The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi alumnus, Dr. Manas Fuloria, 1993 batch BTech in manufacturing science and engineering and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering- 2004, has endowed the “Ramchandran Jaikumar Chair for Decision Sciences” at IIT Delhi. The Chair is being set up in the honor of Prof. Ramchandran “Jai” Jaikumar, who was an India-born, US-based decision scientist and the Daewoo Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School.
Prof Ramchandran was an expert in computer-aided manufacturing, robots, and operating systems and won several awards for his research, including the prestigious Frederick Winslow Taylor Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He taught that success was ultimately a matter of luck, which meant successful professionals were duty-bound to give back and help the less fortunate, said the IIT-Delhi.
Dr. Manas Fuloria is a co-founder and custodian of entrepreneurship at Nagarro, a digital engineering services company listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. He refers to himself as a “lifelong entrepreneur with some successful and several failed ventures”. He is also active in social topics like air pollution, walkable and cyclable cities, public transport, reducing road crash fatalities and higher education.
While speaking about Prof Ramchandran, Dr Manas Fuloria said, “He taught us how a childlike curiosity and common sense could be coupled with decision sciences for breakthrough results in companies and potentially even in societies. His brand of operations management consulting was much sought after worldwide. But he was especially passionate about making positive change in India and was close friends with leading Indian business leaders like Narayanan Vaghul. Prof Ramchandran documented how the many stages of manufacturing’s conceptual development from artisanship to flexible manufacturing had passed India by and had reduced India from contributing a quarter of the world’s GDP in 1700 to where it stood today. He funded my return to India saying, ‘If you achieve even a fraction of what you intend to do for India, my money will have been well-spent. I owe a lot to him and I hope everyone who hears of this chair is inspired by his thoughts and by his body of work.”