The luxuries, the technological development that we see today are the result of the hard work, research, applications, experiments, and implementations of the engineers who dared to dream differently and made it come true.
Be it a software engineer like Sundar Pichai who now heads Google or an aerospace engineer like Dr. Abdul Kalam Azad who is popularly called the Missile Man of India, it is the contribution of these engineers that has taken our country and the world forward.
On National Engineers’ Day today know about the 5 renowned Indian engineers who have contributed hugely towards engineering and technology.
Verghese Kurien
Known as the father of the “White Revolution in India” he has been the pioneer in transforming dairy products and introducing the Anand dairy cooperative model with his “1 billion liter idea” and Operation Flood. He made sure that the same model was applied and replicated across India which benefitted the milk producers as they were paid 70 to 80% price of their milk in cash. Owing to his unrelenting efforts India today is the largest producer of milk in the world.
Sir Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya
Visvesvaraya revolutionized Hyderabad’s flood control system when he became the chief engineer of Krishnarajasagaladam near Mysore. His major contributions are the invention of block irrigation systems and automatic locks which are some of the best engineering wonders invented in India. For the first time, he came up with the collector wells concept which was highly innovative and one of its kind in the world. He has contributed immensely with his engineering services and hence was awarded Bharat Ratna.
Also, every year National Engineers’ Day is celebrated on his birthday September 15 to remember his contributions.
Kalpana Chawla
She was the first woman from India to go into space. After completing her engineering in Aeronautical Engineering from Punjab Engineering College she moved to the United States and completed her doctorate from the University of Colorado in aerospace engineering. She went into space for the first time in November 1997 but during her second flight in 2003, she and her crew lost their lives as something went wrong with their ship.
E Sreedharan
The Indian Metro Man as he is popularly known is the man behind designing big projects like Delhi and Kolkata Metro. Apart from receiving Padma Shri and Padma Vibhushan for his contribution to the public transport sector, he has also been awarded the Medal of Honour from France.
Vinod Dham
Known as the father of the Pentium microprocessor chip, Vinod Dham is the co-inventor of the SD card, which is technically termed as flash memory technology and it is now used extensively in the digital cameras and USB drives. He also has invented the Pentium Killer which is AMD K6 and is also the co-inventor of Intel’s Flash Memory Technology or ETOX. Currently, he is serving as the Vice President of Intel Co’s Microprocessor Group.