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Prahlad Vadakkepat is a researcher in the field of robotics and is the founder and general secretary of the Federation of International Robot-soccer Association (FIRA) and in 2013 is its general secretary. [1] He is an associate professor at the National University of Singapore. [2] His research is in the areas of Humanoids, Neuro-Fuzzy Controllers, Distributed robotic systems, Biomorphic Robots, Intelligent Control techniques and Frugal Innovation.
Vadakkepat grew up in the Palghat District of Kerala, [3] India.
Vadakkepat received B.Tech from NSS College of Engineering in electrical engineering (1986), M.Tech (1989) and PhD (1996) degrees from Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He was with the Regional Engineering College Calicut National Institute of Technology Calicut, India as lecturer (1991–96).
Vadakkepat pursued postdoctoral studies (1996–98) at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology KAIST. He is a recipient of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation KOSEF fellowship. In 1999 he moved to the National University of Singapore.
Vadakkepat's work in FIRA [4] has led to several start ups in robotics and embedded systems. [5] He has toured Europe, Asia and India to popularize FIRA and robotic competitions. [3] He was the general chair to the FIRA RoboWorld Cup and Congress in Singapore, 2005, in Incheon, and in Bangalore 2010. [6]
Vadakkepat is the founder and director of Robhatah Robotic Solutions in Singapore and Bangalore. [7] He initiated the international conference on Computational Intelligence, Robotics and Autonomous Systems. Vadakkepat is an associate editor of the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics. His Humanoid robot [8] and robot soccer teams have won several international prizes: first prize and overall championship in Humanoids at the FIRA Robot World Cup (Germany 2006, Singapore 2005 and Austria 2003), [9] First Prize in open category in Singapore Robotic Games (2004) and Second prize in FIRA 2004.
Vadakkepat is a member of the Confederation of Indian Industries National Committee on Robotics since 2009.
Vadakkepat has served as the secretary to the IEEE Singapore Section for the year 2005 and as technical activity coordinator to the Region 10 (Asia-Pacific) in 2001-2002. He has been a senior member of IEEE (USA, since 2005). He is a fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineers, India.
Vadakkepat is actively involved in Frugal Innovation, for which he visits and promotes projects at the grass-root level. He has taken his students to rural hospitals in Maharashtra to simplify medical treatment processes. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Springer Journal for Frugal Innovation. [10] He runs the 'Ideas for Life' social innovation challenge which seeks design innovations which are simple, novel and useful.
Vadakkepat is featured in a number of newspapers and TV shows in several countries (India, Singapore, USA, Korea, Spain, China and France). [11] He has publications in several international journals. [12]
He is the founder of the Grama Samskrithy Foundation Palakkad.
Vadakkepat is a trustee to the Aryanet Trust which manages Aryanet Institute of Technology, [13] Palakkad, Kerala.
Kozhikode, formerly known in English as Calicut, and Arabic as Qāliqūṭ, is an Indian city, second-largest urban agglomeration in the State of Kerala and 19th largest in the country with a population of two million according to 2011 census. Kozhikode is classified as a Tier 2 city according to Government of India.
Palakkad District, in the southeastern part of the former Malabar district, is one of the 14 districts of the South Indian state of Kerala. It is located right in the middle of the state. It is included in South Malabar region. Also, it is the largest district in Kerala since 2006. The city of Palakkad is the district headquarters. Palakkad is bordered on the northwest by the Malappuram District, on the southwest by the Thrissur District, on the northeast by Nilgiris District, and on the east by Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu. The district is nicknamed "the granary of Kerala". Palakkad is the gateway to Kerala due to the presence of the Palakkad Gap, in the Western Ghats. The 2,383 m high Anginda peak, which is situated in the border of Palakkad district, Nilgiris district, and Malappuram district, in Silent Valley National Park, is the highest point of elevation in Palakkad district. The total area of the district is 4,480 km2 (1,730 sq mi) which is 11.5% of the state's area which makes it the largest district of Kerala. Out of the total area of 4,480 km2 (1,730 sq mi), about 1,360 km2 (530 sq mi) of land is covered by forests. Most parts of the district fall in the midland region, except the Nelliampathy-Parambikulam area in the Chittur taluk in the south and Attappadi-Malampuzha area in the north, which are hilly and fall in the highland region. Attappadi valley of Palakkad district, along with the Chaliyar valley of the neighbouring Nilambur region in Malappuram district, is known for natural Gold fields, which is also seen in other parts of Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.
National Institute of Technology Calicut, formerly Regional Engineering College Calicut, is a public technical university and an institute of national importance governed by the NIT Act passed by the Parliament of India. The campus is situated 22 kilometres (14 mi) north east of Kozhikode, on the Kozhikode–Mukkam Road. It was established in 1961 and was known as Calicut Regional Engineering College (CREC) until 2002. It is one of the National Institutes of Technology campuses established by the Government of India for imparting high standard technical education to students from all over the country. NIT Calicut hosts a supercomputer on its campus, and has a dedicated nanotechnology department.
NSS College of Engineering, Palakkad is the fourth engineering educational institution established in Kerala, India. It was founded in 1960 by Nair Service Society. The college is one among the only three Govt-Aided Engineering colleges in Kerala and the first Govt-Aided Engineering College accredited by NBA of AICTE. The college is affiliated to the APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University.
The College of Engineering Trivandrum, commonly known as CET, is the first engineering college in Kerala, situated in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala. It was founded in 1939 during the reign of the Travancore King, Chithira Thirunal Balarama Varma.
The Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations (FIRA) is an umbrella body of 83 rationalist, atheist, skeptic, secularist and scientist organisations in India.
Palakkad,(Malayalam: [pɐːlɐkːɐːɖɨ̆]), also known as Palghat, is a city and municipality in the state of Kerala in India. It is spread over an area of 26.60 square kilometres (10.27 sq mi). It is the administrative headquarters of the Palakkad District. The city is situated about 350 kilometres (220 mi) north of state capital Thiruvananthapuram, 50 kilometres (31 mi) southwest of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, 66 kilometres (41 mi) northeast of Thrissur, and 127 kilometres (79 mi) southest of Kozhikode, on the meeting point of two National Highways namely, Salem-Kochi National Highway NH 544, and Kozhikode-Malappuram-Palakkad National Highway NH 966. Palakkad is also known as the rice bowl of Kerala. The 18th-century Palakkad Fort has sturdy battlements, a moat, and a Hanuman temple on its grounds. North on the Kalpathy River, the 15th-century Viswanatha Swamy Temple is the main venue of the Ratholsavam chariot festival. Northeast, near Malampuzha Dam, the town of Malampuzha has a rock garden created from recycled materials. The river Bharathappuzha flows through Palakkad city. Palakkad is located on the northern bank of Bharathappuzha River.
The Federation of International Robot-soccer Association [sic] or FIRA for short is an international organisation organising competitive soccer - usually 5-a-side - competitions between autonomous robots.
The importance and antiquity of education in Kerala is underscored by the state's ranking as among the most literate in the country. The educational transformation of Kerala was triggered by efforts of the Church Mission Society missionaries, who were the pioneers that promoted mass education in Kerala, in the early decades of the 19th century. The local dynastic precursors of modern-day Kerala—primarily the Travancore Royal Family, the Nair Service Society, Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam and Muslim Educational Society (MES)—also made significant contributions to the progress on education in Kerala. Local schools were known by the general word kalaris, some of which taught martial arts,but other village schools run by Ezhuthachans or Asians were for imparting general education. Christian missionaries and British rule brought the modern school education system to Kerala.
Kizhakeyil Lukose Sebastian is a professor of chemistry at the department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry of Indian Institute of Technology, Palakkad, India. Prior to becoming a professor at IIT Palakkad, he was a professor of chemistry at the department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, for about 20 years.
Kunnamangalam is a growing census town located about 14 km east of Kozhikode (Calicut) city on the Calicut-Bangalore National Highway. Nearby places are Koduvally, Mukkam, Chathamangalam, and Kettangal. India's premier educational institutions like Indian Institute of Management, Kozhikode (IIMK), National Institute of Technology Calicut, National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology, Indian Institute of Spices Research, and Kerala School of Mathematics, Kozhikode are located here. Kunnamangalam is developing as a suburb of Kozhikode, Kunnamangalam is the east side entry of Calicut city.
Koppillil Radhakrishnan is an Indian space scientist who headed the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) between November 2009 and December 2014 as Chairman of Space Commission, Secretary of the Department of Space and Chairman of ISRO. Prior to this, he was the Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (2007-2009) and Director of National Remote Sensing Agency (2005-2008) of the Department of Space. He had a brief stint of five years (2000-2005) in the Ministry of Earth Sciences as Director of Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS).
Bennet and the Band is a backing band founded in 1998 by Bennet Roland, Guitarist/Music Director, from Kerala. Band specializes in genre based re-orchestration of popular melodies, Indian film tunes and traditional folk melodies for which the band uses session musicians lined up according to the type of music they need to play for the singer with whom they are jamming. Its performances with the singers often involve improvisation.
Sathees C. Raghavan is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He is from Kannur, Kerala. He was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for science and technology, the highest science award in India, for the year 2013 in the biological science category. He was awarded the prize for his research work on novel DNA repair inhibitors that can target cancer cells. He received his BSc in Zoology from Payyannur College, Payyannur, MSc in Zoology with Entomology Specialization from University Center, Calicut University, Calicut, and PhD in Zoology from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi India in 2000. He completed postdoctoral research at the University of Southern California Los Angeles from 1999 to 2006. His main research interests are cancer genetics, genomic instability, DNA repair, and recombination.
Kerala Science Congress is an annual gathering of Kerala-based scientists and scholars organised by Kerala State Council for Science, Technology and Environment (KSCSTE) for revitalizing Research and Development activities in Kerala and to identify new talents in scientific research in Kerala. KSCSTE is an autonomous body constituted by the Government of Kerala. The gathering features talks by invited scientists, presentations of research papers and awards of various prizes.
Kunnath Puthiyaveettil Padmanabhan Nambiar DIC (Lond), FIEE (Lond), CEngg (Lond.), more popularly known as K.P.P. Nambiar, was an Indian industrialist and technocrat, known for his work in the field of industrial development and technology. He was awarded Padma Bhushan by Government of India for his contributions to the field of technology in 2006.
Chandrathil Gouri Krishnadas Nair is an Indian technocrat, teacher and metallurgical scientist known for his contributions in the field of aeronautical metallurgy. Dr Nair was given the Padma Shri Award by the Government of India for his contributions to science and technology in 2001.
Aparna B. Marar is an Indian classical danseuse from Kerala. She has attained accomplishment as a dancer, organiser, art educator, choreographer and singer. She is also an engineer with a postgraduate degree in wireless communication engineering from PSG College of Technology. She has received numerous honours including the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Academy's Yuva Prathibha Award, Calicut University's Kalathilakam Award, and a national scholarship by Ministry of Culture.
South Malabar refers to a geographical area of the southwestern coast of India covering some parts of the present-day Kerala. South Malabar covers the regions included in present-day Kozhikode Taluk of Kozhikode district, whole area of Malappuram district, Chavakkad Taluk of Thrissur district, and Palakkad district excluding parts of Chittur Taluk. The Fort Kochi region of Kochi city also historically belongs to South Malabar. The term South Malabar refers to the region of the erstwhile Malabar District which lies south to the river Korapuzha and bears high cultural similarity with both the Cochin as well as the North Malabar region. During the British rule, South Malabar's chief importance lay in producing pepper.