Know our people - Dushyanthi

Dushyanthi - Model, singer, actress, and dancer

Dushyanthi's debut video "Many Men" has secured the #2 spot on the MTV DESI countdown, the #4 spot on MTV Tempo, and is in rotation on MTV Tr3s, ImaginAsian, and AVS tv. Vote for Dushyanthi on MTV Tr3s here.

Since the age of 5, Dushyanthi has been singing and dancing. Performance is her passion. "My grandmother was a music teacher in Sri Lanka so she always had my sisters and I singing Tamil songs while she played the piano and violin."

Born in Brooklyn, raised in Connecticut, Dushyanthi also was heavily influenced by the American sounds around her. "My music is urban/pop with a bit of Indian influence. We worked hard to get that fusion sounding right." Dushyanthi teamed up with well-known producer Mark Wilson (Destiny's Child, Will Smith, Brandy) and co-wrote every song with Wanda Lewis and Tre and LA (Tamia, Christina Milian). The result is a sound that people from all backgrounds can identify with.

From the age of 12, Dushyanthi trained intensively in vocal and dance classes. She studied ballet, hip-hop, and Indian dance. "I love to dance—hip-hop, belly dancing, Indian, salsa—I love all of it." She also spent years in acting classes—even dedicating herself to a program in musical theater at the Boston Conservatory.

All the while, Dushyanthi focused on college. "My parents always stressed the importance of education." Dushyanthi graduated summa cum laude from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst with a major in Psychology and a double minor in Women's Studies and Spanish.
After returning to NYC, Dushyanthi was approached by several top modeling agencies while working as an inner city youth counselor in SoHo. She quickly found modeling success with jobs including Savoy magazine, a bridal show for FOX, Redken hair, and many more. She then expanded her career into the realm of acting and landed spots on Sex and the City and a commercial for Showtime to name a few. Recently she wrote and directed a play infused with spoken word entitled Love Vibe with the help of Reg E. Gaines, writer of Tony Award winning musical Noise Funk.

Singer, dancer, actress, writer—Dushyanthi does it all. Her incredible beauty is matched by God-given talents, an amazing work ethic, and unstoppable drive. "I work hard at everything I do, I rely on my family to keep me grounded and I love being creative," she says. "I hope that when people hear my music, they just enjoy it." And they will. Dushyanthi is a unique talent in the music industry today.

Know our people - Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan

Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan, a fiction writer and journalist, lives in New York. She is a 2002 graduate of Harvard College. In 2005, she received an MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and in 2005-2006, she was the Bennett Fellow and writer-in-residence at Phillips Exeter Academy.

In 2007, she graduated from the new MA program at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, where she was a Bollinger Fellow specializing in Arts & Culture journalism. She has written and reported for The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sepia Mutiny, and The American Prospect, among others. She is the vice president of the South Asian Journalists Association and a member of the graduate board of The Harvard Crimson.

This fall, she is a writer-in-residence at Skidmore College. Random House published her first novel, Love Marriage, in April.

About the Novel - Love Marriage

"In this globe-scattered Sri Lankan family, we speak only of two kinds of marriage. The first is the Arranged Marriage. The second is the Love Marriage. In reality, there is a whole spectrum in between, but most of us spend years running away from the first towards the second"

Yalini, the daughter of Sri Lankan immigrants who left their collapsing country and married in America, finds herself caught between the history of her ancestors and her own modern world. But when she is summoned to Toronto to help care for her dying uncle, Kumaran, a former member of the militant Tamil Tigers, she is forced to see that violence is not a relic of the Sri Lankan past, but very much a part of her Western present.

While Kumaran's loved ones gather around him to say goodbye, Yalini traces her family's roots—and the conflicts facing them as ethnic Tamils—through a series of marriages. Now, as Kumaran's death and his daughter's politically motivated nuptials edge closer, in the tradition of her family, Yalini too must decide where she stands.

Lyrical and innovative, V. V. Ganeshananthan's novel brilliantly unfolds how a new generation of war both forms and fractures families.

Praise for Love Marriage

"Ganeshananthan has created a slow-burning and beautifully written debut in Love Marriage. It is an evocative examination of Sri Lankan cultural mores, and the way one family is affected by love and war."
—The Financial Times

"Innovative….this is an ambitious family drama about an underreported part of the world, filled with well-shaded characters [and] gorgeous flourish…Buy it."
—New York Magazine

"...Love Marriage is surprisingly feminine and fable-like in its inquiry into chilling moral choices... some lines are as evocative as forgotten tunes..."
—Washington Post Book World

"...at its best and simplest, Ganeshananthan can be profoundly moving. She captures the pain of exile poignantly."
—The San Francisco Chronicle

Know our people - Mani Subramanian

Mani Subramanian - Chairman & CEO - Keane Inc.

Mani Subramanian is the chairman and CEO of Keane. Mani founded the company IT Solutions, subsequently re-branded as Caritor, as a one-man operation in 1993, and moved on to create a successful global entity with a solid foundation for significant growth over the coming years. In 2007, Caritor achieved yet another milestone by combining with Keane. The company now operates under the Keane brand name.

Mani's vision and core values have been the driving force for the company and its success since its inception. His unwavering focus on developing relationships and partnering with clients has given rise to an organization that provides high-quality services to Global 1000 organizations across the world. The ongoing success of these long-term relationships provides the foundation for future growth of the Keane business.

Mani has more than 36 years of experience in the global information technology industry, managing divisions and businesses in the UK, India, and the United States. Prior to starting Caritor, Mani was the president of Wipro Systems and was responsible for leading Wipro through a period of significant growth in its IT offshoring business. Before joining Wipro, Mani was part of the top management team at Tata Consultancy Services and was instrumental in growing their UK operation. Widely regarded as a turnaround architect in the IT corporate world, Mani has made several business-related contributions of major significance in the field of computer software. He has been the subject of numerous articles in professional publications in India.

Mani holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai and a post-graduate diploma in business administration (PGDBA) from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Know our people - Srivats Sampath

Srivats Sampath is President and CEO of Mercora, the world's largest and legal music radio network. Srivats was most recently with McAfee.com (NASDAQ:MCAF) before merging the company with Network Associates (NYSE:NET) in October 2002.

He served as McAfee.com's founder, President and Chief Executive Officer from December 1998, bringing over 15 years of experience serving in management and executive roles in the computer industry. Prior to founding McAfee.com, Srivats was with Netscape Communications, a provider of Internet software and services, as Vice President of Product Marketing. From June 1993 to June 1996, Srivats served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Discussions Corporation, a company he founded to develop email-based groupware solutions.

Srivats also worked as Director of Product Marketing for Network and Security Products for Central Point Software, Inc., and was the Chief Architect and co-founder of the LAN Enhancement Operations and Microcomputer Communications Division of Intel Corporation. Srivats serves on the boards of Determina and as Chairman of Voltage Security.

He received his B.S. degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from Madras University in India. Srivats also holds multiple patents in delivering security-as-a-service and contextual internet advertising.

Know our people - Srinidhi Varadarajan

Srinidhi Varadarajan is the director of Terrascale computing facility and an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Virginia Tech. He is also the architect of System X, one of the world's fastest and least expensive supercomputers.

Achievements & Awards

He was the lead designer of Virginia Tech’s supercomputer, System X, ranked in November 2003 as the fastest supercomputer at any University in the world. He conceived the idea to use off-the-shelf commercial products to design a supercomputer and built his system in a little less than three months. He targeted price/performance since he did not have the hundreds of millions of dollars available to him that it took to build the world's current top two supercomputers.

The number one supercomputer, Japan’s Earth Simulator, was estimated to cost between $250 and $350 million, and the Department of Energy’s ASCI-Q, a dedicated weapons facility in the number two slot, had an estimated construction cost of $215 million. When System X was rated number three, Varadarajan had accomplished his goal for a mere $5.2 million, an unbelievable price in the field of high-performance supercomputing. This low cost represents a paradigm shift in supercomputing; it means that based on Varadarajan’s work, other major research universities and enterprises can build their own supercomputer.

Dr. Varadarajan is the recipient of the ComputerWorld Honors Award in the Science Category 2004, a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, the Egg Factory Technology Innovation award and a Faculty Fellow award from the College of Engineering, Virginia Tech. Technology Review, MIT’S magazine of innovation honored him in 2004 as one of the top 100 (TR100) young innovators transforming technology.

Personal life

His reading interests are in the, natural sciences - mainly physics, philisophy, international politics/foreign policy and evolutionary biology. In fiction, he likes the classics of which he has a collection of reprints of first editions.

He listens to Indian classical music, both Hindustani and Carnatic. Ravi Shankar's compositions are his favorite, particularly his series with the London Philharmonic. Other favorites include Asad Ali Khan - Rudra Veena, Shiv kumar Sharma - Santoor, N. Rajam, Kunnaikudi Vaidyanathan - violin, and Zakir Hussein and Alla Rakha on the tabla. Among vocalists, he listens to Bhimsen Joshi, Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Balamurali Krishnan and Maharajapuram Santhanam. In light music, he prefers old Hindi songs from the 1950s to the 70's, and classic rock - Doors, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Queen and Led Zeppelin.

Other hobbies include flying and home-brew electronics, particularly microprocessor kits, and discrete solid state amplifiers.

"I still swear by the fidelity of a high power transistor driving a decent pair of Maggies - I use the larger 20.1s and they sound great. One of these days maybe I'll get around to seeing why the audiophiles keep raving about vacuum tubes :-)."

Know our people - Rangaswamy Srinivasan

Rangaswamy Srinivasan

Rangaswamy Srinivasan is inventor at IBM Research. One of the famous inventions he has contributed to is LASIK.
Born Feb 28 1929

Far Ultraviolet Surgical and Dental Procedures
Patent Number(s) 4,784,135

Inducted 2002

In 1981, Rangaswamy Srinivasan discovered that an ultraviolet excimer laser could etch living tissue in a precise manner with no thermal damage to the surrounding area. He named the phenomenon Ablative Photodecomposition (APD)

Invention Impact

Srinivasan and his co-inventors ran tests using the excimer laser and a conventional, green laser to etch organic matter. They discovered that while the green laser produced rough incisions, damaged by charring from the heat, the excimer laser produced clean, neat incisions. In 1983, Srinivasan collaborated with an ophthalmic surgeon to develop APD to etch the cornea. It resulted in a procedure to correct vision known today as LASIK surgery. Since the introduction of LASIK, millions of people have taken advantage of this procedure that reduces dependency on corrective lenses.

Biography

Dr. Srinivasan obtained his B.Sc in Chemistry and his M.S. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Madras, India. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Southern California in 1956. After post-doctoral work at the California Institute of Technology and at the University of Rochester, he joined the IBM, T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY as a research staff member. He devoted the entire span of thirty years at the IBM Research Center to fundamental investigations on the action of ultraviolet photons from mercury lamps as well as excimer lasers on organic materials including small molecules, polymers and tissue. Since 1990 he has continued this work at his own company, UVTech Associates.

In addition to numerous awards received during his career at IBM, Dr. Srinivasan received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1965, the 1997 National Award for Creative Invention from the American Chemical Society, the G.H. Esselen Award for Chemistry in the Public Interest in 1997 and the 1997 Indian Scientist of the Year Award from the Association of Indians in the U.S.

Know our people - Anand Chandrasekher

Anand Chandrasekher (born 1963, Madras, India)

Anand Chandrasekher is senior vice president and general manager of Intel Corporation's Ultra Mobility Group. This group is responsible for low power Intel® Architecture products, ultra-mobile PC's, mobile internet devices, smart mobile and hand-held market segments. Chandrasekher's responsibilities include strategic direction, platform planning, design, development, marketing and business management for this segment. Chandrasekher's team is responsible for developing the technologies behind the Intel® Atom™ processor and Intel® Centrino® Atom™ processor product families.

Prior to his current assignment, Chandrasekher was senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Sales and Marketing Group; in this capacity, he had responsibility for worldwide sales and marketing operations and served Intel's global customer and market needs.

Previously, Chandrasekher was vice president and general manager of the Mobile Platforms Group. Chandrasekher led the team responsible for the architecture, design, development and marketing of Intel's platform solutions for the mobile computing segment. He led the team that delivered Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology to the market; and, under his leadership the mobile group became the fastest growing business unit at Intel. He was promoted to Intel corporate vice president in 2003.

Prior to his Mobile Platforms Group role, Chandrasekher was vice president of the Intel Architecture Group and general manager of the Intel Architecture Marketing Group, where he led strategic planning and marketing activities for Intel's enterprise, mobile and desktop platform products – in this capacity, he was responsible for the launch and ramp of the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor family of products. In 1997, Chandrasekher formed and led Intel's Workstation Platform Group and was its general manager through 1999 – under his leadership, Intel's workstation business grew into a multi-billion dollar business. From 1995 to 1997 he served as technical assistant to Craig Barrett, current Intel Chairman of the Board.

Chandrasekher earned his bachelor's degree in computer science and a master's degree in engineering from Cornell University. He received an MBA from Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. Chandrasekher remains an active supporter of Cornell's programs and of the American India Foundation; he is an elected member of Cornell's Council of Trustees. He has been with Intel since 1988.