Pics of the new office

Here are the much promised pictures taken a month ago. The office still needs some pictures on the walls to brighten things up. Right now it's functional but not chic.

Germinait's got a new home

Just a quick note to tell you that we have found a new office space in Santa Cruz, Mumbai. The renovation work is likely to begin from tomorrow. The plan is to move in by June 1. It will be a mad scramble to get the office ready for occupancy by then.

I will post pictures as soon as the renovation work is completed.

Milind Tambe made AAAI Fellow

Prof. Milind Tambe, my PhD advisor, was elected as a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence on April 23 for "significant contributions to theory and software infrastructure for multi-agent systems and pioneering applications in teamwork systems".

The list of Fellows reads like the Who's who of AI. Milind through his hardwork and dedication to his research joins this esteemed list. This is a much deserved honour.

To paraphrase my colleague Jonathan Pearce, "For he's a jolly good Fellow, which nobody can deny" :).

Young Scientist's Prize

On April 17 2007, Dr. Takayuki Ito, a member of Germinait's scientific board, was awared the Young Scientists' Prize, part of the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

Takayuki informs me that he was very surprised because this award "is very selective and most people who got this are very famous engineers or doctors". Takayuki, I'm sure that those who know you are not surprised. Congratulations! This is very well deserved.

For those of you who can read Japanese, there are more details on the award here.

In Memoriam

On April 9, Prof. Pragnesh Jay Modi passed away and with his demise the AI community has lost one of its brightest sparks.

I admired him greatly for his sharpness, maturity and dedication to his work. He was always ready to lend a hand and give good advice. His demise will be impossibly heavy to bear for those of us fortunate enough to have him as a friend. Jay was very supportive of my decision to start Germinait, balancing his encouragement with words of caution.

At this time of grief, I wish his family my deepest condolence. Without doubt Jay was the best among us. Jay will be remembered with fondness as a dedicated colleague and loyal friend.

Germinating germinait

In December of 2005 while on vacation in India, I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of company I wanted to set up. That I wanted to start my own company was a given, what remained to be decided was what this company would do. I was clear in my mind that I wanted to leverage my own experience as a research scientist in artificial intelligence in order to build IT products that were cutting edge. This resulted in long brainstorming sessions about potential products with my father whose business acumen I have a very high regard for. Several useful product ideas were borne out of these discussions, but more than these ideas themselves came the realization that I did not want to restrict myself to just a single product. Thus was born the desire to create a company focused on taking the research ideas of today and developing viable commercial products out of it.

I returned to the US after this and talked to a dear friend of mine. We had determined several years ago that we would get into business together and so while I focused on the technology, he focused on acquiring business-related skills that would be crucial for our enterprise. Fanciful adda-style conversations were all very well, but I worried that marriage and a comfortable life had dulled his appetite for our venture. I was thrilled to know that not only was he game but that his wife was happy to support him through this time.

Over the next few months we made our plans, talked to people for advice and developed the seed of an idea for our company. But through all this we could not come up with a name. I would create a list of names that I thought sounded nice or described what we did but would invariably find that either some company by that name already existed or someone was hoarding that name hoping to sell it off for a pile.

In August, I travelled extensively around the US and meet researchers in various universities in order to set up collaborations and to discuss the commercial viability of their research. We discussed tons of ideas many of which had definite commercial value but I still was not able to come up with a name.

Then suddenly like a bolt out of the blue came the name GERMINAIT. It made complete sense -- our business was to germinate seed research ideas into commercially viable IT products. The AIT bit stood for Artificial Intelligence Technology, which was our focus. I quickly bought the URL and then talked to my dad and my partner. They both loved it.

Over the next two months, the name GERMINAIT was officially approved, we worked out our business plans, evaluated ideas for products, got the logo designed, ordered our stationery. We are now well and truly open for business.

- Ranjit


More updates on our progress will follow.