video services, including digital TV, High Definition TV and streaming video, ushering in a digital video revolution,” said the Society in a statement here.
Born in 1946 in Karnataka, 71-year-old Netravali studied at Elphinstone College in Mumbai and graduated in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay (IIT-Bombay) before migrating to the US in 1967 for post-graduation and doctorate from Rice University at Houston in Texas.
“Netravali possesses extraordinary leadership and brilliant conceptual and research capabilities. We are honoured to be presenting him with this well-deserved recognition,” asserted Society’s Chairman Vint Cerf in the statement.
Named after Nobel laureate Guglielmo Marconi, who invented radio, and set up in 1975 by his daughter Gioia Marconi Braga through an endowment, the Marconi Society awards annually an outstanding individual whose scope of work and influence emulate the principle of ‘creativity in service to humanity’ that inspired Marconi.
The prestigious Prize, including $100,000 (Rs 65 lakh) in cash will be awarded to Netravali at a Summit in New Jersey on October 3 after a symposium on digital video and its societal impact at Nokia Bell Labs in Murray Hill in New York.
“Everywhere you look, video is transforming the way we communicate on mobile devices and how we consume entertainment and news. Movies, YouTube and live streaming is transforming how people interact,” noted Cerf.
The next generation of video based on Netravali’s technology, including virtual reality, promises to revolutionise video consumption, delivery and business models once again. “Few things have had a greater impact on communications in recent years than the digital video revolution led by Netravali,” said Cerf, ‘Father of the Internet’ and also Chief Evangelist at the world’s largest search engine Google in California. Netravali had set up an inter-disciplinary team of researchers and developers at Bell Labs in New Jersey to develop new technologies like HDTV and MPEG for time to market. Netravali’s long career at Bell Labs since 1972 included launching research in video coding and compression in the early 1980s and HDTV and video networking research in the early 1990s. Netravali convinced Bell Labs to take up big-ticket initiatives like HDTV and Softswitch. His research team proved their viability, earning the company a trial with TV maker Zenith and the first commercial launch of the HDTV system, which was a hit with the consumers and a profitable enterprise for the US telecom behemoth AT&T. During his career at Bell Labs, Netravali promoted a collaborative approach to research. “Bell Labs cultivated the brightest minds across science and engineering disciplines. It is this diversity that enables large-scale system development,” said Netravali in the statement.