Saurabh Kewlani, a native of New Delhi, is part of a project that has been conferred the prestigious National Science Foundation Innovation-Corps (NSF I-Corps) Teams Award in the United States. Saurabh serves in a leadership role at SoftWorthy, the U.S. start-up whose team has been presented with the award by NSF, in recognition of an innovation which will help design reliable, next-generation electronic devices. Founded in 2020, SoftWorthy develops cutting-edge scientific computing and data analysis tools that address complex engineering problems in the industry.
The company is led by a team of Indian engineers trained at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Harvard University and has been working to develop innovative software technology for performing engineering analysis. Saurabh, also a core contributor to the project, currently guides the team on issues related to IT systems & IT security. He also serves in various leadership roles in the IT sector, where he advises Government & Industry bodies in matters of Information Technology & Information Security.
SoftWorthy’s award-winning project focuses on developing state-of-the-art computational methods for ‘stochastic modeling, design simulation & sensitivity analysis’ of electronic devices like printed-circuit-boards (PCBs), which are critical for the growth of novel technological applications like driverless vehicles and energy-efficient smart buildings.
Speaking about the team’s accomplishment, Saurabh said, “We are honored to receive the NSF I-Corps Teams award. PCBs have become an essential foundation of today’s electronic products & industrial technology, and the algorithms developed by our team will eventually lead to more robust, failure-resistant PCBs that can operate in uncertain environments. These algorithms will also reduce the PCB design-time due to the advanced innovative techniques used.”
He further added, “The team believes the research algorithms will have a wide-ranging impact in a multitude of fields undergoing a technological revolution. We will be conducting market research interviews with leading practitioners in the industry, as part of the program, and the Teams Grant Award would support customer discovery activities for the project and advance business model development. The commercialization efforts will provide key breakthroughs in transportation and energy domains, and the NSF I-Corps Teams program will be a great step in this direction for us.”
The NSF, a U.S. federal agency, created the I-Corps program in order to promote scientific advances in the United States, reduce the time and risk associated with translating promising ideas and technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace. The program supports the commercialization of deep technologies revolving around fundamental discoveries in science and engineering. All NSF I-Corps applicants and their research proposals are evaluated through the use of three National Science Board-approved merit criteria, namely, intellectual merit, broader impact of the proposed research and the team’s ability to take the research to commercialization. This is a highly competitive program, with only about 200-250 awards given each year to the best teams around the nation for research with strong potential to make a significant social and/or technological impact.
Through the award, NSF is providing SoftWorthy with support for customer discovery activities & technical R&D work, by offering a grant as well as access to a seasoned mentor network. The Teams also participate in the I-Corps Curriculum, which provides real-world, hands-on, immersive learning about what it takes to successfully transfer knowledge into products and processes that benefit society. Thus, the program uses experiential education to help researchers gain valuable insight into entrepreneurship, starting a business, or industry requirements and challenges. As part of the program, SoftWorthy is actively engaged with the industry, focusing on market analysis to further validate customer segments and hypotheses of value propositions, identify the simulation performance needs & specifications, and learn the software adoption, integration & deployment process across the industry. The project personnel are also encouraged to attend academic conferences & industry symposia to stay informed about the latest research, connect with the greater scientific community, develop new technical strategies, and pursue potential collaborative opportunities.
