My Tech Idol by Saravanan Thangavelu

This edition of My Tech Idol features Saravanan Thangavelu, Senior Vice President – Enterprise IT. Sara is a technologist at heart with a deep passion for Artificial Intelligence. He has not one, but four tech idols, each of whom contributed a major step in the advancement of AI. Read more as he weighs in on its impact and the figures who inspired him the most.

My Tech Idols are:

John McCarthy, Alan Turing, Marvin Minsky, and Geoffrey Hinton. In my opinion, they changed the way humans think and advance. Their contributions to AI are incomparable and set in motion changes that are both momentous and monumental.

My first memory of AI:

I started understanding the power of each aspect of AI when I was able to start solving human-centric problems related to observation, analysis, and reasoning. Trying to take an abstract concept and creating a model and driving solutioning is not easy when it comes to mapping the brain and replicating its function. The inspiration and awe I feel toward AI is profound and I cannot stop wondering what is going to be next. We have just started scratching the surface when it comes to its potential impact.

Working with AI has helped me better appreciate:

Cognitive functions (Observation, Understanding, Reasoning, Inference, Recommendation, and Action) and the mathematical modeling of the brain and its behavio

What I would ask my tech idols at a dinner party and why:

How do we take technological innovation and bind it to a product or service that can meet the requirements of every being? And how did you get inspired to drive the line of thought that led to your innovation?