IIITM-K researcher notches up IBM’s coveted award

Thiruvananthapuram: US technology firm International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) has conferred the prestigious IBM Shared University Research Award carrying over Rs two million on Dr R Jaishanker R Nair, Associate Professor and Coordinator (Ecological Informatics), C V Raman Laboratory of Ecological Informatics, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Kerala (IIITM-K).

Dr Jaishanker is chosen for the award, which carries US$35,000, in recognition of his achievements in his area of expertise.

The purse forming part of the honour will be used to integrate the IBM’s cloud platform (BlueMix) to study crop production.

The proposed study will test whether crop yield can be predicted using some models integrated with IBM Bluemix. Whilst this is now possible in standalone machines, a cloud mounted model is innovative in the field.

The test will cover one rice and wheat field each in India. The technology also will be disseminated to the Northern parts of the country.

IIITM-K is an autonomous institute set up by the Government of Kerala to promote higher education and research in the field of Information Technology and allied areas.

The IIITM-K’s mission is to be an institution of excellence in education, research, development, and training in basic and applied Information Technology and Management and to be a leader in educational networking and services provider for higher education and professions.

IBM Research is one of the world’s largest and most influential corporate research labs, with more than 3,000 researchers in 12 labs located across six continents.