SG

Shashank Garg

Viewzen Labs Private Limited, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Indian Institute of Science, Handheld Solutions & Research Labs Pvt. Ltd.

ORCID iD 0000-0001-8310-6270
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About

Dr. Shashank Garg is the Principal Architect of the Digital Innovation Lab at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore since June 2015. Since December 2020 he is also a Consultant on AI & IOT technologies to a new startup, ViewZen Labs Private Limited. His focus is on helping in the conceptualization and development of solutions in Public Health using AI and IOT technologies.

His leadership at the Digital Innovation Lab has resulted in several research studies and product initiatives being completed. Some of the projects in the area of Menstrual Hygiene have been the development of a direct benefits transfer framework using block-chain technology along with the development of a proof-of-concept solution, a study on “Technology Integration and Supply-chain Modelling of a Social Welfare Chain”, a study on improving access to affordable management of Menstrual Hygiene, and a study on designing a supply-chain network for Menstrual Hygiene Management by integrating forward and reverse logistics. The current focus is on the development of an AI-based classification and grading system for Diabetic Retinopathy from retinal images.

Shashank has published in several international peer-reviewed academic journals and conferences. He has co-edited a book titled, “Public Health in India: Technology, Governance and Service Delivery” which was published by Routledge, a Taylor & Francis group company, in 2015.

Earlier, he was the Founder and CEO of Handheld Solutions & Research Labs (HANDSREL), a Bangalore based company developing advanced mobile solutions for improvement in service delivery in the area of Public Health and e-Governance. He was an active founder-member of the OpenXdata Consortium, an open-source development initiative started at the Centre for International Health, University of Bergen, Norway. While at HANDSREL, he received a phase-1 grant of US$30,000 for the development of a “mobile workflow based system to improve monitoring for the adherence to Tuberculosis treatment protocol”, under Grand Challenges in TB Control in India, an initiative jointly funded by USAID and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Shashank was a Reuters Digital Vision Fellow in Stanford University’s Digital Vision Program on Social Entrepreneurship in 2006-07 where he worked on the design of a mobile data collection platform for Disease Surveillance.

Shashank was also the co-founder and Vice President for Product Development and the Mobile Computing Group at Encore Software Limited, Bangalore for 20 years. He was the chief architect for a range of mobile devices like the Simputer and the Mobilis wireless tablet. During the 1999 to 2000 period he co-invented the Simputer, a low-cost, mobile computing device with the specific goal of applying appropriate technologies for bridging the Digital Divide in developing countries. The Simputer was an early precursor of a wireless mobile device with extensive functionality in a small foot-print.

He, along with the other co-inventors, was awarded the First Dewang Mehta Award for Innovation in Information Technology in April 2002 by the Government of India. He is the holder of a US patent in the area of ad hoc networking.

Shashank has a PhD and BSc from Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS) Pilani, a Master of Engineering (ME) degree in Electrical Engineering with specialization in Computer Science from the Indian Institute of Science, and a Bachelor of Engineering (BE) degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering from the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.

Shashank has passionate interest in the use of the technologies for social sector development, with particular emphasis on Public Health. He is currently working on the development of an edgecomputing based inference engine and a machine-learning based assistive diagnostic model for the detection, classification and grading of Diabetic Retinopathy and other related eye diseases from fundus camera images.

Employment

  • Viewzen Labs Private Limited Consultant on AI & IOT
    2020 - Present
  • Indian Institute of Management Bangalore Principal Architect
    2015 - Present
  • Handheld Solutions & Research Labs Pvt. Ltd. CEO
    2009 - Present

Education

  • Birla Institute of Technology and Science PhD
    2003 - 2012
  • Indian Institute of Science ME
    1975 - 1977
  • Indian Institute of Science BE
    1972 - 1975
  • Birla Institute of Technology and Science BSc
    1969 - 1972

Projects & Funding

Projects & funding information is unavailable.

Publications (8)