My Tech Idol by Nat Radhakrishnan

This edition of My Tech Idol features the face of all things tech and innovation at HGS. As President and Chief Innovation Officer (CIO),Nat Radhakrishnan is responsible for managing the HGS Digital business, overseeing our Enterprise IT and Automation teams, driving innovation across HGS, and developing new industry-oriented solutions. Read on as he weighs in on his tech idol below.

My Tech Idol is

Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla is known for:

Revolutionizing electrical power systems through the development of the alternating current (AC) power system and the AC induction motor. His work laid the foundation for many modern technologies, including wireless communication and X-ray imaging, among others. He was also among the earliest thinkers to envision the emergence of Artificial Intelligence and Renewable Energy.

Three ways Nikola Tesla has inspired me:

• Fearless innovation: His ability to envision and pursue ideas that were far ahead of his time despite numerous setbacks and outside skepticism has been immensely inspiring to me.

• Multidisciplinary interests: Tesla excelled in a range of scientific and engineering disciplines. His interests also spanned fields as diverse as futurism, philosophy, poetry, and spirituality. His holistic approach to invention and scientific discovery was a result of this eclecticism.

• Humanitarianism: Be it through his advocacy of free energy and his work into wireless technology, he was motivated by a desire to benefit society and improve human life. This attitude rightly serves as a beacon to many technologists today.

My first memory of Nikola Tesla:

Reading My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla. Compiled by Ben Johnston in 1982, it was originally written by Tesla in 1919 and published as a six-part series in the Electrical Experimenter magazine. This book is a must for anyone looking to understand Tesla’s thinking and his views on the potential of science and technology to improve human life.

One challenge that could benefit from Nikola Tesla’s genius today:

There are many. But perhaps the biggest might be climate change. Tesla had expressed interest in harnessing energy from natural sources but could not realize this vision in his lifetime. No doubt he could find ways to make renewable energy more accessible were he alive today.

One question I would ask Nikola Tesla at a dinner party:

“You envisioned the possibility of an ‘automaton with its own mind’ way back in 1900. Would you say that the Artificial Intelligence models we have today, 123 years later, have met your expectations? And what might their capabilities be a century from now?”