Prof. Prabhu Rajagopal l"Brain drain isn't about salary. We want to be challenged"| Ep. 3

1. 0:00 – 2:41

   Introduction

   1. SPSpeaker0:00

      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]

   2. PRPrabhu Rajagopal0:28

      Increasingly, we are getting people with aspirations of creating startups, and they're choosing areas. There are some students who say, "I only want to work on this particular problem, because this has startup potential." So the kind of poetry I practice is also called, uh, what I look at it, is as artist- art poetry, where, you know, rhyme and rhythm are not as important as the philosophy behind it. [upbeat music]

   3. SPSpeaker1:05

      So we are at the Sudha and Shankar Innovation Hub with Dr. Prabhu. Uh, Dr. Prabhu, welcome to our podcast. Uh, we are-

   4. PRPrabhu Rajagopal1:12

      Hi, Amrit.

   5. SPSpeaker1:12

      - Best Place to Build podcast.

   6. PRPrabhu Rajagopal1:13

      Yes.

   7. SPSpeaker1:14

      And I realized in our research that, um, I went to IIT Madras, 'two thousand and three to 'eight, mechanical engineering with dual degree in intelligent manufacturing, and you went to the same thing, but five years my senior, right?

   8. PRPrabhu Rajagopal1:26

      We were the inaugural batch of, uh, intelligent manufacturing.

   9. SPSpeaker1:30

      Is it?

   10. PRPrabhu Rajagopal1:30

       Yeah.

   11. SPSpeaker1:30

       Okay. I, I remember, uh, choosing, uh, my branch, and, um, and, and I was not sure what it really meant. Uh, but can you give us an idea of what is intelligent in manufacturing back then, to how it's moved? And I know that your research area is also sort of linked to that.

   12. PRPrabhu Rajagopal1:49

       Yeah. So today, we have this huge movement of Industry 4.0, right? Which is connected systems, networked systems, intelligent systems. Actually, this intelligent manufacturing was sort of anticipating all of that. How can we put sensors into the, uh, whole manufacturing process, getting some live feedback on, uh, information on the actual, you know, feed parameters, cutting parameters, and so on, and how can we use that to improve and optimize the process? Also, how can we have machines that are intelligent by themselves, machines that can talk to each other? Today, a lot of this is now there on the shop floors through Industry 4.0, and I think that's what is sort of, uh, uh, flowered over and blossomed from those days. Yeah.

   13. SPSpeaker2:32

       Yeah. Uh, and, and I know that this year... Or maybe earlier this year, you won the, uh, Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize. Congratulations!

   14. PRPrabhu Rajagopal2:40

       Thank you.

2. 2:41 – 4:56

   Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize

   1. SPSpeaker2:41

      It's, um, the most prestigious prize for engineers or engineering researchers in India. Uh, could you tell us a little bit about how the experience was? What is the body of work for which you were recognized?

   2. PRPrabhu Rajagopal2:53

      Thank you. Um, thanks for the question as well, and it's a very special recognition. To me, it is a very personal, uh, feeling as well, because my father worked as a scientist in a CSIR laboratory in Hyderabad, the Indian Institute for Chemical Technology. And, uh, you know, that Bhatnagar Award originally has roots in CSIR as an organization, and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar is a founder of CSIR as well. So, um, we grew up with stories of, you know, legends, you know, legendary scientists-

   3. SPSpeaker3:25

      Mm.

   4. PRPrabhu Rajagopal3:25

      ... who got, say, you know, Bhatnagar Award. In my father's office, we used to say, "Oh, he is very accomplished because he's a awardee," and, you know, I used- I got a prize from somebody who was a awardee when I was young.

   5. SPSpeaker3:37

      Right.

   6. PRPrabhu Rajagopal3:38

      And today, uh, you know, seeing my name in that list feels very special personally, and you won't believe how elated and happy my father and mother are, actually. And the... It, it is so personal in that sense. And if you look at the, the history of people who have received this award, people like, uh-

   7. SPSpeaker3:56

      CN Rao.

   8. PRPrabhu Rajagopal3:57

      CN, CNR Rao, people like Abdul Kalam, people like M.S. Swaminathan. You see, these are actually the who's who of Indian science.

   9. SPSpeaker4:04

      Yes.

   10. PRPrabhu Rajagopal4:05

       And, of course, this is actually considered as a starting point. There's a lot more to achieve from now.

   11. SPSpeaker4:10

       Yeah.

   12. PRPrabhu Rajagopal4:10

       But it is nice to feel this recogni- get this recognition. So, also, another reason for me is that this year is under... I have got this under the category called technology and innovation, right? So, the kind of work I have been doing is very translational. Yes, there is some aspect of, you know, pa- paper publishing, which as an academic, I do, but I also take a lot of pride in taking these innovations to the field, whether through startups or working with the industry, and so on. So this category recognizes that work, and that makes it extra special for me.

   13. SPSpeaker4:44

       Yeah. Damn, cool. The, the citation spoke about ultrasonic startups and science administration, and I think we should take 15 minutes to cover each. But let's start with science administration. I'm

3. 4:56 – 10:31

   Innovation Stack at IIT Madras

   1. SPSpeaker4:56

      very keen to understand, what does that word even mean?

   2. PRPrabhu Rajagopal4:59

      So, science administration is what, you know, giants like, um, Baba did, Homi Jehangir Bhabha or Vikram Sarabhai, you know, laying the foundation of the Atomic Energy Agency or laying the foundation of ISRO, and so on. Of course, I'm not saying we are doing, uh, you know, as monumental of a work, but who knows? In 50 years' time, what we have built here as, uh, you know, the Innovation Hub, the CFI and NIRMAN, may indeed bec- uh, achieve such proportions. But it's essentially working on mission-critical, mission-oriented, scientific work, but giving it an administrative push. Here at CFI and NIRMAN, for example, what we are doing is, we are nurturing the spirit of young people to be able to work on innovations, work on technology development, w- work on product creation, um, and helping them to take their ideas and dreams into practical solutions, startups, products, and so on.

   3. SPSpeaker5:58

      Wait, wait, hold on. We have to go from scratch on this, and, and you can, you can use this and write it down for me.

   4. PRPrabhu Rajagopal6:04

      Yeah.

   5. SPSpeaker6:05

      ... what does the innovation stack at IIT Madras mean?

   6. PRPrabhu Rajagopal6:09

      Yeah. So thank you for making me look like a professor by writing on a, [laughing] a whiteboard. Yeah. So I would say the I and D stack, and beautiful that you caught on that, consists of essentially, to me, I'm not because-- just because I'm the faculty in charge of the Centre for Innovation, the CFI is, is at the heart of it, right? This is how I would look at it. Why you are, you are, you are an alumni, uh, alumnus, I am an alumnus as well. We know that in the five years that we were here, we hardly did anything practical.

   7. SPSpeaker6:40

      Right. We didn't have CFI.

   8. PRPrabhu Rajagopal6:41

      Yeah, but look around here, you know, people building racing cars, people building Hyperloop, people building, uh, for, you know, sounding rockets-

   9. SPSpeaker6:49

      Yeah

   10. PRPrabhu Rajagopal6:49

       ... on their own, for the most part, and these are interdisciplinary teams. Sometimes, the Hyperloop team has people from chemical engineering and ocean engineering as well, right? Coming together and actually doing these things. The formula racing team, for example, builds everything on their own, from wheels, chassis, you know, the, uh, motor drivers, the battery packs, you know, the-- everything on their own.

   11. SPSpeaker7:10

       It is unbelievable.

   12. PRPrabhu Rajagopal7:11

       This is what-

   13. SPSpeaker7:12

       When I was in insti, if I built, uh... I mean, I remember, uh, my friend, uh, repaired his fan one day, and we were all like, "No!" [chuckles]

   14. PRPrabhu Rajagopal7:22

       So proud. [chuckles]

   15. SPSpeaker7:22

       "These guys are building rockets and I don't know what else." [chuckles]

   16. PRPrabhu Rajagopal7:25

       Racing cars-

   17. SPSpeaker7:25

       Yeah

   18. PRPrabhu Rajagopal7:26

       ... on their own. So that is, I think, to me, uh, at the core of the transformation that has happened at IIT Madras. Now, we have the venerable IC&SR, right? Fifty-year-old organization, which sort of provides backing and support. This is what is giving us, you know, industry interactions. Now, there are a host of support organizations here. We have, um, the... or the feeders, what you say, you have the TechSoc, right? You have the, um, the E-Cell as well, which is sort of attracting students who have a sort of entrepreneurial or make... you know, making mindset, right? And then on the other hand, you have, now the CFI is feeding off to what we call Nirman now, the pre-incubator. This, uh, I think in the entire country, it's a unique concept. There are very few pre-incubators around, whether it is in India or anywhere in the world, and speaks about the maturity of our ecosystem. Now, we have feeders, which is the, uh, GDC, for example, right? So GDC, I would place it somewhere here. It is not feeding into Nirman. What it is doing is taking f- um, faculty research, student research, commercializing that. Now, all of this is sort of leading to our innovation, incubation ecosystem, in IIT Madras Incubation Cell and the sector-specific incubator centers them. So this is a sort of stack, uh, tech stack with, uh, ICSR as the basis and foundation, CFI, you know, giving the icing on the cake, and then over here-

   19. SPSpeaker8:54

       So the student flow is like this?

   20. PRPrabhu Rajagopal8:56

       Yeah.

   21. SPSpeaker8:57

       And... Or maybe like this.

   22. PRPrabhu Rajagopal8:58

       Yeah.

   23. SPSpeaker8:59

       And, uh, and, and, uh, where, where does the-

   24. PRPrabhu Rajagopal9:02

       The academic flow-

   25. SPSpeaker9:02

       Academic flow, yeah

   26. PRPrabhu Rajagopal9:03

       ... that is like this. It could go from here to here as well.

   27. SPSpeaker9:07

       Okay.

   28. PRPrabhu Rajagopal9:07

       And then it could go there as well.

   29. SPSpeaker9:09

       Okay.

   30. PRPrabhu Rajagopal9:09

       Because research can be commercialized directly from the lab.
4. 10:31 – 12:56

   Changing Academic Culture

   1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal10:31

      we are getting people with aspirations of creating startups, and they're choosing areas. There are some students who say, "I only want to work on this particular problem, because this has startup potential." Those kinds of things are happening.

   2. SPSpeaker10:43

      That is amazing. Uh, we work a lot with, uh, students who join, uh, IIT B.Tech or dual through GE, and it's the same situation there. I would say about one-third, or maybe even half the students, are very excited about the idea that there's a huge startup culture. Um, this is a big shift because, uh, when I graduated, maybe, uh, twenty, thirty percent of my class, maybe a little more, um, maybe forty percent of my class went abroad to pursue an MS. A few ended up working here. Um, I'm- I must have been the second person in my class who started out, and maybe by now there are, like, five percent or so. And, uh, you, you were my senior from five years. So when you graduated, what was the situation?

   3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal11:30

      So when we graduated, see, either we could work for government organizations like DRDO and so on, uh, or we have TCS, you know, the mothership of everybody who doesn't want to be in core, we had to go to TCS, or the only option was to go abroad, you know, study for an MS or a PhD. And indeed, almost seventy percent of my batchmates went abroad, including me. Now, you know that the culture has shifted. I think it's the other way around.

   4. SPSpeaker11:57

      Yeah.

   5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal11:57

      Only thirty percent perhaps are going abroad at the start, and the rest are choosing to be here. Yeah.

   6. SPSpeaker12:02

      Yeah. And I guess the opportunities basket has changed quite a bit.

   7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal12:06

      Absolutely. See, I have always believed-... and, you know, during our time when we were students, this topic called brain drain was a big thing.

   8. SPSpeaker12:13

      Yeah.

   9. PRPrabhu Rajagopal12:13

      People used to discuss, "Oh, IITians do not get enough package, so they're not staying behind." But it is not about, just about the salary. I think a lot of us here want to be challenged.

   10. SPSpeaker12:24

       Yeah.

   11. PRPrabhu Rajagopal12:24

       We want to solve-- work on exciting problems that can have deep impact. Those kinds of opportunities are now available for young people, and so they're choosing to stay back. Yeah.

   12. SPSpeaker12:33

       Very interesting. So, um, a- and on that startup track, you are part of four startups formally, and you are also telling me that there are three more in the pipeline. Mm, some of them are... I- I think, uh, the oldest one is now seven, eight years old.

   13. PRPrabhu Rajagopal12:48

       It is, uh, nine years old today.

   14. SPSpeaker12:50

       So do you want to just quickly run us through the, uh, startups, and maybe we can focus on some of the work areas?

   15. PRPrabhu Rajagopal12:55

       Sure.

5. 12:56 – 21:48

   His first three startups

   1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal12:56

      So my first startup, Planys, was created in twenty fifteen. It had its origins here in CFI. Um, the CTO of the company, Vineeth, was heading the robo sub team. The-- You know, they used to build automated underwater vehicles, go to the U.S., participate in a competition. Tanuj, uh, was part of the Robocon club. He was actually the... He was also the Co-curricular Affairs Secretary, uh, in, uh, of, of his time. And, um, Tanuj was working with me for his f- finally, a master's project, developing a robot for inspecting pipelines. And after he graduated, this team came together. Uh, Vineeth was the one who first wanted to start up, and I called Tanuj, saying: "I have a team for you," by the way, because he-- when he stayed back for a couple of months, built another version of his robot, Reliance got very interested in that work. They said: "You know, we want, we want a robot for inspecting tanks, and looks like this is very interesting. We'll support this." But Tanuj told me, in the absence of a team, he cannot carry on, right? So then we found a team, and then it so happened that the team was very well known to him anyway. They were also had-- They also had a CFI background, and that's how that team came together. Today, Planys, uh, you know, is, is actually a pioneer in many ways. They are the first Indian underwater robotic startup. They are the only ones today to provide automated underwater vehicles commercially. No one else can do it in India, and they are soon going to work with the Indian Navy as well. There's a lot of work is going on. Um, they, uh, had-- they have wholly owned subsidiaries in Netherlands. They have operations in the Middle East as well. So this is how they have grown. Something that is little in the lab has become a, a huge enterprise now.

   2. SPSpeaker14:32

      That's cool. Uh, and this idea that students in IIT can come to a lab like CFI, play around, come up with something, work with a professor, make something out of it, then build a startup, and then, you know, raise funding from, uh, uh, from IC, which is here, it's amazing. Uh, and, and just to clarify, their work, uh, is used by, um, oil companies?

   3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal14:58

      Oil and gas, which is in terms of tank inspections, which is water tanks and oi- oil storage tanks. Um, river crossings of road and rail bridges.

   4. SPSpeaker15:07

      Okay.

   5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal15:07

      Those are major applications-

   6. SPSpeaker15:09

      Mm.

   7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal15:09

      - because, uh, corrosion happens there. Also, um, dams, because there is water storage. So today, India produces almost thirty percent of our power through hydel resources, and dams are a major, uh, infrastructural asset for hydel companies. They can have, you know, reservoirs which are one hundred and fifty meters deep. You need to inspect them, so Planys robots are used there as well.

   8. SPSpeaker15:32

      This is very interesting. When I was, uh, reading up on the work you've done, there's a word that comes up called SHM, Structural Health Monitoring, and I was thinking that, you know, we pump concrete in our cities, in dams, in bridges, in roads, metros, and, and somehow we expect them to work for, I don't know, centuries, right?

   9. PRPrabhu Rajagopal15:51

      Yeah. The- it's the same everywhere in the world, that a infrastructure is, is put up, and then you're supposed to maintain it. Aging infrastructure is a major some problem anywhere in the world. And SHM, uh, is a philosophy, that is, can we monitor a structure while it is under operation?

   10. SPSpeaker16:07

       Mm.

   11. PRPrabhu Rajagopal16:07

       So in Planys, we have something very cool. We call it Internet of Underwater Things. [chuckles]

   12. SPSpeaker16:12

       Okay.

   13. PRPrabhu Rajagopal16:12

       So we have, we have sort of pioneered the concept-

   14. SPSpeaker16:15

       Mm

   15. PRPrabhu Rajagopal16:15

       ... where we put up acoustic beacons on the base, on the sort of bed of water bodies.

   16. SPSpeaker16:20

       Mm.

   17. PRPrabhu Rajagopal16:20

       And then we have flybys through ROVs and AUVs. You know that internet doesn't work underwater.

   18. SPSpeaker16:26

       Right.

   19. PRPrabhu Rajagopal16:26

       So we do acoustics-based, uh, communication, and then these AUVs or ROVs will come to the surface and transmit information via satellite to the base station.

   20. SPSpeaker16:34

       Oh, wow!

   21. PRPrabhu Rajagopal16:35

       So... And this is how we, we do SHM underwater.

   22. SPSpeaker16:38

       Okay.

   23. PRPrabhu Rajagopal16:38

       Yeah.

   24. SPSpeaker16:39

       So this is Planys. And then, um-

   25. PRPrabhu Rajagopal16:41

       Solinas, you have already spoken to Divanshu in your podcast.

   26. SPSpeaker16:44

       Yeah.

   27. PRPrabhu Rajagopal16:44

       Very exciting company. They today are maintaining the water and sewer networks in more than half a dozen Indian cities through the Smart Cities program. They're also working on robotics for eliminating manual scavenging, a problem that is very close to my heart. Again, this is something that had roots in our lab. Divanshu was my finally year master's student. We developed the Homo Sap, uh, robot through the course of his dual degree project, and then that was commercialized and taken on through Solinas. I was-- Yeah.

   28. SPSpeaker17:12

       This uses, uh, the Solinas robot uses NDE, right? And, um, I-

   29. PRPrabhu Rajagopal17:16

       All our startups have an NDE connection.

   30. SPSpeaker17:18

       Okay. So, so-
6. 21:48 – 23:23

   TRL (Technology Readiness Level) Breakdown

   1. SPSpeaker21:48

      is damn good. As you are saying this, I'm thinking, uh, your first two startup had, uh, BTech co-founders, your next startup had PhD co-founders. Uh, how does this equation... Because, you know, from a startup point of view, startup life is a grind. Like, it's a 24-hour, seven-day, like, you can't sleep, you can't... and you're constantly worrying about hiring, product, sales, everything, right? So how does the, your academic life and your startup life sort of merge? How does that work at all?

   2. PRPrabhu Rajagopal22:17

      Yeah, so it's a beautiful question. Um, so they come together in a very natural way because in our lab, we've, uh, worked with the industry very closely. We are close to the entire oil and gas spectrum. I would say we're close to nuclear industry, we're close to defense, we're close to aerospace, and so on. So we have an access to a ready-made set of problem statements from the industry, and they're all looking for solutions. Our startups are the solution deliverers. Our lab comes in in between because we are the ones who are making the TRL 1 to 3 kind of innovation. So you are familiar with technology readiness level?

   3. SPSpeaker22:53

      Yes.

   4. PRPrabhu Rajagopal22:54

      Right? So-

   5. SPSpeaker22:54

      This is where you are, commercial.

   6. PRPrabhu Rajagopal22:56

      Nine is, uh-

   7. SPSpeaker22:57

      Nine.

   8. PRPrabhu Rajagopal22:57

      Yeah, six to nine.

   9. SPSpeaker22:58

      Nine is-

   10. PRPrabhu Rajagopal22:58

       Field deployment.

   11. SPSpeaker22:59

       Hold on, hold on. Let's... Sorry.

   12. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:01

       Yeah.

   13. SPSpeaker23:01

       Write this down.

   14. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:02

       So the TRL spectrum. So TRL, um, 3 is actually proof of concept. Um, TRL-

   15. SPSpeaker23:11

       Is technology readiness level

   16. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:13

       ... readiness level. Four to seven is some kind of... Four to six is mock-up-

   17. SPSpeaker23:16

       Okay

   18. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:17

       ... studies. And then seven to nine is field studies,

7. 23:23 – 25:06

   Solving industry oriented problems

   1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:24

      right? Approximately.

   2. SPSpeaker23:25

      Okay.

   3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:25

      So, uh-

   4. SPSpeaker23:26

      Traditionally, an academic institute in IIT would be involved in one, two, three.

   5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:30

      One to three.

   6. SPSpeaker23:31

      That's it.

   7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:31

      That's it.

   8. SPSpeaker23:32

      And we, we stop.

   9. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:33

      We stop there.

   10. SPSpeaker23:33

       Yeah.

   11. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:33

       Because funding dries up, your, uh, excitement dries up, because there's nothing new that happens from then on.

   12. SPSpeaker23:39

       Yeah.

   13. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:39

       It's more of tailoring it to the field-

   14. SPSpeaker23:42

       Yeah

   15. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:42

       ... really. And you will not get even IPs for this work.

   16. SPSpeaker23:45

       Yeah.

   17. PRPrabhu Rajagopal23:45

       So that's- this is the valley of death, typically. So, uh, for us, therefore, it is very natural. The startups are looking for problem statements, and we are the intermediary who brings those problem statements. The industry also needs deep solutions. So XYMA solutions, for example, were developed over many, many years, and the original, uh, you know, i- interest came from Tata Steel. Although we have still not solved it, because steel is 1,800 degrees centigrade, we still do not have a material that takes those melting points. We are still researching on that. But we can do copper, aluminium-... and all that today. Tata also has copper smelters refineries, Vedanta has it, and so on, so we do that. So solving a problem, uh, which is industrially oriented, is what we are specializing in, and our startups then become our natural partners therefore. We look at it as an integrated continuum, as a solution provider. We go very deep. Startup may not have the bandwidth for that, right? You know, if you are to invest in R&D, it is going to cost you a lot. Our lab has the equipment, the infrastructure, the research facilities, and the staff base. Today, our lab, CNDE, has over a hundred staff members: thirty PhD, thirty masters, more than fifty to sixty project staff. So this entire thing is the providing the R&D base and the IP base, and the startup comes in as a commercialization arm of as such, and therefore, it's a natural sort of,

8. 25:06 – 29:11

   CNDE Lab and associated Startups

   1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:06

      uh, coming together of, uh, the-

   2. SPSpeaker25:08

      The lab you mentioned, CNDE, is, uh-

   3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:10

      Center for Non-Destructive Evaluation.

   4. SPSpeaker25:12

      Which, um, I think, um, the, the head is Professor Krishan Babu Subramanian.

   5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:15

      That's right, yeah.

   6. SPSpeaker25:16

      Uh, I have actually sat in his class. [chuckles]

   7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:17

      Uh-huh.

   8. SPSpeaker25:18

      And I think you've also sat in his class.

   9. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:19

      Yes, I have. Yeah.

   10. SPSpeaker25:20

       So it's amazing, like, uh, it's a long loop back, right?

   11. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:24

       Yeah.

   12. SPSpeaker25:24

       Uh, Krishan Babu Subramanian, I remember he was very popular for his NDE class even back then.

   13. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:30

       Yeah.

   14. SPSpeaker25:30

       And I think, uh, uh, the video recording of classes had just started-

   15. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:35

       Yeah

   16. SPSpeaker25:36

       ... uh, at our time, and I've sat in his classes where, you know, there's a bunch of cameras recording. Amazing professor.

   17. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:41

       Yeah.

   18. SPSpeaker25:42

       And, um, just going back to that lab, uh, s- uh, C- CNDE, right?

   19. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:48

       Yes.

   20. SPSpeaker25:49

       Um, there are a bunch of startups which have come out from CNDE. Um, is it just Solinas, Planys, Xyma, or there are-

   21. PRPrabhu Rajagopal25:55

       We have Detec, we have Dhvani. Dhvani, uh, was the original startup from our lab. It is now three companies. There is one that is doing AI in NDE, there is one that is doing bespoke solutions, and there is one that is developing standard inspection solutions. So that is three companies. Then we have Maximal Labs, which is into shutdown management-

   22. SPSpeaker26:17

       Okay

   23. PRPrabhu Rajagopal26:17

       ... in oil and gas. Then we have Detec Technologies, which started with, uh, pipeline inspection with SHM sensors. They went on into drone inspections. Now, in-- they're into occupational health using drones and cameras and such, and, uh, that's a very high va-- highly valued company from our lab. And then, uh, we have Plenome, which has just come out, which is into blockchain for healthcare. That's our first entry into healthcare space.

   24. SPSpeaker26:41

       Also, lo- like this, this marks a, this marks a change in your interest areas.

   25. PRPrabhu Rajagopal26:46

       Yes.

   26. SPSpeaker26:46

       Because now it's gone from sensors, to robotics, to blockchain.

   27. PRPrabhu Rajagopal26:49

       Data. That's right.

   28. SPSpeaker26:50

       Okay.

   29. PRPrabhu Rajagopal26:50

       Yeah. So that progression has been happening. See, it was first-- it first started with Planys and Solinas. Planys used to send robots underwater, and they used to get gigabytes of data, and then we were left with wondering, "How we- how do we process all of this?" We have video information. We have, you know, video recordings of underwater boi-- uh... you know, settings. Then we must have something by which we can summarize these videos. Same happens with Solinas. They send robots into pipes, and they get terabytes of data back, and we need to process all of it. In Planys, in the beginning, we used to do this manually. It used to take us a week to ten days, five people just poring over this information, you know, finding out what is the feature and so on. Today, we use AI. The AI summarizes and analyzes everything. We have custom-developed AI algorithms for all of this. It is while doing this and while doing Xyma work, where we put sensors on board, on the, in the plant, and then plant managers are starting to wonder, "What about vulnerabilities here? Do you think these sensors could be points of attack? That you're transmitting information from our plant to a remote station, can they be intercepted over there?" That's how I started getting into cybersecurity-

   30. SPSpeaker28:00

       Okay
9. 29:11 – 30:30

   How Blockchain is critical to AI

   1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal29:11

      that. The second thing that is very important for AI is anonymization, because today all of us care about privacy. You know, a lot of information is there with-- but with personal identifier. Banks are identifying so much of your information, my information. When we pay through credit cards, all of this information is accredited at somewhere, right? Hospitals generate a lot of data as well. How do we make sure that, you know, the information about the end customer or end, uh, stakeholder is not there in the data that we use for analytics? And that's where blockchain comes in naturally. You store information in such a way that you keep some things safe and some things that can be out on the chain as such, and that's what this comes in. So my work into healthcare space started off sort of during the COVID pandemic. We all were very familiar with how people were struggling to take their information across geographies. You ca- you do a test in one, uh, laboratory in one state, you cannot cross the borders and go to another place. You have to do a COVID test again in that place, even if it is just in twenty-four hours. So we started looking at medical data interoperability in a very big way in those days, and that's what has led to Plenome today, which is trying to, uh, look at data in the medical space from a cybersecurity angle.... providing interoperability as a sub,

10. 30:30 – 34:34

    Engineering and Technology have always been cross-disciplinary

    1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal30:30

       you know, side effect.

    2. SPSpeaker30:31

       Can I ask you a very silly question here? Does somebody come and tell you, "Hey, this is not mechanical engineering, [chuckles] don't do this, or leave it to the IT?"

    3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal30:40

       It is not silly at all, right? So we have debated a lot in IIT Madras in trying to create a general engineering discipline. B- because none of us today are, you know, uh, practitioners of our core disciplines anymore. Every one of us works cross-discipline, and especially those of us, like, working in fields like NDE. NDE, to start with, was never one discipline.

    4. SPSpeaker31:03

       Mm.

    5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal31:04

       Yes, there is mechanical engineering. Ultrasonics is all stress analysis, ultimately. There is stress waves, but you have electronics, the instrumentation, then you have signal processing. S- there is always, you know, a, a, an element of AI in ultrasonics, and I have seen Professor Krishnan publish a paper in 1998 talking about artificial neural networks for inferring material properties of wood using ultrasonic interrogation. So we have always been cross-disciplinary in some sense. Now, this has gotten accentuated with the, uh, democratization of computer science.

    6. SPSpeaker31:37

       Fair enough. I mean, this year's physics and, uh-

    7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal31:41

       Absolutely, yeah

    8. SPSpeaker31:42

       ... chemistry Nobel went to-

    9. PRPrabhu Rajagopal31:43

       Yeah, yeah.

    10. SPSpeaker31:44

        Co-went.

    11. PRPrabhu Rajagopal31:44

        Yeah.

    12. SPSpeaker31:45

        Yeah, and everybody is up in arms, like the physics world-

    13. PRPrabhu Rajagopal31:47

        We are very excited, [chuckles] uh, to say the least. Yeah.

    14. SPSpeaker31:52

        Um, I- and also, like, on this topic, I, I understand that there's a lot of debate in IIT Madras also, but when we talk to parents or JE students, we keep trying to tell everyone that your discipline is like... I don't know if it matters anymore.

    15. PRPrabhu Rajagopal32:06

        Yeah.

    16. SPSpeaker32:07

        Uh, yeah.

    17. PRPrabhu Rajagopal32:07

        All I would say is that it is- discipline ma- does matter, in the way I would say is that you have domain expertise in something. It is always good to have expertise in one area. Going very deep in something is very good, but when you go very deep, I found that at the foundation, at the root, it's all the same. So meaning all branches unite in some level, at some meta level, right? And that's the depth to which you, you must go, in which everything unites and becomes one. And perhaps data sciences and AI are doing that. We are looking at everything as data, ultimately, everything as information. We're looking at patterns in places where we wouldn't be looking for patterns.

    18. SPSpeaker32:46

        Fair enough. Statistics, uh, pattern recognition, systems thinking-

    19. PRPrabhu Rajagopal32:52

        Absolutely.

    20. SPSpeaker32:52

        These are quite common.

    21. PRPrabhu Rajagopal32:54

        Yeah. Hmm, hmm.

    22. SPSpeaker32:57

        Um, so, um, so I, I also read that this, um, uh, the blockchain club at IIT Madras did a blockchain election. I have zero idea what that means. Can you take me through it and explain what was done?

    23. PRPrabhu Rajagopal33:08

        Thanks for asking that. So in fact, uh, I, I was the faculty in charge for this club for many years, what we call a WebOps and Blockchain Club. These two clubs merged, and I took over at that time. And, uh, they were doing a bunch of very cool projects, because blockchain is a way of, uh, bringing trust in any system, and, uh, trust is lacking whenever you have two, three parties coming together requiring verification, right? And these can be, for example, in copyright issues, what is protected through IP, what is done in metering, uh, water metering, electricity metering, and so on. And then the mother of all problems, which is elections. So you require a, a neutral agency, like an election commission, to certify that somebody authentic has cast their vote. I mean, it's a huge, gargantuan exercise. You maintain this huge body, you have army, you have CRPF, all to just ensure that, you know, I am casting my vote only, I'm not casting anybody else's vote.

    24. SPSpeaker34:05

        And that it has been preserved till the point of counting.

    25. PRPrabhu Rajagopal34:08

        Till the point of counting. What we have done, and it's very cool, the students have done, is that we... the, the bl- blockchain club developed a software, uh, which has a simple system of authentication. Of course, that can be improved later. We just use student ID cards to authenticate, uh, the voter. And then we have a software that ru- runs on a system of distributed nodes. The elections are conducted on that, counting is done on that, results are also announced on that. We have done it in three cycles now.

11. 34:34 – 35:13

    Research at IIT Madras is increasingly product and startup oriented

    1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal34:34

       Three times this has happened. The first time, the club did it. Now, more recently, our startup, Plenome, has done it two times.

    2. SPSpeaker34:41

       Okay. Nice.

    3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal34:43

       And if you did it again-

    4. SPSpeaker34:44

       Again and again, this thing keep-

    5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal34:45

       Yeah

    6. SPSpeaker34:45

       ... coming up, that there are students who are playing around with something, some interest area, and then it moves to a research area, and then it moves to a entrepreneurial area.

    7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal34:54

       Yeah. And that's what in IIT Madras we are very proud about now. We are bridging that gap between fundamental, applied, and, uh, the products-based research. Yeah.

    8. SPSpeaker35:08

       Um, yeah, I think we've spoken a lot. Uh, let's just go back a little bit. Um,

12. 35:13 – 41:15

    His life at IIT Madras

    1. SPSpeaker35:13

       I'm interested in knowing a little bit more about you, uh, as a student, and I know that you've sent, sent us some pictures, let me figure out how to open them. Did you, did you have a nickname?

    2. PRPrabhu Rajagopal35:24

       I was called Gandhi in, uh, IIT.

    3. SPSpeaker35:26

       Yeah, okay.

    4. PRPrabhu Rajagopal35:26

       It's because I used to go to Tirupati very often, get my sha- head shaved, and then I used to wear w- circular glasses, so...

    5. SPSpeaker35:33

       Um, for those who are unaware, can you just tell us about the nickname culture at IIT Madras?

    6. PRPrabhu Rajagopal35:38

       Yeah. So you are an alumnus as well, so you know that many of us know people only by our nicknames, right?

    7. SPSpeaker35:43

       Yeah.

    8. PRPrabhu Rajagopal35:43

       So p- my batch mates don't know me as Prabhu, they know me as Gandhi-

    9. SPSpeaker35:46

       Okay

    10. PRPrabhu Rajagopal35:47

        ... as such. And, uh, we all get a sort of, uh, second name in-

    11. SPSpeaker35:51

        Renamed

    12. PRPrabhu Rajagopal35:51

        ... renamed at IIT.

    13. SPSpeaker35:52

        Yeah.

    14. PRPrabhu Rajagopal35:52

        And that's IIT's way of owning us, I think, right?

    15. SPSpeaker35:55

        Yeah.

    16. PRPrabhu Rajagopal35:55

        So there's also the slang that we learn here, and it becomes part of our lives.

    17. SPSpeaker35:59

        Yeah.

    18. PRPrabhu Rajagopal36:00

        Even today, I think when you connect with your batch mates-

    19. SPSpeaker36:02

        Yeah

    20. PRPrabhu Rajagopal36:02

        ... you, you talk, you call them by their nicknames, and you s- speak in the IIT slang.

    21. SPSpeaker36:06

        Yeah, in fact-

    22. PRPrabhu Rajagopal36:07

        "Hey, macha, ..."

    23. SPSpeaker36:08

        Exactly. And also, there are cases where somebody will ask, "What is his real name?" [chuckles] And you won't know.

    24. PRPrabhu Rajagopal36:14

        You won't know. Yeah.

    25. SPSpeaker36:16

        Uh, so some pictures from your institute time. Do you want to just run-

    26. PRPrabhu Rajagopal36:19

        Yeah, so this was, uh, uh, me, and this is Surya, who I just spoke to you about. Um, I think this may have been either in my hostel room or in his hostel room. Now I can't remember.... Yeah. Uh, so the first picture is, so this is how IIT, uh, people bond together, right? Hari was my junior in mechanical engineering.

    27. SPSpeaker36:39

        Oh.

    28. PRPrabhu Rajagopal36:40

        He was also part of the Vivekananda Study Circle, where I was a senior. He had gone to US for his PhD. I went to US for a conference, but I went, met him, and stayed with him. And this used to happen for a good 10 years when I go to US. In whichever city I used to go, I used to find my batch mates, go meet them, and spend time with them. So this is one of those visits in the US.

    29. SPSpeaker37:00

        The alumni sort of network or the bond exists even beyond... Uh, even if you have not met on campus, it's, it's like a warm-

    30. PRPrabhu Rajagopal37:09

        That's right
13. 41:15 – 45:01

    Poetry and Philosophy

    1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal41:15

       I got through the study circle and, you know, I, uh, you know, understanding the core of who we are. Essentially, that's the quest for Indian philosophy anyway. Yeah.

    2. SPSpeaker41:23

       So, Professor, in, in your LinkedIn bio, it says, "poet." It says, "Innovator, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, et cetera, et cetera. Seven Startups," and then it says, "Poetry." [chuckles]

    3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal41:32

       Yeah.

    4. SPSpeaker41:32

       So would you like to talk a little bit about that?

    5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal41:35

       Yeah, so I usually don't talk about it, because it's a different part of my life. I even write under a different name. That's why perhaps you don't see anything in, uh, with this name. But to me, everything I do is poetry. Poetry is about finding beauty in things. It, it's about literally boy- beauty in words. But to me, uh, it's about beau- finding beauty in everything we do. In fact, it's the same quest, I suppose. See, I'll get a little bit philosophical. We spoke about study circle, uh, Hindu philosophy, and so on, right? In our philosophy, we say that the ultimate reality is Satyam, Shivam, and Sundaram.

    6. SPSpeaker42:11

       Mm.

    7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal42:11

       That is, it is true, it is, uh, auspicious, it is Shivam, but it is also beautiful, the Sundaram. So if you remove Sundaram out of it, the true and auspicious do not make sense to us. To us, all three are together. It has to be beautiful as well. It has to be auspicious, and then therefore, it is the truth. How do you recognize the truth?... No, there is this. So, a lot of things come together. You know, I was called Gandhi, not just because of all of this also. I was actually-- I loved satyagraha and, you know, the whole philosophy behind it, finding the truth for un- for, for oneself. In some sense, I think everything I'm doing is, is that, you know, finding the, you know, the fundamental truths of the nature, trying to apply them in a way that finds auspiciousness and goodness for society. And, uh, so the kind of poetry I practice is also called, uh, what I look at it is this artist- art poetry, where, you know, rhyme and rhythm are not as important as the philosophy behind it. So I do surrealistic poetry, I do magical realism in poetry, and stuff like that. We'll take another day, maybe another podcast-

    8. SPSpeaker43:16

       Okay

    9. PRPrabhu Rajagopal43:16

       ... on my poetry.

    10. SPSpeaker43:16

        Done.

    11. PRPrabhu Rajagopal43:17

        Yeah.

    12. SPSpeaker43:17

        Done. And maybe just as a teaser to, uh, the viewer, maybe we can drop a little bit of link, hint that this is coming up.

    13. PRPrabhu Rajagopal43:25

        Sure. Yeah.

    14. SPSpeaker43:26

        Amazing. I can't believe we have gone through all this. We started with your pr- with your, with your father, who was a professor at a research lab, central-

    15. PRPrabhu Rajagopal43:33

        Scientist, yeah.

    16. SPSpeaker43:34

        Scientist at a central government research lab, uh, all the way to, uh, you... Why, why did you choose IIT Madras?

    17. PRPrabhu Rajagopal43:41

        I guess it was, uh, because my friends were here.

    18. SPSpeaker43:44

        Okay.

    19. PRPrabhu Rajagopal43:45

        Yeah.

    20. SPSpeaker43:46

        Nice. And I remember you said you chose mechanical at IIT Madras.

    21. PRPrabhu Rajagopal43:49

        Yeah. My dad was a mechanical engineer, so-

    22. SPSpeaker43:52

        Yeah

    23. PRPrabhu Rajagopal43:52

        ... that's why I wanted to be a mechanical engineer. Yeah.

    24. SPSpeaker43:54

        Okay. I think, I, uh, I- IIT Madras mechanical engineering department is really large. I remember that the departments were spread across, and I think it's still-

    25. PRPrabhu Rajagopal44:02

        It's still the same, yeah. We have thirteen labs. Yeah.

    26. SPSpeaker44:05

        Um, you went abroad, most of your class did, and then, um, you are back. Your, your, your research areas are ultrasonics, robotics, moving to data science. Over that period, you've, you've co-founded four startups, three more in the pipeline. Do you wanna talk about them also?

    27. PRPrabhu Rajagopal44:22

        Yeah. Um, so I've spoken about Plenome. We are into healthcare management using blockchain, very exciting startup. As we speak, we are trying to do some stuff for the state and for the country as well. We're trying to develop, uh, information management systems for the entire state. Let's see. Let's pray that it happens, right? Um, so... And this is a interface between data and AI, and this is the space in which I'm getting into more and more now. Um, right, and also because of the scalability of the whole thing, I suppose. Now, AI has come up in a very big way across the world. It is impacting every field, as you said, and there is huge excitement in

14. 45:01 – 47:00

    Startup Ventures

    1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal45:01

       Indian government, whether it's the state government or the central government, everybody. So one of the more recent startups of mine is trying to, uh, develop AI-based visual language models for assisting 3D printing.

    2. SPSpeaker45:14

       Hmm.

    3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal45:15

       Okay? So can we send a CAD file, and then now there is an AI model. Just by seeing the CAD file, it'll sort of recognize what it is, and then it'll start trying to give you the materials that you must, uh, choose from. This company is called Matterize, created by this, uh, CFI student head of last year. He just graduated. He was head of the 3D printing club.

    4. SPSpeaker45:35

       Can I ask you a question here?

    5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal45:36

       Yeah.

    6. SPSpeaker45:37

       Do you think there's a little bit of pressure on students to start up now? [laughing]

    7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal45:41

       May not be. I think it is still a fringe movement, to be honest.

    8. SPSpeaker45:44

       Okay.

    9. PRPrabhu Rajagopal45:44

       And we really want to mainstream it.

    10. SPSpeaker45:46

        Uh-huh.

    11. PRPrabhu Rajagopal45:47

        See, CFI has been there for seventeen years.

    12. SPSpeaker45:49

        Yeah.

    13. PRPrabhu Rajagopal45:49

        It has taken Sarthak after seventeen years to create one startup.

    14. SPSpeaker45:54

        Hmm.

    15. PRPrabhu Rajagopal45:54

        The vast majority of the CFI students do not start up.

    16. SPSpeaker45:57

        Right. That's correct.

    17. PRPrabhu Rajagopal45:58

        So I don't think there is that kind of pressure, but yes, there is excitement, there is interest.

    18. SPSpeaker46:03

        Yes. Yeah. Okay, and-

    19. PRPrabhu Rajagopal46:04

        So that is Matterize. Then, um, uh, we, we have a startup, another startup from our lab called, uh, Zeroscape, that is into AR and VR. Right? So a lot of what we did in Planys showed us that we need to represent things in a realistic manner. Now, if you create a... in, in, inspect a tank, for example, it is useless to create a PDF report for it.

    20. SPSpeaker46:29

        Hmm.

    21. PRPrabhu Rajagopal46:29

        Right? Planys itself is now developing representations which are in augmented reality.

    22. SPSpeaker46:34

        Oh, right.

    23. PRPrabhu Rajagopal46:35

        Detect pioneered it, Planys took it. Now we have a company that is actually trying to generalize this.

    24. SPSpeaker46:40

        Right.

    25. PRPrabhu Rajagopal46:40

        So whether it's for real estate, whether it's for jewelry, whether it's for food, logistics, travel, we are trying to create augmented reality models. We're trying to create a marketplace for AR.

    26. SPSpeaker46:50

        Nice.

    27. PRPrabhu Rajagopal46:50

        So that's this company, Zero. Um, I've spoken about Matterize. Um, there is another company called, uh, Botforge Labs, just incubated,

15. 47:00 – 48:20

    Foundational Robotics Work

    1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal47:00

       right? That is trying to build foundational models for robots, for pick-and-place robots. Right?

    2. SPSpeaker47:07

       I, I'm, uh, I mean, I'm staggered by the amount of work that you've done and how confidently and eloquently you're speaking about all this. Um, does it get exhausting?

    3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal47:18

       Never.

    4. SPSpeaker47:19

       Or, like-

    5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal47:20

       Never

    6. SPSpeaker47:20

       ... does it get overwhelming? [chuckles]

    7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal47:21

       Never. So it just, uh, inspires us more and more. A couple of more are coming as well. TerraClime is trying to build an ML-based, uh, water metering system. It's a very cool solution. This young man has... He's actually not an engineer, he's an economist. He was studying in Madras School of Economics. His dad introduced me to him. I was first reluctant to meet him, because there's a lot of people who want to meet me. One day, I just picked up a phone and spoke to him, and what he said in few minutes just blew my mind. I said, "Come down, I'm going to meet you tomorrow." So he was me- you know, measuring, uh, flow with accelerometers. So he was saying that, "I have an ML model, and by looking at, uh, what is the output of an accelerometer, I can predict the flow." So he didn't know the physics of it, so we pinned it down. We said that, "Look, there is turbulence in flow that is related to the velocity, because the Reynolds number is related to the velocity, and you're measuring the Reynolds number, actually, and that's how you're measuring the flow."

    8. SPSpeaker48:18

       Hmm.

    9. PRPrabhu Rajagopal48:19

       So we pinned it down.

16. 48:20 – 51:11

    What makes IIT Madras the Best Place to Build?

    1. PRPrabhu Rajagopal48:20

       Now we are deepening the science behind it.

    2. SPSpeaker48:21

       Interesting. So, um, we have been saying to everyone we meet that IIT Madras is now the best place to build, and this podcast is called The Best Place to Build. So I wanna ask you, in general-... uh, from all your experience, wh- what makes it so? Like, why do, why should somebody believe us?

    3. PRPrabhu Rajagopal48:39

       I think it is this tech stack that you-- I wrote for you, right? Even the other day, I think, uh, the guy who is behind I- IIM Ahmedabad fund, called Kunal Upadhyay, and his friend Pranay, had come in, and they were asking, "Is there a template? Can we replicate this elsewhere?" So to that, I was saying that perhaps there is, you know, one, extensive industry interactions.

    4. SPSpeaker49:03

       Yeah.

    5. PRPrabhu Rajagopal49:03

       Right? Second thing is, a student culture of making, and the third is a culture of starting up. We have all three here. Chennai is a booming industrial town. We have manufacturing here, we have shipping, we have logistics, we have construction, real estate, we have, uh, jewelry. All of that is here.

    6. SPSpeaker49:23

       Yeah.

    7. PRPrabhu Rajagopal49:24

       Right? So industry interactions happen in a very much... We have the a- Atomic Energy Establishment, IGCAR close by.

    8. SPSpeaker49:30

       IGCAR, yeah.

    9. PRPrabhu Rajagopal49:30

       Yeah. You have space as well, Kulashekharapuram. So all these things are here.

    10. SPSpeaker49:36

        Industrial interactions, making culture, and what was the last thing you said?

    11. PRPrabhu Rajagopal49:39

        A culture of starting up.

    12. SPSpeaker49:40

        Mm.

    13. PRPrabhu Rajagopal49:41

        Right.

    14. SPSpeaker49:41

        It's not just making for the making of it, but actually commercializing it and going through the grind, and-

    15. PRPrabhu Rajagopal49:46

        Yeah. Look at the exciting startups that are coming from our ecosystem. Agnikul Cosmos-

    16. SPSpeaker49:51

        Yeah.

    17. PRPrabhu Rajagopal49:51

        - world's first 3D-printed, uh, you know, sounding rockets. We have Galaxeye, space-based telemetry. We have Ather Electric, which is-

    18. SPSpeaker49:59

        Yeah

    19. PRPrabhu Rajagopal49:59

        ... India's first electric bike company.

    20. SPSpeaker50:00

        Ather is truly an IIT Madras incubation cell story.

    21. PRPrabhu Rajagopal50:03

        Yeah.

    22. SPSpeaker50:03

        They were right here?

    23. PRPrabhu Rajagopal50:04

        They were right here. They were the founders of Raftaar-

    24. SPSpeaker50:06

        Yeah

    25. PRPrabhu Rajagopal50:07

        ... uh, team. We have Modularz Housing, a very exciting company. They can build an entire two thousand bed wing of a hospital in one week.

    26. SPSpeaker50:14

        Yeah. And, and this is not new. Like, industrial interaction is, I see-

    27. PRPrabhu Rajagopal50:18

        NSRP, fifty years.

    28. SPSpeaker50:20

        - fifty years.

    29. PRPrabhu Rajagopal50:20

        Yeah.

    30. SPSpeaker50:20

        And, uh, CFI is now-

Episode duration: 51:11