IBM Fellow and Former IBM India Chief Scientist 
Dr. C. Mohan's Contributions to India

As an undergraduate chemical engineering student at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM), C. Mohan became enthusiastic about computers after IITM received an IBM mainframe 370/155 in 1973 and he started using it immediately as a hobby. Mohan contributed to the Computer Club in IITM as the secretary and the president during 1975-1977, and to the Computer Society of India (CSI) in Chennai and in CSI's annual conference. Even though Mohan left India in 1977 to pursue a PhD in USA and after completing his PhD in 1981 started working at the IBM Research Laboratory in California, he continued to be passionate about India, especially in advancing the level of knowledge and practice of computer science in India. On every one of his India visits, including personal ones, he visited educational, professional (ACM, CSI, IEEE, TiE), industrial and other (Army DGIS, CDAC, CRIS, NIC, NCST) institutions to give talks and interact with academics and professionals. He did this even during the period when IBM was not operating in India (1978-1992). 

From June 2006 until January 2009, Mohan worked as the first ever IBM India Chief Scientist, based in Bangalore, with responsibilities that related to serving as the executive technical leader of IBM India within and outside IBM. He passionately tried to change the perception of long term technical careers in the minds of people in industry, academia and society at large. Never having been a manager in his entire 28 years IBM career, while still being an IBM executive due to his IBM Fellow status, IBM's highest technical position, from 1997, Mohan has been well placed to serve as an excellent role model for technically-minded people. He tirelessly visited not only first tier institutions like IITs and IISc but also second and third tier Indian colleges/universities to give talks, take part in panels, technical festivals, IBM Technology Days, etc. He has addressed students and faculty at IITB, IITD, IITG, IITK, IITKGP, IITM, IITR, IISc, IIMB, NIT Calicut/Surat/Warangal, IIIT Bangalore, IIIT Hyderabad, Indian School of Business (ISB), Lakshmi N. Mittal Institute of Information Technology (LNMIIT), Amrita University, Andhra University, Anna University's College of Engineering Guindy (CEG), College of Engineering Pune (CoEP), Gayatri Vidya Parishad, IDRBT, IMT Ghaziabad, Meenakshi College, Madras Institute of Technology (MIT), M.S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology (MSRIT), M.V.J. College of Engineering, NIAS, PSG College of Technology, Rajasthan College of Engineering for Women (RCEW), SSN College of Engineering, Thiagarajar College of Engineering (TCE), University of Pune, VIT University and Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU). He convinced large numbers of people to go for higher studies and/or research.

Mohan also addressed numerous conferences, industry/academic panels (ACM, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), CSI, Economic Times, IBM, IISc Centenary Conference, Indo-US Science and Technology Round Table, Indo-US Collaboration in Engineering Education (IUCEE), Nasscom, PanIIT, TV18), and the press to teach advanced technologies, to mentor impressionable minds and to change the perception of the audience about why India needs to focus on advanced technologies and research, and how that requires long term, sustained focus by individuals and groups of people, and why the whole ecosystem needs to undergo some radical changes. He drew on his experience of having given seminars and interacted with technologists and administrators in 30+ countries. Mohan also brought to India, the International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB) 1996 as the Americas Program Chair and the IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE) 2003 as the Industrial Program Chair. 

Mohan was inducted into the Academic Senate of the International Institute of Information Technology Bangalore (IIIT-B) in 2009. He has also served on the IITM Distinguished Alumnus selection team. During his India assignment, Mohan served on the IBM India Senior Leadership Team and led the IBM India CTOs Council. He evangelized IBM India in other parts of IBM in places like Beijing, Hursley, New York, Poughkeepsie, Seoul, Shanghai, Silicon Valley, Taipei, Toronto and Westchester County. He also took part in a CNBC-TV18-Agilent televised panel discussion with senior executives from Intel, Pfizer, Mahindra & Mahindra, Cisco and Agilent on Innovation in India. He spread the word on the importance of technologists and deep technologies at various companies in India - Agilent Technologies, Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bosch, Citibank, Cognizant, Covansys, General Electric, Google, HCL, HLL, IBM, Infosys, Intel, ITC Infotech, Larson and Toubro Infotech, Microsoft, MindTree, Motorola, National Instruments, Nokia-Siemens Network, ORG, Persistent, Polaris, Ramco, Satyam, Siemens Information Systems Limited (SISL), SSI Technologies, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tata Research Development and Design Centre (TRDDC), vMoksha, Wipro and Zinnov. 

In recognition of Mohan's contributions to the development of Indian engineering and technology, he was elected as a foreign fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE) in 2009. The University of California at Santa Cruz's Center for Global, International and Regional Studies (CGIRS) has invited him to address the topic of "Can India be an Innovation Superpower?" in a talk as part of its "Mapping the Future of India" Lecture Series.

More details are available on Mohan's home page at http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/mohan/

Last updated on 22 February 2010. C. Mohan, mohan@almaden.ibm.com