Leadership Transition: Prof. P J Narayanan hands over charge of Directorship to Prof Sandeep Shukla
Prof. P J Narayanan stepped down as Director after an impactful 12-year tenure. Prof. Narayanan hands over charge to Prof Sandeep Shukla, who assumes office as the new Director of the institute from 20 August 2025. Prof Narayanan, who took over as Director in April 2013, is widely credited with steering IIITH to new heights in research excellence, academic innovation, and industry collaboration. Under his leadership, the institute significantly expanded its research footprint, strengthened interdisciplinary programs, and nurtured a strong culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. His tenure also saw IIITH deepen its engagement with government, industry, and global academic networks, cementing its position as one of India’s premier technology institutes. Prof Sandeep Shukla, an internationally recognised expert in cyber-physical systems, formal verification, and cyber security, joins IIITH from IIT Kanpur.
How One Of IIITH’s Oldest Centres Is Reshaping Communications Tech
If you have ever wondered what underlies research in futuristic technologies, then the Signal Processing and Communications Research Centre at IIITH is a good place to start at. Some current/futuristic technologies related to which the researchers in SPCRC work on include graph signal processing, satellite-based IoT networks, reflecting intelligent surface based communication, DNA storage, quantum computing, security and privacy. Here’s a sneak peek into the broad areas of research that are carried out at one of the oldest centres of IIITH. In nature, signals are everywhere. Speech, audio, images, sensory data, ECG signals, EEG signals, astronomical signals and many many more are all signals and to extract useful information from them is the art/science of signal processing. At IIITH, Prof. Santosh Nannuru and Prof. Praful Mankar work in different aspects of signal processing – graph signal processing and localization and tracking.
Independence in the Age of Algorithms: India’s Next Great Mission
In his Independence Day address to the IIIT Hyderabad community, Prof. P J Narayanan, Director, IIIT Hyderabad reiterated that democracy thrives on autonomy – but in today’s world, real independence also means freedom from digital dependence. Prof. Narayanan emphasised that the time has come for India to build its own secure technological foundation. Greetings to all on the occasion of India’s 79th Independence Day. August 15th is a very important day for every Indian, as it is the day we attained political independence. An important characteristic of our freedom struggle was its non-violent nature. We built a vibrant democracy that is the envy of the world. But democracy is not only about electing representatives; it’s also about the autonomy to make decisions at local, community, and institutional levels. We should ask ourselves if our autonomy is increasing or decreasing and if we are including everyone in the decision-making process. This is a big challenge for our maturing democracy.
Technology In Films: A Look Through The Ages
Prof. P J Narayanan walks us through the technological developments that have taken place over the last few decades in the movie making process. We’ve witnessed a digital transformation in almost every aspect of life, like the way digital transactions in the monetary world have replaced cash, the filmmaking world is no different. There too, we moved from the analog to the digital world. One no longer carries boxes of reels to theatres for screening; content is unlocked perhaps by a password and streamed via the click of a button. In this way, movies have been transformed albeit with the ultimate goal of entertaining people. From the first commercial movie created by the Lumiere brothers in 1895 to the first entirely computer-animated film, The Toy Story in 1995, we now have a whole spectrum of things such as live action, VFX, CGI, some digital content mixed with actual footage and so on. Today’s movies are way more sophisticated than what was possible in 1995. When these films started coming, the technologists thought that they would make all the movies and that there was no need for directors and other creative folks.
Medals at the International Linguistics Olympiad (ILO) 2025
India’s student team has pulled off a historic performance at at the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL-2025), held in Taiwan from July 21 to 27, with all four team members winning individual honours — a first for India since it began participating in 2009. Competing against 227 students from 42 countries. The Indian team consisted of: V Surendran (Chennai) – Gold medal; A Misra (Delhi NCR) – Bronze medal; Nandagovind Anurag (Hyderabad) – Honourable mention and Siripurapu Bhuvan (Hyderabad) – Honourable mention. They were selected through the Panini Linguistics Olympiad (PLO) and underwent intensive training at IIIT Hyderabad under Prof. Parameswari Krishnamurthy, a long-time academic mentor for the Indian team. IOL is one of the 13 major International Science Olympiads. It tests logic, pattern recognition, and analytical thinking using rare or under-documented languages — no prior language knowledge required. Instead, students must crack linguistic puzzles using data and deduction, like decoding grammar rules from scratch.
New FabLab inaugurated on campus
Prof. P J Narayanan, Director, International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad inaugurated the “FabLab” at IIIT Hyderabad campus today. The lab has been made possible by the support from the Department of Science and Technology, under the Promotion of University Research and Scientific Excellence (PURSE) scheme.
International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad has been granted the project for the development of biosensors and bio-actuators focused on healthcare applications. Some of the microfabrication tools available in the facility include UV lithography, sputtering, spin coater and vacuum chamber, along with material characterization tools such as Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and optical profilometer.
The facility also consists of semiconductor IC characterization tools such as probe station, Vector Network Analyzer (VNA), Vector Signal Generator (VSG), signal analyzer and oscilloscope, with the capability of supporting measurements in the millimeter wave (mmWave) band.
How digitalisation and technology are changing lived realities
Nazia Akhtar, whose research involves the literary history of Hyderabad, talked about — the challenges in digitising people’s personal archives. Nazia’s work on Hyderabadi Urdu women’s literature includes The Deccan Sun, a translation of Zeenath Sajida’s writings. Nazia, who is building an online archive of such texts, said “When I work on a writer’s oeuvre, I find their processes in their notebooks, places where they doodle, letters to friends where they complain that they couldn’t put a certain metaphor together. This is why I am interested in the private papers of writers—things they scribble among grocery lists, backs of calendars, receipts, etc,”. Often, families of deceased writers have huge volumes of unpublished writing, including diaries that they hope someone else can preserve and make accessible for researchers. “In such cases, digital technology appears to be a saviour. But there are questions of how much private details to put out, who can access these, what is our responsibility towards writers or their families, who may not be in a position to negotiate for themselves,”
Research Inclusivity: IIITH Shows How By Keeping It SARAL
The AI-powered platform developed with guidance from ANRF helps convert complex research papers into summarised video presentations, customisable in different Indian languages making them accessible to all. What makes the language of Science so arcane? The lament is real if the number of queries on Reddit and other online forums for simplifying research papers is any indication. And it’s not only the general public that wants to know “How to skim through a research paper” and get to the crux of it but also the scientific community at large. In a bid to make Science research accessible to wider audiences, researchers at IIITH with guidance from the ANRF have unveiled an AI tool that can seamlessly translate complex research papers into engaging and concise video presentations. Prof. Ponnurangan Kumaraguru who is leading the efforts from IIITH remarks that the idea of democratising research took shape while brainstorming about how to get across scientific research to the non-scientific community and get them excited enough about the breakthroughs
Secrets of dance and science; and a rare patent for Dr. Jayachandran Surendran
Jayachandran Surendran’s life is the perfect instance of an engineer-dancer who did not let stereotypes limit him. The doctoral researcher talks about legendary dance gurus and phenomenal leaps of faith that shaped his life work in south Indian dance theory, ethno choreology and Tandava philosophy. A senior dance research scholar and lecturer at IIITH’s Center for Exact Humanities, Jayachandran recently defended his Ph.D on form neutral, style neutral fundamentals of dance. Through his research, he built a pedagogical dance teaching tool called Atam, which is one of the rarest patencies, awarded in India in the arts domain. Renouncing an ascending career graph, with a high paying role in a leading multi-national, he would opt to dedicate himself to the pursuit of dance theory. His supreme sacrifice was rewarded, with tutelage under legendary greats. His passion would bring him to Kalakshetra, South India’s leading dance Institute where he would spend nine years, immersed in studying dance systems and documenting priceless artifacts.
IIITH supports SGI, hosts plantation of 1,200 trees on campus
In keeping with its green campus practices, International Institute of Information Technology Hyderabad (IIITH) hosted a large-scale tree plantation drive of 1,200 trees on campus by Sustainable Green Initiative (SGI), with the support of One Tree Planted USA and FedEx Corporation USA. Spread across 66 acres, IIITH has been an environmentally conscious campus right since its inception – with over 2,000 trees, rainwater harvesting mechanisms and a smart campus for regulating water and electricity consumption, installation of Wi-SUN smart street lights, and being a plastic-free campus. Supporting Sustainable Green Initiative (SGI) was a natural progression of its ongoing initiatives as it aligns with the institute’s ethos and the institute’s annual tree planting exercise. Sustainable Green Initiative (SGI) strives toward restoring Hyderabad’s green cover, rebuilding ecosystems, and creating a legacy of environmental responsibility. At a time when our cities are rapidly losing their natural cover, it is hoped that corporates, educational institution, and citizen groups can draw inspiration and take action.