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We are pleased to publish interview with Ashish Ranjan, Electronics 2009, who had outstanding academic achievement during the undergraduate study.
Ashish had strong academic record with consistently high GPA in all the semesters in Electronics Engineering. He obtained overall 1st rank in final year and also received BHU medal for academic excellence. Overall, he is recipient of 13 prizes in all in IT-BHU and BHU convocation this year. He has also carried out several research projects in the department.
Yogesh K. Upadhyaya from Chronicle talks to Ashish about his academic achievement.
(Ashish Ranjan)
Click here to view bio-data of Ashish. (PDF file)
Ashish_Ranjan.pdfQ-1: Welcome, Ashish. Please tell us about yourself
I was born in Daltonganj in Jharkhand in a joint family of 8 members. I did my 10th and 12th from St. Joseph’s Convent School and St. Atulanand Convent School in Varanasi. My family is settled in Varanasi. My father was an Assistant Engineer in Gujarat Irrigation department and now he is venturing into his own business. My mother is a housewife. I am the youngest among the four siblings. I have an eldest sister and two elder brothers. I had a pleasant childhood and I was never pulled up for the mistakes that I made while I was a child. My grandfather, father and my elder brother are engineers, so being in a family of Engineers, my priorities were obvious and I cleared JEE in my second attempt.
IT-BHU is a memorable reminiscence. I enjoyed every moment at the institute. Besides getting knowledge from such admirable gurus like PKM sir (as he is popularly known) and Jit Sir, the informal learning at IT-BHU outside the classroom were fantastic and it was a remarkable four year journey at IT. After completion of my B. Tech, I joined Mentor Graphics, Noida and I am currently working with the same as Senior Member Technical staff.
Q-2: You had an excellent track record of academic achievement?
I had been first rank holder since my 1st semester at ITBHU and have achieved a GPA of 9.36 on an absolute scale. The best highlight is the GPA in 7th semester, 9.91. I still regret I could have been a potential 10 pointer.
Being an Institute topper, I was awarded the following medals and prizes:
· B.H.U. Medal for standing First at the B. Tech. Part-IV in Electronics Engineering Examination, 2009.
· Lala Balak Ramji Kohinoor Memorial Gold Medal for securing highest marks at the B. Tech. Part-IV Examination, 2009 among the branches of Civil, Mechanical, Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
· Late Shri Shyam Sunder Lal Razdan Memorial Gold Medal for securing highest percentage of marks in B. Tech. Part-IV Examination, 2009.
· Late Prof. Nagesh Chandra Vaidya Gold Medal for standing First at the B. Tech. Part-IV in Electronics Engineering Examination, 2009.
· Prof. Gopal Tripathi Memorial Gold Medal for securing highest marks at the B. Tech./ B. Pharm. Examination, 2009.
· Dr. (Late) Nandita Saha Roy Memorial Gold Medal for securing First position in B. Tech. Electronics Engineering Final Year Examination, 2009.
· Smt. Arati Paul and Prof. Binod Bihari Paul Gold Medal for securing highest marks in IV Year Examination among all the students of B. Tech./ B. Pharm. Examination, 2009.
· Shri Raj Kishore Kapoor Silver Medal for securing highest marks at the B. Tech./ B. Pharm. Examination, 2009.
· B.H.U. Prize Rs. 500/- ash for securing highest marks in B. Tech. Part-IV (VIII semester) Electronics Engineering Examination, 2009.
· Dr. Annie Besant Prize (in the forms of books by Dr. Annie Besant including copy of the ‘Bhagavadgita’) for standing First position among all the branches of B. Tech. Examination, 2009.
· Dr. Ayyagari Sambasiva Rao Prize Rs. 1000/- cash for standing First at the B. Tech. Part-IV in Electronics Engineering Examination, 2009.
· Late Prof. Manoranjan Sengupta Platinum Jubilee Merit Award Rs. 1000/- cash for securing highest marks in B. Tech. Part-IV in Electronics Engineering Examination, 2009.
Q-3: You were also involved in research activities of your department and cultural activities at the institute.
I did a project on designing a Speech Synthesizer for Indian languages based on formant synthesis method specifically Hindi under the guidance of Dr S. K. Kak (Professor, IT BHU). I also worked on a Perceptron (a neural network based model) based Dynamic Branch Prediction under Mr. P. K. Mukherjee (Associate Professor, IT BHU).I used a SimpleScalar tool set to validate the proposed predictor against commonly used predictors using a free embedded benchmark suite Mibench. Also I worked on Low-Power VLSI Design using DTMOS under Mr. P. K. Mukherjee involving usage of Virtuoso from Cadence.
I did my Summer Internship under Mr. Soumya Mukherjee (Senior Project Manager, Precision Synthesis, Mentor Graphics, Noida). My work involved optimization of run time for different Algorithms used for synthesis of RTL and hence measure the Quality of results for the Standard FPGA Vendors like Altera, Xilinx.
I am majorly inclined towards VLSI Design and Automation. As semiconductor industry aggressively marches towards 45nm CMOS technology and resorts to new materials-device structures in sight for 32nm and 22nm nodes, the challenges posed by these potential technology changes are immense. Hence, It will impact everything starting from front end of line (devices) to the back end of line (interconnects) and finally on the computer aided design (CAD) as well and that’s the reason which drives me to dive deeper into this field.
To enumerate among the extracurricular activities, I was a Coordinator for ‘Electronica’, a circuit design event under Technex. I also represented the Institute for a Campus Conclave organized by AMDOCS in Pune. In addition to above, I was also a member of the Student Council of ITBHU. Still these achievements make me regret that I was never a good dancer or singer.
Q-4: Please tell us about your current job at Mentor Graphics, NOIDA
Mentor Graphics is a US based multinational company dealing in Electronic design automation (EDA) and currently ranked 2nd parallel to Cadence after Synopsys. It has approximately 4000 employees worldwide. Mentor NOIDA is a Corporate R&D centre of Mentor Graphics Corporation with almost 200 employees. The focus area for research and development in NOIDA is Scalable Functional Verification, advanced FPGA synthesis, Debug Tools with advanced Graphical User interface and HDL Language compilers for various EDA tools. EDA is an emerging field to start, with lots of opportunities, especially for the people of Electrical and Electronics background as it not only tests your digital/analog skills but also give you a whole new perspective of data structures and judicious use of them.
Work at Mentor gives an excellent platform for edifice career growth and opportunities. I work in the front end team for Synthesis known as RTLC (RTL Compiler) focussed more into a tool called Design Checker used in the early stage of design creation. Reduction of design cycle is an important task and also cost effective for the big design houses like Intel, Nokia etc and so early checking of severe issues in RTL like (Clock domain crossing, Unsafe state machines etc) reduces the number of iterations resulting into a better quality code at the time of creation.
Q-5: What advise will you give to fellow students to excel in academics at undergraduate level?
I think we must have a proper planning at the onset of every semester as to how we should go about with the subjects. But of course all work and no play makes jack a dull boy! So the fun, the enjoyment and the never ending experience of the stay at IT should also be lived up. Besides all your academic work, you will also be asked to get involved in all sort of clubs and organizations while in college but do not overextend yourself; learn to say NO. It does not mean one should refrain from extracurricular activities, but a balance is needed. Also I think our college does promote a harmonious academic schedule and thus if we balance ourselves, we can enjoy the fun and the studies as well.
A very naive advice could be "Pay attention to the lectures rather than dosing off in classes". Even if the professor follows the textbook pretty closely, sitting in the classroom and listening to the lectures/discussions will help you to comprehend better.
Even if you are struggling in some professor's course approach him/her explaining yourself and they will surely help you out. Ask questions...Howsoever stupid it might be, ask it...not only from your professors, your mentors at Technex or any one. Remember a curious mind is the mother of all inventions. Try to work on some good projects as it not only makes your resume impressive but also gives you new ideas to work with. And last but not the least hard work has no other alternative.
Q-6: Please tell us about your personal life.
I live in a joint family which is still blessed with the presence of grandparents. My eldest sister is a Post Doctoral fellow in Economics from BHU. One of my elder brothers is working in iGATE Global Solutions, Hyderabad as a Sr. Software Engineer and another is pursuing MBA. We have always been encouraged to chase our dreams. It’s the support of our elders and their wisdom which has always helped us to shape our paths through all thick and thin.
I am an ardent follower of cricket. I just love playing and watching cricket and treat Sachin Tendulkar next to God! I like to unwind with soft music. I am moved with the diversity of people around me and so I love to interact with them and share thoughts.
My philosophy of life is “I CAN is 100 times more important than IQ”. Faith in oneself despite of all odds, dedicated and focused hard work coupled with proper strategy is vital for one’s success.
My father has a great influence in my life, as I saw him work diligently and help people without expectation of any favour in return. He always advised me that we must forgive and forget because it will always do us good. I have always tried to follow his belief and would continue trying to think and act like him.
Ashish, it was nice talking to you.
Thanks a lot for this opportunity to share my experiences with the IT Junta. It was a pleasure talking to you.
Ashish can be contacted at: ashish.tronics@gmail.com
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http://www.mentor.com/india/
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We are pleased to publish the following interview with Krishna Vedati, who is Senior Vice President and General Manager (GM) of the Mobile Division at AT&T Interactive. He received his CSE (Computer Science and Engineering) degree from IT-BHU and MS in Computer Science from West Virginia University. He lives in California’s Silicon Valley.
Krishna sold his successful mobile software company, Plusmo, Inc., to AT&T last October. He then joined the company as Senior Vice President and GM of AT&T Interactive’s Mobile Division. Earlier in his career, Krishna worked at software and telecommunications research companies such as Rational Software, Inc. and Valicert, Inc. He founded Covigo, Inc. prior to founding Plusmo, Inc.
As an entrepreneur, Krishna is passionate about building efficient startup teams, developing and executing compelling business strategies, and evangelizing new technologies. His technical expertise includes mobile internet, web security, and telecom software.
Yogesh K. Upadhyaya from Chronicle talks to Krishna Vedati about his successful entrepreneurship and business adventures.
(Krishna Vedati)
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Q-1: Welcome, Krishna. Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Thanks Yogesh. Hello everyone! I am from the 1991 CS (Computer Science) batch. I came to the US for my Masters in CS at West Virginia University. Immediately after completing my Masters degree, I joined a couple of Bell Labs engineers at a very early stage startup, called Performance Awareness Corporation (PAC) as one of the first employees. PAC was acquired by Rational Software in 1997; subsequently, Rational was acquired by IBM. I learned a lot at PAC about startups and what it takes to succeed; that first experience solidified in me a desire to eventually start my own company. I moved to Silicon Valley in 1998 to join another startup company, called Valicert, which was in the secure messaging space and eventually went public. I left Valicert to start a mobile middleware company called Covigo, along with a senior of mine, Srinivas Mandyam (CS 1990). Four years and one dot-com bust later, we sold Covigo to Symbol Technologies (now a division of Motorola, Inc.). I stayed at Symbol for a couple of years, heading up business development for the company’s software division. Eventually, the entrepreneurship bug bit us once again, and Srini and I left to start Plusmo in 2005.
Q-2: Why did you decide about starting Plusmo, Inc.? Why did you sell it?
I started Plusmo along with another IT-BHU alumnus, Srinivas Mandyam (Cs 1990). We started the company with a vision of enabling web developers to easily write mobile programs without having to learn various low level languages such as C and Java. We wrote the first WEB OS (a named coined by Palm Computing) software stack for feature phones. The gist was to write programs using simplified HTML5 standards (HTML, CSS, SVG, JavaScript, etc.) that can work on low-end feature phones.
To evangelize the technology, we launched a direct-to-consumer website, Plusmo.com, which enabled bloggers and non-programmers to rapidly create simple mobile applications, called “widgets”, using online wizards. We had decent early success with widgets: more than 2 million people around the world were using them and more than 35K widgets were published. Since we envisioned advertising as a means to make money, we couldn’t monetize well because our long-tail widgets didn’t have as much traffic as Google’s long tail did. Studying the traffic and usage patterns of our widgets, it was evident we needed to focus on mainstream content. We struck a deal with ESPN India to broadcast cricket live using our technology. That effort really took off, with more than 10 million page views each month. We then focused our efforts on sports, to showcase the strength of our software stack. We licensed sports content for US sports and launched sports casts for mainstream US sports, such as professional football and college football. Fortunately for us, the iPhone was introduced at around this time. Our widgets became very popular as early iPhone apps, generating more than 100 million page views per month during the popular US football season.
While we were monetizing the sports apps, we struck OEM deals with mobile phone manufacturers and operator infrastructure vendors to license our software to generate significant revenues, which was intended to take us to near cash flow positive. Then 2008 happened. The markets crashed. We were very fortunate, having learned some important lessons from the dot-com bust: We had raised only a limited amount of venture capital, and had made the right business decisions, including our focus on developing sports apps while establishing OEM deals. Our success helped to generate interest from various companies, including AT&T. We sold the company to AT&T, which resulted in significant returns for our investors, particularly considering the market conditions.
Q-3: Please describe your role as Senior Vice-President of GM Mobile-AT&T Interactive.
AT&T Interactive is the AT&T business unit responsible for development, delivery and management of advertising products across AT&T's media platforms. I head up the mobile business unit of AT&T Interactive. My division is responsible for strategy, development and execution of products across mobile local search, mobile advertising, and application infrastructure for operators.
Q-4: What will be the future for mobile communication, interactive software and gadgets?
These days, more and more mobile users are consuming web/content through applications. I feel this decade is the decade of mobile communications and mobile data services and unification of online and mobile worlds. We will see one web instead of desktop web and mobile web. HTML5 standards will play an increasing role in unifying the desktop and mobile worlds. App stores are here to stay, as evidenced by the massive growth in smart phones. We already see tons of location-based services on mobile phones. We will soon see smart phones turn into personal wallets and used in daily transactions. Security will be paramount here. In a nutshell, there is going to be lots of innovation in mobile applications, services and infrastructure in the coming years. Hopefully, some of you will end up building great companies in this space.
Q-5: What advice will you give to any engineer planning to start his business in the US?
Any time is a great time to start a company if you have a good idea and solid execution plan. Building a company is a journey: you will learn a lot, you will rise and fall (not necessarily in that order), and, ultimately – if you provide a service or product that brings value to customers – your organization will succeed. Build a company by investing in people. A great book for all of you entrepreneurs is Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. He is better at explaining what it takes to get a startup off the ground than I. Good luck!
Q-6: Please describe your college days
At West Virginia University, the highlight for me was working at a DARPA/NASA funded research lab, the Concurrent Engineering Research Center. I worked on a lot of cool technologies that were ahead of their time with some great people, drank lots of beer and played lots of cricket over the weekends.
At IT-BHU, to be honest, I mostly goofed off after my first semester of intense study, until I realized it was time to apply to US universities and to attempt to get a scholarship. I made lots of good friends across all branches. Of course, I can’t forget the countless number of chais I drank at Mochu’s. The Kashi Yatra days were fun, as were the daily evening Hindu crossword puzzles.
Q-7: Please tell us about your family life
I am married and have 2 kids. My wife’s name is JoAnne Chung Vedati. We have a six-year old son, Abhinav, and 3 year old daughter, Vara. We live in the Silicon Valley Bay area.
Sir, it was nice talking to you.
Thanks Yogesh. Good talking to you too. Thanks everyone!
Krishna Vedati can be contacted at: kvedati@plusmo.com
(We appreciate help from Amira Elgan in conduction interview).
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Education of Krishna Vedati
*B. Tech. CSE (Computer Science and Engineering) in 1991 from Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India
* MS (Computer Science), West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia, USA.
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1) Plusmo Inc.
http://www.plusmo.com/blog/
About Plusmo:
Plusmo is a FREE service that lets you run cool mobile widgets on your phone. Get one-click access to exactly the information you need, when you need it. There are over 20,000 widgets on Plusmo, most of them created and shared by users like you. Plusmo launched in June 2006 and currently averages about a 100 million mobile page views monthly.
2) Krishna vedati in LinkedIn
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/krishna-vedati/0/267/458
3) West Virginia University, USA
http://www.wvu.edu/
4) Concurrent Engineering Research Center, West Virginia University, Morgantown, West Virginia
Concurrent Engineering Research Center, West Virginia University
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4) AT&T Acquires Plusmo to Further Mobile Applications Strategy
http://www.att.com/gen/press-room?pid=4800&cdvn=news&newsarticleid=27189
Dallas, Texas, September 30, 2009
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) today announced the acquisition of privately-held Plusmo, Inc., a leading provider of cross-platform mobile application solutions, bringing to AT&T an open standards technology that will simplify mobile application development, accelerate innovation and deliver a better application experience for consumers. Plusmo will become a part of AT&T Interactive, and the Plusmo mobile application development platform is expected to be used by multiple AT&T subsidiaries, including AT&T Mobility. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Plusmo platform dramatically reduces development time and costs by enabling developers to create widgets and applications using common web development standards that enable easy deployment across multiple mobile operating systems and devices. Plusmo has formed successful relationships with leading carriers, handset manufacturers and well known publishers. It has also developed a number of popular sports widgets that average more than 100 million monthly mobile page views.
“Plusmo’s technology will help us build upon the success and momentum we’re experiencing in mobile local search, which continues to see strong growth,” said David Krantz, president and CEO, AT&T Interactive. “The addition of Plusmo adds a new dimension to our technology prowess through its multi-platform approach. It highlights our commitment to invest in mobile application innovation and search leadership.”
The addition of Plusmo will give AT&T Interactive a greater ability to accelerate its mobile application development, which includes YPmobile, the popular mobile derivative of its YELLOWPAGES.COM web property. It will also help reduce development time and costs, and allow for over-the-air updates whenever new features are available. AT&T Interactive and other AT&T subsidiaries will also explore using the technology to create other applications and widgets that work on the three platforms that consumers use the most: mobile, the computer and TV.
“With the increasing demand for mobile services and applications, it’s an opportune time for Plusmo to be joining the AT&T family,” said Krishna Vedati, CEO of Plusmo. “Plusmo’s mobile platform capabilities will help contribute to AT&T’s effort to accelerate consumer adoption of mobile applications as well as expand the opportunity for publishers, media brands, service companies and developers to reach a large and coveted audience across a broad range of devices.”
About AT&T
AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) is a premier communications holding company. Its subsidiaries and affiliates–AT&T operating companies – are the providers of AT&T services in the United States and around the world. With a powerful array of network resources that includes the nation’s fastest 3G network, AT&T is a leading provider of wireless, Wi-Fi, high speed Internet and voice services. AT&T offers the best wireless coverage worldwide, offering the most wireless phones that work in the most countries. It also offers advanced TV services under the AT&T U-verseSM and AT&T | DIRECTVSM brands. The company’s suite of IP-based business communications services is one of the most advanced in the world. In domestic markets, AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive organizations are known for their leadership in directory publishing, advertising sales and interactive local search applications. In 2009, AT&T again ranked No. 1 in the telecommunications industry on FORTUNE® magazine’s list of the World’s Most Admired Companies.
© 2009 AT&T Intellectual Property. All rights reserved. AT&T, the AT&T logo and all other marks contained herein are trademarks of AT&T Intellectual Property and/or AT&T affiliated companies. All other marks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
Cautionary Language Concerning Forward-Looking Statements
Information set forth in this press release contains financial estimates and other forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results might differ materially. A discussion of factors that may affect future results is contained in AT&T’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. AT&T disclaims any obligation to update and revise statements contained in this news release based on new information or otherwise.
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Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University
Varanasi 221005, UP