better, uh, were, first of all, we wanted to make sure that, uh, the intellectual property that was generated within the labs of IIT Madras needs to have an impact.... and one of the ways by which you do impact is to make sure you protect the intellectual property, and then channelize it in the way that

10. 24:30 – 29:00

    Building Impact Through Intellectual Property (IP)

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian24:30

       you think is best, whether you actually monetize it, whether you make an impact or social ventures. But if you don't have the prot- protection, then you can't do that, because somebody will just take it and do whatever they want with it. You know, this, uh, famous CSIR turmeric example being one of them, you know?

    2. SPSpeaker24:51

       I have no idea. What is this?

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian24:52

       Okay, so I mean, the, there are US patent application on turmeric for medical benefit, which is something that we behold for-

    4. SPSpeaker25:02

       Centuries

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian25:03

       ... centuries. Okay.

    6. SPSpeaker25:05

       So you are saying that, uh, ICSR was the... So if somebody in the industry or a government or a quasi-government organization wanted to work with a lab in IIT Madras, they would first come to ICSR?

    7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian25:15

       Exactly.

    8. SPSpeaker25:16

       And then you were talking about how one of ICSR's big innovations in the last, uh, decade has been to formalize, like, a IP policy.

    9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian25:24

       Absolutely. Okay, so the- we had a, a, a, a, IP, uh, policy before, but we had to completely re-look at it to make sure the IP policies work. For instance, one of the things that we did was, uh, today, and, and which is very true, is we assured our faculty that it will not affect their publication, s- you know, the pace of publication. We also s- wanted to say that we can get a IP done, or IP protected, I would rather say that, within 24 hours. Previously, it used to take one year. So we got that process down to as short as 24 hours in exceptional cases, but highly systemized. So just to let you know, if you look at the data, 2011 or '12, we probably filed about 20-ish IPs, and mostly IP in India. I'm sure you have, uh, done some article, uh, not long ago, which says that today we probably, we probably, uh, file about 400 IPs a year.

    10. SPSpeaker26:34

        Yeah, more than one a day.

    11. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian26:36

        And, uh, probably, uh, 25% of that is, uh, something that goes filed abroad, right? So that is the first part. So we need to create the IP portfolios, make it easy, make it accessible. Then there's a second part to it: How do you make the impact?

    12. SPSpeaker26:54

        Mm.

    13. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian26:56

        So again, those were very early days, where, uh, we were still trying to figure out how to do that. So I remember that, uh, I happened to meet somebody somewhere and who I knew from some, some other company, his affiliation, and he said, "I've just started an IP for, uh, one of the, you know, uh, KPMG." And he said, "Can we do something together?" So KPMG came on board, uh, probably in 2012, '13. By that time, we had hired somebody professional to actually manage IP within, and started creating this, you know, office or calling IP cell, that looks at both evangelization and creation of IP for IIT Madras, but also, how does I- that IP become something of impact? And, uh, today I would say that, uh, the, on the impact side also, we are probably, uh, leading the way, uh, na- nationally, where academic IPs are finding an impact to ma- in many field, whether it's a industrial, uh, use or whether it's a social use or it's a societal use. Uh, I would say we have- we certainly have made a big difference.

    14. SPSpeaker28:11

        That's very interesting. I think the way you're saying it makes a lot of sense, because often the criticism towards IITs at a national level is that it's, everything is very academic and, you know, it's like, it stays in academic zone. But if this IP cell or this policy works in a particular way, that it's, it's sort of nudging it towards impact, that makes a lot of difference, right? And in fact, ICSR itself, a lot of the projects from ICSR are about applying what's happening in labs into the industry, um, in, in and around IIT M... I- in and around India, right? Uh-

    15. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian28:47

        Be honest with you, it's just not India. Uh, even as way back, uh, you know, one of the things that we do is we... It's a- most problems, research problems, uh, and are global problems.

11. 29:00 – 32:30

    ICSR: Solving Global and Socially Relevant Problems

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian29:00

       If I have a problem, say, in a refinery in Chennai, it's very likely the same problem exists in a refinery in Houston or, you know, somewhere else. So the many problems, research problems, are global problems that we can solve, so we need not restrict ourselves to, uh, local, uh, you know, s- uh, industries. So I would say that, uh, we have never looked at problems from a only local perspective. There are a few problems that are more local. So actually, ICSR has many clients that are not necessarily local. Uh, we have, uh, Boeings, we have Airbuses, uh, we have ExxonMobils. Uh, many of them are global clients who work with the faculty and students of IIT Madras, and we are looking at solving global problems that have impact. Similarly, if you look at it, we are looking at socially relevant problems, whether, uh, IIT Madras is focused on several... solving several problems that are local. For instance, clean water is something that we have focused on for a very long time. Electricity to all. When the prime minister announced, uh, that every village in India is, well, let's say the last mile, a lot of it is done by IIT Madras faculty.

    2. SPSpeaker30:18

       Mm.

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian30:20

       Low-cost construction. When prime minister says, "I want a roof over every citizen of India's head," IIT Madras has this modular-... housing, housing method called as GFRP, where we actually build, uh, homes within, uh, 20 days, 30 days. These were, these were revolutionary ideas 10 years ago. Now, of course, you see many, many more of such ideas coming up, but we were pioneers in several of these absolutely critical, uh, research and development that we were doing.

    4. SPSpeaker30:53

       Yeah. I, I saw this recent article about, uh, Supreme Court judgments being available in all languages, and then I realized that there's some IT and tech being used there.

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian31:02

       Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, we are focused. In fact, there's been a very dedicated team from computer science department that has gone unbelievably, you know, uh, advanced in how... Uh, especially you must understand that our language is very different from English, okay, in, uh, many ways. Uh, and hence, uh, I mean, these guys have done an amazing job. So when, uh, uh, not too far from tod- today, it's my wish that I can sit in a classroom, the instructor can speak in any language, but I'll have, uh, headphones, and I will be able to listen to that-

    6. SPSpeaker31:44

       Yeah

    7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian31:44

       ... instructor in the language of my choice.

    8. SPSpeaker31:46

       Yeah. And it's not manual, it's automated. Yeah.

    9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian31:49

       It's automated.

    10. SPSpeaker31:50

        Yeah.

    11. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian31:50

        It'll be AI-driven. It'll be driven by the language models, uh, not the large language model, by the, uh, you know, the, the, the, uh, language conversion models-

    12. SPSpeaker32:00

        Yeah

    13. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian32:00

        ... that, uh, our faculty have played a big role, uh, in doing it, so.

    14. SPSpeaker32:05

        Oh, absolutely amazing. So we spoke about, uh, three infrastructure layers. One is the, the lab, uh, setups that we have, the Centers for Excellence, then the ICSR, which is like a single window system, or may not be single window, but which is like an interface, like a window. And, uh, we also spoke about the IP policies. Can we talk about the incubation policy? Because I think, um, a lot of that came around the

12. 32:30 – 38:45

    The Genesis of the Incubation Policy at IIT Madras

    1. SPSpeaker32:30

       same time, right? 2009 times.

    2. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian32:32

       Absolutely. Absolutely. So, uh, I must, uh, admit here that, uh, a couple of our sister, uh, institutions, like IIC Bangalore, uh, IIT Bombay, and, uh, also IIT Delhi, had a huge head start. They already had a policy and a process by which incubation was possible. But when I came to India in 2000, I found a situation that not dramatically different from when I went to US in 1984.

    3. SPSpeaker33:03

       Mm.

    4. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian33:03

       When I went to US in 1984, if a faculty says, "I have a company that I'm incubating," they'll have to say, speak in a very low voice because it was not an accepted norm.

    5. SPSpeaker33:15

       Oh, okay. Is it?

    6. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian33:16

       Yeah.

    7. SPSpeaker33:16

       Okay.

    8. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian33:16

       In 1984, if an idea... M- So I give you an example from my own case, my advisor had a company.

    9. SPSpeaker33:22

       Okay.

    10. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian33:23

        Okay? And he would speak to me in a very harsh voice, saying, "I'm not supposed to say this to anybody else." But then he used to make me do some work for the company, and he used to pay me some little few dollars extra and a Pepsi and a pizza-

    11. SPSpeaker33:38

        Mm

    12. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian33:38

        ... on the side. And I was very thrilled because I get, I could make some extra pocket change by doing some coding for his company. All right? But it was, it was a well-kept secret. In US, things dramatically changed from 1984 to, say, 1990, where, uh, universities started saying that unless a faculty is, wants to look at a startup or a, those days it was called a small business company, in translating the research, your, your promotions or your tenure were affected by that. So it became from a, a well-kept secret to something where everybody started celebrating. I saw a very similar situation when I came here. So in fact, I must say that I, in fact, inquired about, you know, startups and everything in 2000, 2001, and everybody says, "Oh, it's a, it's a, it's a bad word. You're supposed to teach. Now, maybe you can do some research also, but if you say, talk about anything to do with patenting or a, a far more, you are going to be involved g- starting a company, it's not legal." So interestingly, that started changing. It's not like there was nothing happening, but everything was happening in a very, very clandestine way or, or less, you know, open way. But that's... Attitudes started changing. So I remember getting a call from then director, Professor Ananth, in probably 2010 timeframe, I don't remember exactly what date it was, um, and saying that, "Hey, uh, we started working on incubation policy, but we need more work on that because we need to get this through the Board of Governors of IIT Madras." And the Board of Governors has a very mixed, you know, uh, eminent people from very mixed, uh, backgrounds. There are people from central government, there are people from state government, there are industrialists and others, academicians. So how do you make it work? So I was fortunate to get a few of our colleagues, of our faculty together. We spent about maybe almost a year working on several iterations of that. And towards, I think, the later part of 2010 or early part of 2011, we actually got the board to agree on it. Interestingly, I remember one of the government official in the board said, "I have to place on record that I object, but please override my objection and go ahead."

    13. SPSpeaker36:16

        Mm.

    14. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian36:18

        "Okay, treat me as a minority objection and please move forward. I think this is the right thing to do." So, uh, incubation policy was, if I'm not mistaken, approved in 2011-... uh, uh, ish. I don't remember exactly when it was approved, and that's when we could actually get things started.

    15. SPSpeaker36:35

        This is very interesting. I just, just, uh, if, if I'm right, uh, the IIT is formed by the IIT Act, which tells how the Board of Governors should be formed, and there are government visitors, and there are professors who should be on board, uh, by virtue of their position, and there should be some, uh, I think, industrialists who should come in, right? So it's a varied audience, and any structural policy change has to be approved by the-

    16. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian37:00

        Absolutely

    17. SPSpeaker37:01

        ... board. So it- when you are saying that it took two, three years, you're saying that everybody had to be convinced that this is the right thing-

    18. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian37:07

        Yeah

    19. SPSpeaker37:07

        ... and there are checks and balances in place. It's not that one day you decide and-

    20. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian37:10

        Exactly. So, see, the, we tried to keep the message the same-

    21. SPSpeaker37:15

        Mm

    22. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian37:15

        ... but then the language had to be acceptable to this, you know, demographics, which are very different from central government to state government to, uh, industrialists. All of them had to be convinced, uh, of-

    23. SPSpeaker37:28

        And you're also looking to build something that'll last 40, 50 years and enable the growth of-

    24. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian37:32

        Exactly

    25. SPSpeaker37:33

        ... of India.

    26. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian37:33

        In fact, to be very honest with you, the, uh, government has put out its own incubation policy a few years later, and if you compare them, you see too many similarities very interesting. So, uh, today, uh, any i- institution, uh, academic institution can go, uh, to the government's website and download the policy and adopt it. And the policy, if you look at it, is almost similar to what we had in the first place.

    27. SPSpeaker38:03

        And in the 10 years since that incubation policy got set up, I think, uh, almost like, uh, uh, almost like 400 startups have come up?

    28. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian38:14

        I would say more than 400 have come up, but, uh, we had to set up something called Incubation Cell. So Incubation Cell had to be, uh, a entity. Uh, so we're looking at- we were looking at what is the right entity to form.

    29. SPSpeaker38:29

        Mm.

    30. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian38:29

        So there were... Uh, so one of the things we were looking at was, can we make it into what's called a, under the Tamil Nadu Society Act, and make it into a society, a not-for-profit society? But then we realized very early on that there was a problem with that because,

13. 38:45 – 41:50

    Setting Up the Incubation Cell

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian38:45

       uh, a society under Tamil Nadu Act would not be able to hold any equity or shares in any of the company that it is incubating. Now, that was not the case with the National Act, which is why a Bombay, uh, has a society or sign doing it. But we couldn't do that because we were subject to the Tamil Nadu Society Act, which had a, a, a clause that was, uh, sort of preventing us from doing the right thing. So we, after some deliberation, we finally found out that we can actually leverage the fact that we already have a not-for-profit entity called the Research Park, IIT Madras Research Park. And so we created this as a sub-Section 8 company, that, you know, it used to be called Section 25 in those days. I said, "Okay, uh, a not-for-profit sub-entity of the IIT Madras Research Park," and that's the way it's been operating. And so it was probably around 2013, uh, before this, all this happened. Uh, we structured it, uh, and we found a, a CEO to operate it, and, uh, that was the starting part of the journey. But by that time, the incubation, uh, sort of the energies had started to emerge. We had quite a few faculty and students who really wanted to start these companies. So as a sort of a intermediary, ICSR took upon itself, said that, "We are gonna allow you to start these companies, but with small rider, pending the approval of the Incubation Cell."

    2. SPSpeaker40:25

       Once it was-

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian40:26

       Once you start, then you become... You'll be, uh, under the its umbrella. But till then, ICSR was babysitting them. So we were, if I'm not mistaken, it was 16 companies. Some of the early companies including, uh, you know, uh, uh, Level Labs, yeah, uh, or HyperVerge, I forget which one.

    4. SPSpeaker40:44

       And my old company also.

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian40:45

       Yeah, yeah. Several of them were sort of babysit by ICSR, and then once it became, uh, IC Incubation Cell became a viable entity, we would sort of transfer everything to the Incubation Cell.

    6. SPSpeaker40:58

       Right.

    7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian40:58

       A company like Yaan Data, one of my companies, uh, called Dhvani Research, all of them were initially started within the ICSR framework, and then it, it was handed over to the, uh, you know-

    8. SPSpeaker41:10

       And, and, uh, just to stick on the topic of Dhvani, Dhvani has become quite big now, right? So you wanted to just tell us what Dhvani does and what its impact is now?

    9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian41:19

       Sure. Uh, Dhvani actually, uh, is now a g- group of three companies today. D- Dh- uh, Dhvani looks at how non-destructive testing becomes, uh, automated. So, uh, this goes back to one of the missions that I had when I came back to India. When I came back to India, and I looked at what is happening in India in the, my field of NDT, I found that 95% of the equipment and the solutions that are used by the industry all came from Europe, US, or

14. 41:50 – 46:45

    Dhwani: Automating Non-Destructive Testing

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian41:50

       Japan or Korea. Almost nothing that was developed within India. So that's kind of, uh... And that's why we started working with the industry and try, as IIT Madras, we started providing solutions to the industry. As time went on, we found that we have very limited resources to actually support industry. We can make one new pr- development, but to make hundred of these monks is not IIT Madras' job. So we definitely need another vehicle. So there you have two options: You can either transfer the technology to somebody who can do it or do a startup. So Dhvani was basically started to make automated systems that will go into manufacturing-... companies. Let's say I'm manufacturing this mug in large numbers. I need these mugs to be inspected so there are no cracks in these mugs, so that when you buy and you take it home, this will remain intact for many years. So whether it's some, uh, mug, or whether it's a, a shaft of a automotive component, or whether it's a small valve of, uh, aerospace, uh, you know, uh, hydraulics, they all need to be inspected. So we were making the automated system, and the idea was to make it automated because you get better reliability, you also get better functionality. So that's kind of how we got started. Now, we found that as we are doing this, data analytics became a very big part of what we were doing. But then, the people who work on softwares and data analytics are very different from the people who work on mechanical systems and electrical systems. So we sort of decided that it's a good idea to sort of separate them out into two different entities. So we have a company called Dhvani AI that started in 2019.

    2. SPSpeaker43:41

       Okay.

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian43:42

       From basically, we took a, uh, a- it, it was, uh, sort of a hived off from the origin- the original company, and that became a, a separate company. Today, they just don't focus only on data analytics from the manufacturing side, they also look at data from the, uh, you know, operation side. So for instance, if I have a refinery, and if I, I'm getting a lot of data, of X-ray images, ultrasound images from these pipes, wells, how do you automate the entire data analytics and data management? So this is Dhvani AI's main forte. Today, they are having clients, uh, the data, uh, Dhvani AI has clients that like L&T, Reliance, Aramco, um, uh, Shell, uh, uh, Baker Hughes. Uh, very multinational company, where we are helping them manage their data of their X-rays, ultrasound, and many others, and create value to them. Dhvani Research continues to build systems. Today, they build systems that are as small as a tabletop to as big as something that is a rocket motor. So today, if you ask me the example, Chandrayaan. Almost every other component of Chandrayaan was inspected by a, a system that was built by Dhvani.

    4. SPSpeaker45:07

       Nice.

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian45:07

       Okay, so today in ISRO, across their d- various, uh, locations, we probably have 10 to 12 inspection systems, and every year we are providing one or two more solutions to them on a daily basis. But it's just not about strategic sector, it's all about industry also. So whether it's Tata Steel, Jindal, whether it is Cummins, whether it's TVS, everybody is a client to, uh, Dhvani Research. For Dhvani Research, uh, only like a month ago announced that they got their 100th system delivered. So they have delivered 100 automated systems to industries in India, and also a few systems to the Singapore, Malaysia, and, uh, Saudi Arabia, and Middle East. So slowly, they're expanding also. So Dhvani has about 125 to 130... between the companies, 125 to 130 employees, and they have a manufacturing facility four kilometers now from IIT Madras. And very proud of what they're able to do. The impact that they have is that ISRO probably would have to import these large systems from somebody outside India, and whenever there's something breaks down, they will be stuck for six months, eight months, for somebody to come from abroad to repair it or replace it.

    6. SPSpeaker46:40

       Interesting. Very interesting. Um, we

15. 46:45 – 52:00

    Planys Technologies: Revolutionizing Underwater Inspection

    1. SPSpeaker46:45

       are on your first startup, [chuckles] and I think you're a co-founder in almost eight, 10 startups.

    2. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian46:49

       Uh, something like that, yeah.

    3. SPSpeaker46:51

       Can we talk about a few of the other ones, uh, Detect-

    4. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian46:55

       Yeah

    5. SPSpeaker46:55

       ... um, Xyma, Planys?

    6. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian46:57

       Sure. So, um, uh, see, uh, Dhvani was a, a sort of a very, a scary, uh, proposition because that was the first one we started.

    7. SPSpeaker47:07

       Right.

    8. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian47:07

       At that time, you know, uh, well, I have had some experience in the US, but doing something in India, uh, uh, was a very risky proposition. And especially with the ecosystem that we are building here, everything was new. Nobody knew exactly what to say, do. So that was, uh, Dhvani actually started in 2010, uh, and, uh, and then nothing much happened. So around 2015, that time I was a dean, uh, I was approached by a couple of the guys who had won this, uh, Amogh, uh, product, which is part of... By the CFI has become quite, uh, well-known.

    9. SPSpeaker47:44

       Known, mm.

    10. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian47:44

        So this, uh, couple of these kids had, uh, built this underwater, uh, robot. They went to San Diego, and actually did quite well there. And then all the fun was d- over, and then suddenly they knew that they were graduated. And then what do you do after graduation? And a couple of these guys said, "We don't wanna go and take a job." Interestingly, same pa- time parallel, there was another guy called Tanuj Jhunjhunwala, who, who was not a part of this team. He was pa- he was also doing something in robotics and underwater robotics. He was a mechanical engineer's final year project. So these... So the first, the Amogh guys came and said: "What can we do?" And I said, "Well, you know, why don't you think about it? Now that the incubation things are all in place, uh, why don't we start up?" So they started working on it. Um, as they started working on it, a few months later, I got a call. Tanuj had, by that time, joined Tata Motors-... And then I got a call one day from, uh, Tanuj and say, "Uh, you talked to me about something, uh, six months ago, and I said, 'No, I wanna go and get a job,' but I really wanna come back. You, you, w- is there an opportunity for me to come back?" I said, "You know, you don't wanna know what salary you're gonna make when you come back? It'll be probably a small, uh, fra- fraction of what you're making at Tata Motors." He says, "No, no, no, I'm not worried about salaries. I really wanna do something different." So Tanuj actually came back, joined the other two guys, Vineet and Rakesh, and we said, "Let's get started." And then they said, you know... I said, uh, initially, the, the business model was very different. They wanted to just make these robots and sell it globally, but then there were quite a few others who were doing that already. And the risk was that if you do it well, then China is gonna come and cut you, and, and you're gonna... So, so is, is that model the right model? So knowing my field and what I do, I said, "There's another, probably another way to go about it, that could be inspection." Then a modern infrastructure underwater is huge, global. Can we make sure that we've... And today, divers go in. It's a huge risk with divers. First of all, availability of divers is a big problem.

    11. SPSpeaker50:05

        Wait, divers go in, so these are offshore oil rigs-

    12. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian50:08

        Yes

    13. SPSpeaker50:08

        ... harbors.

    14. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian50:09

        Anywhere, even in big tanks. People jump in, and then they do the inspection. Okay, and they're very expensive, not easily available, and the risks are high.

    15. SPSpeaker50:21

        Safety risk is very high.

    16. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian50:22

        Very high. And then the data that they get is not very great. At best, you will have a guy taking underwater camera photographs, that's it. Can we change that paradigm? I think these guys fortunately agreed that it's not a bad l- area to look at. Again, we were very fortunate. We're very fortunate that many industries supported us, many good people supported us. So we started looking at making these... And once you go into from a, from a competition, when you go to try to make a robot that works in the field, it's a massive upgrade in terms of reliability and robustness. Because unlike a competition where things go wrong, well, okay, you get a consolation prize. Here, if something goes wrong, you get penalized, right? So it has to work every time the same way. So that robustness was something that took a while for us to build. Again, we were fortunate, we got, uh, at that time, uh, Kiritsugu Forum was fairly active in, in Chennai, and they become active. So we got seed funding from Kiritsugu Forum, started building the teams, started getting orders from various clients in India first, the ports, the dams. Uh, later on, Reliance started coming in and saying, "We have these big storage tanks. Can you look in these, uh, water tanks?" So started, uh, you know, started building, and today, uh, you know, Planys is about, uh, close to 200 employees. Uh, we have global presence. We are- we just finished a major, uh, you know, uh, project in, uh, Singapore.

16. 52:00 – 59:15

    Detect Technologies: AI-Powered Asset and Safety Management

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian52:00

       Uh, we have just received a very large contract in Sa- in the Middle East. Uh, so we are now, it's a global company and are professionally managed, um, invested in, and we just went through a Series A investment. Um, so I think, uh, it's a cruise control, uh, from my perspective.

    2. SPSpeaker52:19

       It's very interesting. Like, i- from your point of view, there is a research energy, and there's sort of like an entrepreneurial energy, right? Like, so... And I just want to extend it a little bit. From what you have said, professors were initially expected to be great teachers and then great researchers, like, the next decade.

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian52:37

       Right.

    4. SPSpeaker52:37

       And now, almost there's an expectation of, um, you know, being able to patent and, uh, maybe spin off a startup from your lab. How do you manage this? Like, isn't it like, like, like a professor ends up having, like, three or four KPIs? How does this work?

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian52:56

       Um, I would say that's true for just not for, uh, a professor. You know, you go and get a job, what happens? You, you work on a problem, then you get a little promotion. You work, you... Then you have three people working under you, under you, and they are working on three different problems.

    6. SPSpeaker53:13

       Hmm.

    7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian53:13

       Then as you go up the ladder, you start to manage a large enough different types of projects, different... So very similar. So as I said, my first, you know, uh, came back in 2000, started a center in 2001. First venture was in 2010.

    8. SPSpeaker53:32

       Hmm.

    9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian53:32

       Then the next venture was 2015. But then by 2015, A, the ecosystem of IT had changed. Things were more systemic. We had a system to actually take an idea from the lab and move it to market. You know, easy to do things. Ease of doing business was much easier. So by the 2015 onwards, we almost have a c- almost a company incubator every year from my lab. So 2016 was Detect Technologies, which is a very large company today. 2017 was a spin, sort of a hived off from to the, uh, Detect, was a company called as Maximal Labs, right? And then every year, we have had a company that's come out, and-

    10. SPSpeaker54:21

        So o- once again, so Dhvani does, uh, a, a NDT instrumentation plus AI.

    11. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian54:26

        Right.

    12. SPSpeaker54:26

        Um, Planys does underwater inspection, right? Uh, what does Detect do?

    13. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian54:30

        So Detect actually, uh, again, w- there is always some pivoting that happens when you, uh, you know, work, uh, with the industry. So initially, we were looking at, uh, uh, we had a very unique, uh, patented sensor for high-temperature, corrosion monitoring of high-temperature pipes.

    14. SPSpeaker54:47

        Okay.

    15. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian54:48

        ... we call that as GUMS. So this was a co-invention by Tarun Mishra, who was my MTech student. He had a degree student and myself, and later on, we had the fortune of, uh, having, uh, Reliance actually say, "I'm, uh, going to actually support this work, and whatever we help you productize it, and we want you to try it out on our... And we will also buy 200 of these sensors if it works."

    16. SPSpeaker55:14

        Mm.

    17. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian55:15

        That's a great deal for us. So we started Detect, and then we onboarded Daniel and Harry, and later on, Karthik, the three other founders, uh, a bit later. So this is a 2016 company, okay? And we had, on day one, we already had a project for- with Reliance to actually prove this technology on their plant. Nice. That's how we started. Very soon, we started seeing more and more problems when we were in, uh, in Reliance. So one of the things they said was, "Hey, we can't reach many of these high, you know, the big, uh, pipes, which are very high." So we came up with a, a product called Noctua, which actually was, uh, a ro- a drone, but was doing actually NDT with drone.

    18. SPSpeaker55:56

        Okay.

    19. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian55:56

        Which humans used to do by climbing or by scaffolding, but I guess safety was an issue, productivity was an issue.

    20. SPSpeaker56:03

        And time also.

    21. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian56:04

        Time, that's... productivity was an issue. So if, if you think of a big storage tank, with all this, it's, it's just take somebody one week to look at it. We could do it in one day using a drone, and absolutely safe. So this, this is how we started. Very soon, we realized that the volume of data that we are generating and everybody else is generating, and the information is coming, actually can give you a predictive, uh, capabilities, prognosis capabilities. So Detect came up with a product called T-Pulse, which is now pretty much used in a lot of process industries across field, whether it's a cement factory, steel industry, got a lot of refineries. They use them so that they not only look at asset integrity management, they also look at it from a safety, human safety management also. So whether it is, uh, a pipe that has a potential to fail, say, one year, two year down the road, or is it a human operator who has left, uh, uh, something, uh, somewhere which he sh- he or she should not have done that-

    22. SPSpeaker57:10

        Mm

    23. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian57:11

        ... we pick it up using cameras, drone-based cameras, sensors, anything that the company has, how do you bring it all to one platform and build intelligence and automate the intelligence building? So many of our IT graduates, some of our best students from computer science, mechanical-

    24. SPSpeaker57:32

        Mm

    25. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian57:33

        ... found exciting that they can actually use these tools to do hard industrial problem solutioning. Okay, so AI becomes a big part of the entire thing, right? So today, uh, I would say that Detect is more of a SaaS company, which is providing s- uh, asset safety, asset integrity, human safety, compliance for large industries.

    26. SPSpeaker58:01

        Mm.

    27. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian58:01

        Shell, Exxon, you know, uh, Adanis.

    28. SPSpeaker58:05

        Nice. When we look at companies like Google, which have... which we know have come out of university setups, um, that, that model is still new, right? But that's what you're saying. You're saying that there was a project that came from the industry, or there was some research project that was going on, sort of found an application, as it, it led to some IP protection, then a company, and then that company has a life of its own. Amazing. Um, I also feel like, um, it's interesting that the topics that you're talking about are hardcore industrial engineering topics. Uh, sometimes when, um, people look at entrepreneurship in India, they think of, uh, Zomato, Flipkart, which are great companies, um, and probably s- also solving some interesting engineering problems, but not in the hardware space. Um, I've also heard this term being used now called hard tech, which I love, because it's hard. Of course, it's hard, but it's also hardware. It's short for hardware tech. Would you like to talk about Xyma also? I think Professor Prabhu al- already spoke about it once.

    29. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian59:06

        Okay. So, so the, i- interestingly, Xyma, uh, basically leverages research that

17. 59:15 – 1:03:45

    Xyma: Pioneering High-Temperature Sensing Technology

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian59:15

       I've been working on from 1995 onwards, believe it or not. Yeah. So, uh, the work started way back in 1995, when the Department of Energy, uh, was looking for a technique by which they can measure the viscosity of glass material.

    2. SPSpeaker59:31

       Mm.

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian59:31

       Okay? But glass is melted at 1,000-plus degrees temperature. How do you measure temperature? Thermocouples are not very good, and they, and they don't... They want to make sure that, uh, none of them, is- if you put a thermocouple inside, uh, you know, thermocouple is a very sophisticated form of thermo- thermometer, okay? They don't want you to contaminate the glass. So, so there was, and, uh, so there were issues. So we developed this technology. One of my first PhD students in the US actually worked on it. How do you make sure that you can do that? Subsequently, worked for several companies, okay? And then I had a PhD student, uh, Suresh, who actually developed, uh, uh, you know, morphed it into something where we can expand it to where we can measure, uh, say, from here, if I'm- I want to measure at, uh, you know, 50 meters away temperature, I could just take a wire from here and then lay it, and I can measure the temperature there. So that's kind of how we... And I can also measure the viscosity of what is, uh, surrounding it. So that's kind of how we... So this is a high-temperature sensing technology.

    4. SPSpeaker1:00:41

       Interesting.

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:00:42

       We developed something close to 10 to 12 patent filings, which were also refiled in other countries, probably about 25 to 30 papers.... And Nishant joined this team, uh, when Suresh was towards the later part of his, uh, you know, PhD work. And Nishant Raja continued the work, and we solved a lot of- Uh, we working on problems that are from semiconductor industry, to steel industry, to polymer industry, and a few other case studies. And we had the support of all these companies. We had the support of Tata Steel, the com- uh, support of Lam Research, is a big semiconductor industry. So they were funding us to evaluate these technologies for their problems. So somewhere along the way, we said, "Wait a minute, there's some value in this. The industry is liking it." And some of them, we went back and asked, "Hey, you know, will you buy? If I, if I make the product with these specifications, how many will you buy?" And the answer was very encouraging. So that's when in 2000, uh, I think '19 or '20, I forget, we decided to launch this company called Xyma, and Xyma basically stands for wave, uh, in, uh, Greek or Latin, I forget. Okay? So we are using ultrasonic waves that are confined in materials like a wire. Okay, and nothing new, because you and I used to chat in a matchbox, uh, you know, a telephony-

    6. SPSpeaker1:02:17

       Matchbox telephone.

    7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:02:18

       Yeah, telephony. Exactly same thing. So I'm saying from one, uh, the only difference is that the other side is just sending back. So imagine the other part of the telephony becomes my sensor.

    8. SPSpeaker1:02:30

       Right.

    9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:02:30

       It's exactly the same thing I'm using. All right? So the wave actually goes, measures some things, or it gets modified, and the signal comes back, and I sort of decode it, and I say, "This is what is happening that point." Okay, so, so this technology has become quite popular. Nishant, and then later on, Ashwin, who was a mechanical student from IIT Madras, joined the team. And together we are now, uh, present a... You know, we have technology that we use in US, in Europe. Some of the big names, SKF, is one of the largest bearing manufacturer in the world, is using our technology. Uh, Vedanta, uh, Emirates Global, these are big companies now using our technology, and, uh, I think, uh, sky is the limit. Because we, uh, have, uh, technology that doesn't, uh, have too much of a competition per se, and so we are in a very, in a, a sort of a forefront. Uh, we have some pole position, some of these technologies.

    10. SPSpeaker1:03:33

        Nice.

    11. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:03:33

        And we're making a huge difference to the value proposition these companies are able to do during manufacturing.

    12. SPSpeaker1:03:40

        Very interesting. So now I wanna ask you a more meta question. We've been saying,

18. 1:03:45 – 1:05:50

    IIT Madras: The Best Place to Build?

    1. SPSpeaker1:03:45

       been hearing from others also that, you know, IIT Madras is now a great place to build, like the best place to build, right? So, um, what makes it so, and from your point... Because, uh, you, you've seen four directors, right? Professor Natarajan, then-

    2. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:04:00

       Yes

    3. SPSpeaker1:04:01

       ... Professor Anand, Professor Bhaskar, and now Professor Kamakoti. So what has changed over time, and why is it-- what are the fun- what are the blocks that makes it so?

    4. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:04:11

       See, as I said, it is an ecosystem building. No ecosystem that works well is built on one building block. You need many, many building blocks that makes the ecosystem work. So as I said, ICSR, which we transformed, uh, in the, in our 2012 or to, to '18, which I helped transform, and, um, at further transform later, is one building block, where intellectual property filing became doable. Another is the fact that we created a lot of industry interactions. See, a lot of the solutions, as, as the hard problem solutions, come from the industry, and industry is your market. Sometimes such hard problems also comes with social need requirements. So when you do sol- research in your lab, they... You need money, as I mentioned before, and that money comes from ICSR. So ICSR is a very deep building block. Another huge transformation was this exact CFI. Actually, when CFI started, we, it was supposed to be a small thinker lab for students to have a little fun. Very soon, we realized that companies like Aether, Hyperverse, started to emerge from these ecosystems. And today, you know, the kinds of things that, uh, the CFI is coming up with is amazing. Just insp- It's a, it's a place where student gets inspir- inspired. As to any student, IIT Madras walks in, gets inspired. You know, c- as you rightly put it, the l- the, the mantra is, "Walk in with an idea, walk

19. 1:05:50 – 1:06:45

    CFI: Inspiring a Culture of Making

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:05:50

       out with a product." Whether you walk out with a product or not, you walk in with an idea, you change the mindset of the person. Person becomes a maker, and that's a fundamental change that we have created with students. So whether the guy does it here or the person does it outside, uh, after they graduate, doesn't make a... I, IIT Madras is proud that we have created a maker. Now, added to that, we started looking at, how do we help students? So we created the scholarships that will allow the students to stay for one more year, and they can work on their ideas with a sort of a stipend. They get to stay in the hostels, and that allows few of them to actually persist with their ideas. Soon, that became a program for Nirmaan, which is now one floor above this floor we are sitting.

20. 1:06:45 – 1:07:30

    Nirmaan: Supporting Student Entrepreneurs

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:06:46

       In 2017, uh, one of our famous alum, called Desh Deshpande, came and said to us, "Hey, we are doing something called I-Corps in the US."... And this was, uh, a brainchild of Subra Suresh with Desh Deshpande, both are very famous alum from IIT Madras. And they said, "Look at the money that is spent on research in the US. Well, how much of it really gets translated into impactful solutions? Can we help the process?" We know very well that journal papers are published, PhD students and master's students are coming out. Great! We are, so we're helping certain demographics.

21. 1:07:30 – 1:11:45

    The Gopalakrishnan Deshpande Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:07:31

       Are we helping the society? Are we helping the industry? Where is the impact of the work that you're doing? Can you leverage that? And that led to this program called I-Corps that, uh, NSF started funding, and today, I-Corps is one of the most successful programs that National Science Foundation of US, you know, is, uh, very happy with. Um, so he says, "I will give you some money, but please find a partner in India who will also give you... Match my money." And that's when we-- it took us a few, d- not even a few days. A, I remember a 15-minute breakfast with, uh, Kris Gopalakrishnan, and he said, "I'm in." So that's why we formed this Gopalakrishnan Deshpande Center.

    2. SPSpeaker1:08:18

       The Gopalakrishnan in that is Kris Gopalakrishnan?

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:08:21

       Yes, Kris Gopalakrishnan from Infosys. And Desh Deshpande and Jayshree are huge alum, uh, you know-

    4. SPSpeaker1:08:28

       Yeah

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:08:28

       ... donors of IIT Madras. So together, we formed this Deshpande, uh, Gopalakrishnan Deshpande Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IIT Madras. We had the fortune of having a person, uh, called Raghothama Rao, who happens to be alum of IIT Madras, '84 alum, uh, and then he, he's been there, done it. So he joined as a CEO, and I remember the first day he joined, and he said, "What do I do?" And I said, "I do not know [chuckles] what to do. I have no idea what to do." And so we were sitting in the room and said, "Okay, what is this I-Corps program?" So we did some digging, and, uh, we in fact, uh, took the help from a university called George Washington University, uh, who was doing the I-Corps program in the US. We brought them here. We said, "Uh, teach us." So they said, "The best way to teach is for you to do it." So what does I-Corps do? Basically, I-Corps looks at the fact that the mindset of a faculty or a researcher in a university system is looking at, "How do I publish papers? How do I graduate and get a good job?" Right? Or, "How do I get the next project funded?" Nobody is lo- looking at it and saying, "Can I actually make this, uh, the product or solution of our company?" It's, it's not natural for them. So can we make that a bit more natural? So what we do is, we ask for ideas. So we do not actually support any ideas in terms of, uh, research. We say, "If you have an idea, maybe you even have filed a patent or something on it, do you want to find out whether it has a value beyond your, a publication? So then you... We also ask you to team up with a couple of students. You come and sit with us for about six to eight weeks." So we do in a cohort form, cohort form. So you, typically, a cohort has about 10 teams. Each team will have three to four people. One of them has to be a researcher, like a faculty. So we look at it and say, "What is it that you have? Who can use it?" So immediately, everybody has an idea. "I have this mug. This is the best mug that anybody has designed and built, and Amartya must buy it for $50 rupees.

    6. SPSpeaker1:10:44

       Mm.

    7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:10:45

       This is my thing, because this is the best mug. His mug is chipped, but this mug will never chip."

    8. SPSpeaker1:10:52

       This mug is not chipped.

    9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:10:54

       Okay, I'm just go joking. [chuckles] But, uh, so, uh, now Amartya looks at it and says, "Oh, nice product, but I'll pass on it. I'm not going to buy it." Why? Any number of reasons: I didn't like the color; it doesn't- I don't need a mug, I have a mug, I, I'm okay with a chipped mug; or maybe it costs too much. But I'm, I'm the creator. I'm passionate about my creation.

    10. SPSpeaker1:11:24

        Yeah.

    11. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:11:24

        I will tell Amartya, "No, no, Amartya, this is the only mug you should buy."

    12. SPSpeaker1:11:27

        Right. Okay-

    13. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:11:28

        And how do you change that mindset to say that, "How do I make him think, or the faculty think, that Amartya is a client, he is a customer, and you need to tune this to Amartya's requirement?" Amartya, "Hey, change the color, I may

22. 1:11:45 – 1:13:30

    The I-Corps Programme: Cultivating an Entrepreneurial Mindset

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:11:45

       buy it. Reduce the cost by 10 rupees, I may buy it."

    2. SPSpeaker1:11:48

       Yeah.

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:11:49

       Right. So how do you change that mindset? And that's what we go about doing. So in the six to eight weeks-

    4. SPSpeaker1:11:56

       Interesting

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:11:56

       ... the mindset of the faculty and the researcher dramatically changes. They may come out with a product. So today, we have, uh... And this is just not IIT Madras, we do it pan-India. And very recently, we are happy to say that DST has joined hands with us.

    6. SPSpeaker1:12:13

       Okay.

    7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:12:14

       And the first cohort with DST just started last week. Okay? So now we hope that we can expand this even more, bu- you know, na- n- nationwide, pan-India. But as it is, we are pan-India. We have over 65 institutions-

    8. SPSpeaker1:12:31

       Okay

    9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:12:32

       ... STEM institutions in India partnering with us already. Now, with DST, we hope to get it to 200 or 300 in the next couple of years. And just want to say that about, uh, close to now, about 1,700 or 1,800 entrepreneurs have gone through this program. Close to 400 to 450 faculty have gone through this program. Today, we have probably about 140 companies that have been incubated by the people who have gone through this program.

    10. SPSpeaker1:13:04

        Wow! Okay.

    11. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:13:06

        ... Uh, some of them are examples, our own faculty, Satya Chakravarthy.

    12. SPSpeaker1:13:10

        Mm.

    13. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:13:11

        He, he was probably our best student ever. He came back three times.

    14. SPSpeaker1:13:16

        Mm.

    15. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:13:17

        He said, first cohort, he said he learned a lot, but he didn't learn enough, and he came back again. Satya Seshadri, some of the guys who are in incubator, Prabhu Rajagopal, all of them actually went through this program.

23. 1:13:30 – 1:14:30

    The Success of the I-Corps Programme in India

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:13:30

       So we are just not creating, curating ideas, we are curating entrepreneurs.

    2. SPSpeaker1:13:36

       Right.

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:13:36

       We are curating faculty who become entrepreneurs, so that's another part of the system. Then you, uh, you talk in terms of g- you know, going from there to the incubation cell, the research park, which is a one-of-a-kind in India today. You... The process of going from a lab all the way to market becomes fairly systemic, and the systemization is what's changed in IIT Madras. That's why 400-plus, you know? Today, we have incubation cell, we have a, a Pravartak is a, an alternate for, uh, a mechanism for doing that. So you have enough mechanisms where you don't have to think and say, "How do I do it?" It's only a matter of, you know, will you do it? And if so, this is the way to do it,

24. 1:14:30 – 1:15:00

    The Evolving Ecosystem at IIT Madras

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:14:30

       and that's a big change.

    2. SPSpeaker1:14:32

       It's amazing. Really, uh, feel jealous of the [chuckles] students who join.

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:14:36

       Me, too. Me, too. Uh, uh, you know, if you think that you have to be jealous, I have to be 10 times more jealous. [chuckles]

    4. SPSpeaker1:14:44

       One last question, uh, not a serious question at all, but, um, I'm wondering if you are still teaching and you still take class. Which are the courses you're taking?

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:14:52

       Yeah, I, I, actually, believe it or not, I still teach. Uh, uh, the last couple of years, I've taught mainly, uh, uh, Advanced

25. 1:15:00 – 1:16:45

    Professor Balasubramanian's Current Teaching and Interests

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:15:00

       Non-Destructive Testing and Evaluation because, a couple of the courses I used to teach before, uh, uh, there was a curriculum revision, and those-

    2. SPSpeaker1:15:08

       Mm

    3. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:15:08

       ... courses were not, uh, eh, continued. Uh, but I do teach. Uh, I teach Advanced Non-Destructive Testing, which is, uh, uh, a senior level, uh, for undergrads and, uh, you know, uh, all graduate students are welcome, so I teach that, too. Uh, teaching is, of course, our profession, so we continue to do that.

    4. SPSpeaker1:15:26

       Yeah.

    5. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:15:27

       And-

    6. SPSpeaker1:15:28

       Uh, uh, on a personal note, I've heard that you play tennis.

    7. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:15:31

       Yes, I do.

    8. SPSpeaker1:15:32

       Do you still play tennis?

    9. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:15:33

       I do, but, uh, the last, um, couple of months has been pretty brutal on my... because of travel, but, yes, yes. I, I hope to resume tonight-

    10. SPSpeaker1:15:40

        Okay

    11. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:15:41

        ... today, evening, back after a month or two of, uh, break.

    12. SPSpeaker1:15:43

        Okay.

    13. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:15:44

        Yes, I do.

    14. SPSpeaker1:15:45

        Because IIT Madras has some really good tennis courts.

    15. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:15:47

        E- they are not too bad at all. And, uh, see, uh, for us, uh, you know, uh, our knees, uh, joints cannot take the hard courts.

    16. SPSpeaker1:15:55

        Right.

    17. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:15:55

        So we have a nice clay court, uh, pretty much run by the faculty, uh, alone, so we sort of, uh, a small faculty tennis club.

    18. SPSpeaker1:16:03

        Okay.

    19. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:16:03

        And, uh, so we, we, we hit the ball, uh, you know, and it's a huge stress reliever, right?

    20. SPSpeaker1:16:09

        Yeah.

    21. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:16:10

        So, so the days when I hit the ball out the out- out of the, uh, court, uh, they know that I'm having a bad day at work. [chuckles]

    22. SPSpeaker1:16:18

        One, uh, interesting thought I had was when you talk of building products, it's a hardware product, it's a sensor system, it's an inspection system, it's a submersible, whatever. But in popular imagination, if I go to some cafe in Bangalore, and people are talking of product building, they usually are talking now about software products, right? Does this, like... Does this

26. 1:16:45 – 1:21:45

    The Importance of Deep Tech Ventures

    1. SPSpeaker1:16:45

       amuse you, like, when, when you think of products, it's hardware, but when the public thinks of products, they think of software products?

    2. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:16:53

       See, in fact, when people, uh, you know, uh, say deep tech-

    3. SPSpeaker1:16:57

       Mm

    4. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:16:57

       ... I realize they're talking of software all the time nowadays. So that's why I started. Well, I like to think hard problem solution. That's a good word, or I call it deep research products.

    5. SPSpeaker1:17:07

       Wow.

    6. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:17:07

       Okay, so, e- no, I would not say that. See, software is integral part of what we do also. A lot of what we do has a huge element of software built into it. I would say that, um, at the end of the day, we are trying to change the way we do things. So, uh, so I have great respect for the Uber app or the Swiggy app because they've changed the way I live. So, as software has profoundly changed how we do things today compared to even as recent as, like, five years ago.

    7. SPSpeaker1:17:44

       Yeah.

    8. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:17:45

       Right. Uh, so there's nothing wrong, uh, uh, in, uh, you know, uh, talking about getting great software products. The difference between a venture that you want to support, uh, will depend a little bit on what you're trying to do or what is being done. When I say, uh, uh, example, let me say I take a, a, a, a, a Xyma example. It took- it, it's hard, like what Kennedy said, huh? "We choose problems because they're hard, not because they're easy." Exactly true. But when I solve a problem for an industry that's operating at 1,200 degrees Celsius, it's gonna take anybody else a long time to get there.

    9. SPSpeaker1:18:33

       Mm.

    10. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:18:33

        It may have taken me a long time to get there, but then I have a huge moat.

    11. SPSpeaker1:18:38

        Right.

    12. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:18:38

        So there is a difference in the timelines, there's a difference in the mindset of either the investor or supporter or the client or the founders when you do look at deep research. But then deep research is going to play a very long term. You know, you, you'll see that, uh, many of the software, uh, you know, uh, ventures have a much shorter cy- life cycle.... Now, Facebook was not the first in, in, in social media. In fact, you'll know many of them.

    13. SPSpeaker1:19:14

        Yeah, MySpace.

    14. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:19:15

        Yeah, a huge number of them-

    15. SPSpeaker1:19:16

        Orkut.

    16. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:19:16

        Yeah, huge, Orkut. So many of them failed, okay? That's true for everything. Okay, so yes, some of them make it big, but then the odds of making it big and then the odds of making it sustainably big for a long time, uh, becomes much higher when you go to deep research, uh, mm, ventures. Okay, and so, uh, you know, uh, SpaceX is going to outlast X.

    17. SPSpeaker1:19:48

        Mm.

    18. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:19:50

        This is my line of thinking, okay?

    19. SPSpeaker1:19:54

        So X may-

    20. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:19:55

        X-

    21. SPSpeaker1:19:55

        Still have to reinvent itself when-

    22. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:19:58

        You're already seeing that. You're already seeing that, right? It'll reinvent itself or somebody else will come up with a better solution.

    23. SPSpeaker1:20:04

        Yeah.

    24. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:20:04

        But X, uh, unlike X, SpaceX is not going to go away that easily, okay? If anything, Space- SpaceX will keep growing. Tesla is gonna keep growing, right?

    25. SPSpeaker1:20:17

        Right.

    26. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:20:17

        So that's, that's, that's my belief, that when you have deep tech... Now, Tesla has got some amazing tech, deep tech, in their products. Amazing deep tech.

    27. SPSpeaker1:20:26

        Yeah.

    28. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:20:27

        You know, the, the way they handle... They, they, they, they, they completely reengineered the way the, the battery packs were, uh, being used in the automotive sector, right? So, uh, I would say that, uh, transformational, uh, you know, so, uh, concepts emerge from deep research, while s- soft research or soft products actually transform the way you do things.

    29. SPSpeaker1:20:54

        Mm. It's an interesting thesis.

    30. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:20:59

        Mm, nice.
27. 1:21:45 – 1:22:11

    Conclusion

    1. KBKrishnan Balasubramanian1:21:45

       It makes it all worthwhile. Okay, thank you.

    2. SPSpeaker1:21:50

       And before you go, please like, share, subscribe. Thank you. [outro music]

Episode duration: 1:22:11