Microsoft Research India to work on UIDAI

Microsoft Research India's annual research symposium, TechVista 2010, was recently organized in Bangalore. A report by Subhankar Kundu

Microsoft Research India, in its fifth anniversary, indicated that it might soon get involved in the Government of India’s dream project, Unique Identification of India (UIDAI) at this year’s Microsoft Research India's annual research symposium, TechVista 2010 in Bangalore.

TechVista brought together the best minds from the scientific and academic worlds onto a common platform and provides an opportunity for the research community, government, and students to interact and exchange ideas on research and its future directions.

TechVista 2010 featured some of the technical and policy thought leaders from India and abroad as speakers.

UIDAI

The inaugural session in the morning featured leading and influential personalities from the government, academia and industry as speakers, with Nandan Nilekani, Chairperson, and UIDAI as the Chief Guest. The timing of this announcement couldn’t get more appropriate than this event to announce its plan. The ex-Infy boss has clearly indicated that Microsoft Research will be taking active part in implementing this project of providing valid identity to more than a billion people to form an inclusive society.

Nilekani said “I am looking forward to work with researchers on technologies like multi-lingual computing and bio-metrics. Microsoft, having such a strong commitment on research, can definitely help in UIDAI project.”

P Anandan, Managing Director, Microsoft Research India said, “We’re interested in any societal challenge and we are eager to contribute. It’s an opportunity for our researchers to comprehend what challenges are involved in this particular project.”

“It has to match our research capabilities like multi-lingual computing or user interfaces for illiterate or coding. Research collaboration is not a planned activity, so conversations happen and then there is a start and there is no specific time-span to it,” added Anandan.

The articulate chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIAI) has also thrown some light on a tentative date when India will see the first set of these numbers rolled out.

Nilekani said, “I expect the first set of UID's will be rolled out between August 2010 and February 2011 but no word of mine can be taken as a final announcement as it all in power point presentation now. We are also targeting to provide these numbers to 600 million people in next five years and for that, we seek help from researchers.”

Nilekani also pointed out that it’s quite tough for go through innumerable computing challenges in creating largest biometric database. There will be a thousand challenges to the research community as it will be the biggest biometric data base that has ever been made, he said.

ResearchAndYou.com

Microsoft Research India has launched ResearchAndYou.com, a dedicated portal for a computer science community portal at TechVista.

The portal seeks to bridge the gap between the small number of computer science researchers in the country and the large pool of potential research talent at the Bachelor’s degree level. ResearchAndYou.com has some of the country’s leading academics and researchers as mentors and aims to achieve the following:

ResearchAndYou.com is expected to provide students with an interactive forum where they can connect with researchers and faculty from fields of their interest to ask questions, explore research opportunities and understand the state-of-the-art. The portal will also serve as a single source of information for resources in different disciplines of computer science and related areas, with links and pointers to different kinds of information, including reference material, research papers, events and conferences, and research news.

“Over the last few years, we are seeing an increase in the applications for PhDs. At this juncture, it is important for the students to get access to quality information that will help them in deciding on the future, in particular, areas of choice for research,” said Dr. N. Balakrishnan, Associate Director, Indian Institute of Science.

“Research, innovation and technological leadership are closely related and interdependent. While India has great talent, it is yet to realize its potential to be a world leader in research. We hope ResearchAndYou.com will be a great resource in helping aspiring researchers,” said Dr. P. Anandan, Managing Director, Microsoft Research India.

Industry-ready graduates

An interesting panel discussion with noted academicians and research scientists rejuvenated the audience with some insightful debate on "The Future of Computing" with Turing award recipients - Prof. Barbara Liskov, Prof. Tony Hoare, Dr. Butler Lampson and Dr. Tony Hey. Prof. Maria Klawe, President, Harvey Mudd College, was the panel moderator.

The most interesting comment, definitely with a good sense of humour, came from Tony Hoare who said the next big thing is going to be mobile phones which will come from Apple.

During the interactive session, audience (majorly from student community), threw some questions to the panel members. The most interesting one was—is it possible to have industry-ready graduates?

Tony Hey pointed out saying it’s possible for first year till the technology changes. Barbara Liskov was against the concept of producing industry-ready graduates. She rather suggested providing basic techniques to enable students adapt and change according to the changing trends.

Hoare again using his good sense of humor said, “It is possible to produce industry-ready graduate. It’s just that the industry is not ready for them.”

Demos and Ph.D. posters

The second session encompassed the demos and Ph.D. posters from the different Microsoft Research labs worldwide, talks by leading researchers and a poster session by Indian Ph.D. students.

The demos included a large spectrum of fields in computer science, and represented some of the cutting edge research being conducted at Microsoft Research. The technical talks addressed some of the most challenging problems in computer science, and ways to approach them. 

The fellow researchers who presented Ph.D posters were from Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs).