Odisha techie’s AI tool helped Nobel winner
BERHANPUR: The Nobel peace prize awarded to United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) has a strong Odisha connect through a 32-year-old Google employee from Rourkela.
Pranav Khaitan, an alumnus of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Rourkela, played a prominent role in the tie-up between Google and WFP to develop an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to alleviate hunger and provide immediate relief to victims in conflict zones.
When the partnership between Google and WFP was forged in 2018, California-based Khaitan, a senior engineering lead at Google Research, was faced with just one question — how to use AI to reduce global hunger.
Along with a 10-member team, Khaitan developed an AI-based tool that could assess disaster damage within 24 to 72 hours and ensure timely and effective delivery of aid to the affected people. “I feel deeply fortunate to have contributed to the noble mission of eradicating global hunger,” Khaitan told TOI over the phone from California.
“The technology we developed has already been in use in at least five countries, including Mexico and Indonesia, over the past two years. It has been used to deliver assistance at the time of natural disasters like earthquakes and cyclones. In India, however, it is yet to be used,” he explained.
Khaitan, who has led R&D in AI, graduated from NIT in 2009.