1987 - B.Tech - Electrical Engineering Co-Founder, Virident and Global Vice President of Strategy and Products @ HGST, USA
Dr. Kumar Ganapathy graduated with a B.Tech. degree in Electrical Engineering from IIT Madras in 1987, receiving the Siemens Gold Medal for his work. He went on to complete an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1989, then a Ph.D. in the area of novel computing architectures for Digital Signal Processing from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1994. After receiving his doctorate, Dr. Ganapathy served as a Rockwell Fellow and Distinguished Engineer at Rockwell Semiconductors, working with technologies such as the 56K bit modem, GSM baseband processors, DSP processors and ADSL modems. By 2013, he had co-founded two successful start-ups (VxTel and Virident), which were both acquired for a combined net worth of over $1.2 billion. Following the acquisition of VxTel by Intel, Dr. Ganapathy served as the Director of Architecture in the Ultrawideband Networking Operation and Edge Access Division, as well as in the Chief Technology Officer at Intel. After the acqusition of Virident by Western Digital, Dr Ganapathy served as Vice-President of Products and Strategy for Flash Platforms Group at HGST (a WD company).
Apart from his career in industry, Dr. Ganapathy also has over fifty patents along with twelve research articles. This rich academic background, coupled with his expertise in subjects such as cloud computing, SaaS, flash memory, enterprise storage and ASICs, is reflected in more than 20 years of entrepreneurial and leadership experience across start-ups and larger organizations.
Both as a student and as a successful entrepreneur, Dr. Ganapathy has shown an active interest in professional networking, participating in societies associated with fault tolerant computing, digital signal processing, computer architecture and high-performance storage. As a business leader, he is dedicated to the idea of start-ups for disrupting large markets, using the platform of entrepreneurship to create global impact.
For his multifaceted and illustrious career and commitment to technology and innovation as the driver of change, IIT Madras and its alumni are proud to confer this award upon Dr. Kumar Ganapathy.
