Prof. H R Vishwakarma
Prof. H.R. Vishwakarma, an alumnus GEC Jabalpur (B.E.) and IIT-Bombay (M.Tech.), has about 25 years of R&D and academic experience in ICT domain. He worked with ITI Limited, Bangalore (Ministry of Communications & IT, Govt. of India) for about 14 years and held the position of Dy. Chief Engineer (R&D). He founded groups on Computer Networks, Multimedia & Information Systems and Convergent Technologies. He also coordinated initiatives such as Software Quality Assurance, Information Strategic Planning (a joint study with M/s James Martin & Co., UK ), restructuring of R&D and formation of IT Business Group. He served on expert committees constituted by Telecom Engineering Centre, Govt. of India as well as worked briefly on Bangalore-based software assignments (Senior Project Manager of HCL Perot Systems, Engineering Director of Zygox Software). He served as Chief Technology Officer at Indian Institute of Information Technology & Management-Kerala, Trivandrum during the formative period of the institute during 2002-03.
Currently, he is serving as Senior Professor at the School of Information Technology & Engineering, VIT University , Vellore , Tamil Nadu. Soon after joining VIT in 2003-04 academic year, he played a very crucial role in unifying the people, processes and teaching-learning infrastructure of three erstwhile constituent departments of Information Technology, Computer Science & Engineering and Computer Applications into an integrated School of Computing Sciences- the largest school of VIT. Prof. Vishwakarma held over all administrative responsibilities of the School till November 2007 and contributed significantly towards innovation-led growth in every sphere of Computing/IT education and research, especially utilizing his vast industry and professional expertise and connectivity.
The School of Computing Sciences witnessed a tremendous growth from about 2800 students and 100 faculty members in its formative period (2004-05) to about 6000 students and 230 faculty members at the end of 2008-09 year. In October 2009, the School was bifurcated into the School of Computing Sciences & Engineering and the School of Information Technology & Engineering.
Prof. Vishwakarma has also led the Software Engineering Division for about two years (December 2007 to September 2009). The Division offers a 5-year integrated MS-Software Engineering programme, which is perhaps India ’s largest Software Engineering programme with over 1500 students on its roll. He is also an investigator and departmental coordinator for TIFAC-CORE on Automotive Infotronics (established in September 2004 by Dept. of Science & Technology, Govt. of India). Due to his efforts, VIT achieved the distinction of being the first Indian university to sign an agreement with the IEEE Computer Society on 1st December 2008 for offering certified software programmes.
Prof. Vishwakarma is member of ACM, IEEE, Computer Society of India (CSI) and many other professional societies. He has been instrumental in CSI’s international collaboration with IEEE (29th August 2009), the British Computer Society (18th January 2010) and the Project Management Institute (26th June 2010). He has organized several national/international conferences/ seminars/workshops as well as served on conference/editorial committees. He launched a new series of CSI National Conferences on Education and Research (ConfER) held annually in different regions of India since 2007-08. The positions held by him in CSI include Divisional Chairman (Education & Research) for the term 2007-09, National Student Coordinator for two terms (2006-07 & 2009-10) and Honorary Secretary at National level for the term 2010-12. Previously, he served as management committee member in CSI Bangalore Chapter for several years. He is credited as the founder Chairman of CSI Vellore Chapter (28th February 2005). He also motivated students towards formation of student branches of CSI, ACM and IEEE Computer Society at VIT.
Prof Vishwakarma is also serving as a member of the Engineering Council of India for the term 2010-12. He has been elected as the President-Engineering Sciences Science, Indian Science Congress Association for the term 2011-12. He was also associated with the Knowledge Services Business Division of NIIT as Curricula Advisor during 2003-04. Previosuly, he has been member of The IndUS Entrepreneurs (TiE) Bangalore Chapter and Consultancy Development Centre (DSIR, Govt. of India) for a few years. He can be reached at hrvishwa@yahoo.com