If like most people, you also imagine a scientist as a pretty serious, reserved, nerdy and introvert, Prof. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, popularly called “PK” from IIIT Hyderabad will prove you wrong! Chatty by nature and active on social media, Prof. PK loves the academic life which gives him the freedom to choose the problems he wishes to work on. To entice future generations towards research, he exhibits the perks of academic life on social media platforms under the hashtag #ProfGiri.

No two individuals are alike! So, how can we expect them to respond similarly to drugs or treatment? This thought is unveiling a new age in healthcare, an era of precision or personalized healthcare where treatment is tailor-made depending on the genetic composition of a patient. Prof. Vijay Tiwari, a Professor at the UK-based Queen’s University and the Southern University of Denmark, also believes that precision healthcare is a way to go.

I hope you would agree that we cannot do without our mobile for long! This is the reason why we prefer a mobile that can be charged rather quickly so that we can continue our work or mindless scrolling on the phone. But do you know that fast charging can be detrimental to the life of the phone battery and can in extreme cases lead to battery explosion as well!

Technology is now impacting every sphere of our lives but you would agree that one of its most powerful impacts is in the area of Healthcare where it is literally saving lives! This emerging area, that combines technology and healthcare, called Healthcare informatics is helping to provide better and timely care to patients by helping healthcare workers with patient data management, disease diagnosis etc. Dr Gokul S Krishnan, a research scientist at the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, believes that the full potential of AI and Data Science in healthcare has not yet been utilized to help our healthcare personnel and is therefore working in this area among others to help making a significant difference.

Over the years, doctors and researchers have realised that the “one size fits all” approach is not the right way to treat cancer patients as the disease can be caused by a myriad of internal and external factors. This thought is strengthened by the fact that chemotherapy, radiation therapy etc. which are employed for the treatment of cancer patients, have shown a range of side effects and has affected the patient’s recovery from the disease.

As children, we all loved the sight of a flying airplane in the sky. Harshad was no different in this case except that his love for airplanes didn’t stay just in his heart but percolated to his career as well. An aerospace engineer by education and an AI researcher by profession, Dr. Harshad Khadilkar is currently a Senior Scientist at TCS Research where he is applying reinforcement learning approach to optimize operations.

Offline reinforcement learning, a new method of reinforcement learning (RL) is about to make strides in AI technology. The method utilizes the previously collected data for training the algorithm and does not require interaction with the online environment. Richa Verma, a systems engineer at TCS research and PhD scholar at the RBCDSAI-IIT Madras, believes that offline RL has tremendous potential and can scale up systems in a huge way as these offline algorithms can be employed to automate decision-making in various domains like robotics, education and healthcare.

Although science and management are two distinct fields of study, scientific discoveries and inventions have affected business, disrupted markets, and created new trends. Data Science is one such technology that is transforming the way we do business. Machine learning algorithms are helping to predict the stock market trends, credit risks, hire new employees, automate manufacturing plants, etc. This intersection of science and management is what entices Anusha Kumar, a young Data Science researcher who is currently doing her PhD from IIT Madras and working at this interface.

India is a land of many tongues. This linguistic diversity available in the country has attracted linguistic researchers to the country, however, this change in language after every several miles creates a problem of communication for the tourists and travellers. This is where natural language processing, a branch of artificial intelligence, is trying to make a difference. Dr Shreya Goyal, an alumnus of RBCDSAI, IIT Madras and currently a research scientist at American Express, has worked towards solving one such problem in natural language processing for Indian languages through her research.

While sports and academics may seem poles apart to many but Prof. Usha Mohan, who is a Professor at the eminent IIT Madras and a member of RBCDSAI, believes that her involvement in sports is what has provided her with the much-needed resilience required in research. As she teaches and conducts operation research at IIT Madras, she advises her students to dedicate some time in a day for sports as it helps a person to deal with setbacks in a better manner.

Biasness and discrimination are known to be human attributes but time and again AI has been in news for its biased behaviour too. Be it in shortlisting candidates for jobs at a reputed firm Amazon or predicting criminals, AI algorithms have failed on the fairness index. While experts understand that the problem lies with the data fed to AI algorithms, the public fears if this technology is used as such it will increase the existing divide in society.

We are surrounded by smart machines! The machines that speak our language, perform mundane tasks for us and solve our queries and problems. Conversational AI is a field that has opened doors for human-machine interaction and soon this technology will enable machines to talk to zillions in their native languages enabling their technology inclusion. But as we move forward to that path, it is of utmost importance to carry out frequent checks to ensure that the chatbots can interpret our query and language correctly and respond accordingly.

Fiction as it may seem, a day is just around the corner when we will fix our bodies using the tiny microbes that we may otherwise fear. While we already have probiotics that help us with digestive problems, soon, we will have curds and microbial cocktails to cure anxiety, depression, heart issues and many more. Dr Karthik Raman’s interest lies in these tiny beings! He loves to study these bugs that reside in our body to understand their interactions, complex machinery, and how they function in toto.

Toxic air and congestion on the road are the grim realities of the metropolitan cities of India. Prof. Lelitha Devi, who has been working in the area of transportation engineering for nearly two decades, believes that a strong push for public transportation backed by technology and policy is required to make it an attractive option for daily commuters. Her team at IIT Madras is working to bring about that change.

Curiosity, questioning and understanding sentiments have long been considered human attributes. Preksha Nema, a young scientist’s research is all set to change this! Through her research in natural language processing or popularly called NLP, she is trying to shatter the human-machine boundary by giving computers the magical power to question. Born in Jabalpur city located in the heart of India, Madhya Pradesh, Preksha was fascinated by puzzles and computers from early on.

Why is everyone heading in the same direction? Is there an accident ahead? When will I reach home? Why can’t cars fly? These are some of the thoughts that cross our minds while stuck in a traffic jam. As time slowly glides, we are nothing but full of frustration. For Dr. Gitakrishnan Ramadurai, however, this is an exciting opportunity! An opportunity to understand the complex, heterogeneous nature of Indian traffic and thinking of the ways artificial intelligence can solve the traffic congestion issues of India.