Nina Saxena Excellence in Technology Award

A first of its kind, India-wide award, to encourage and promote, technical innovation.

The Board of Governors of the IIT Kharagpur has approved the Nina Saxena Excellence in Technology Award, a first of its kind, India-wide award to encourage and promote technical innovation. The award also commemorates the spirit and memory of it’s alumna Dr. Nina Saxena, B.Tech (Hons.), ECE 1992 who passed away tragically in 2005.

The award, to be conferred every year at the IIT Foundation Day, is made possible by contributions from IIT Kharagpur Alumni to remember Dr. Saxena’s desire and drive for technical excellence, during her short but illustrious life.

The first award is to be conferred at the IIT Foundation Day, August 18th, 2007.

The award will be open to all Technologists who are Indian Citizens.

This award will be made to the technologist, for the best application of technological practices or a technological breakthrough. The best technical innovation shall be decided based on the following dimensions and in the following order of importance:

a) Innovation above and beyond well known results

b) Novel Application of a well known result

c) Societal improvement

d) Benefit to India

e) Application of Technology to underdeveloped areas and causes

A distinguished committee will be formed every year by IIT Kharagpur chaired by the Director, to decide the award. The nominations have to be sent to IIT Kharagpur and the committee will make its decision based on the nominations.

Additional details of nomination process will be announced soon.

To learn more about this and other projects supported by the IIT Foundation, visit http://www.iitfoundation.org/projects .

To contribute towards this and other projects, visit http://www.iitfoundation.org/donate . Financial contributions are tax-deductible for US Federal Tax payers.

Bio-graphical note on Dr. Nina Saxena:

Nina despite being born in a middle class family and despite having spent her childhood in the beautiful but isolated suburbs of tribal Jharkhand rose above expectations. Signs of genius were there from the beginning. Her scientifically detailed handwritten note on “transferring sense of smell” when she was in class VIII (which was patented recently in the US) and her gold medal for All India CBSE (Class XII) in physics, gave ample proof of things to come. In spite of all odds, she was selected for three All India Engineering and two All India Medical Competitions. She, however, chose to graduate from IIT Kharagpur in the discipline of Electronics and Communications Engineering. Again going against the tide, and in spite of best job offers, she joined a research project at IIT Kharagpur, undertaking work in the area of producing medical instrumentation at cheap and competitive rates in India. She devoted two years to working on the project after her graduation.

She did her M.S. in Computer Science from USF Tampa. She graduated with perfect GPA (4.0/4.0) and was adjudged topper of the class. On account of her brilliance, she was awarded the much coveted graduate fellowship (along with the usual scholarship and tuition waiver). She was also honoured by multiple honour societies, like Epsilon Pi Epsilon and Phi Kappa Phi. She thereafter undertook her Ph.D in Computer Engineering at University of Texas, Austin in the area of Formal Verification. Where again she came out with flying colours, completing her Ph.D in three years with perfect grades (4.0/4.0). She was again adjudged topper. During the entire period she had to financially support her ageing parents. She subsisted on 50c Bean Burritos and undertook tuition to support herself financially during these periods.

After graduation, she was offered jobs in prestigious US companies. Her desire to be on the leading edge of technology led her to INTEL, where she joined as a senior engineer. She led cutting edge research and development in the area of next generation architecture design and formal verification and was awarded multiple distinguished awards and plaques for leading path-breaking R&D efforts. She was recognized as an authority in her area and was invited to be in the program committee and to be session chair in top-tier conferences (including ICCD).

Nina was very unassuming and down-to-earth person. She never flaunted her achievements. She was extremely simple and hardworking person. At the same time, she stood by her convictions and continually strived towards correcting negative stereotyping of minority women in technology.

During her successful career, Nina was always interested in alleviating poverty in India. She initiated contacts with govt. departments and agencies to assist her in an effort to use sustainable energy (Solar energy) for projects meant for rural and tribal development. In parallel, she also was trying to raise money through venture capital firms to achieve her goal. Nina passed away tragically in 2005 and her dreams remain unfulfilled.

The Nina Saxena Excellence in Technology Award is to commemorate the spirit of technical excellence that Nina embodied. More details are available at the Nina Saxena Memorial Fund web-site.