Infosys Prize: A progressive society values its intellectuals, says Murthy

Murthy was speaking at the awards ceremony of Infosys Prize 2021

A progressive society values its intellectuals and creates comfort for them, Infosys founder and former chairman N R Narayana Murthy said on Thursday at the virtual awards ceremony of Infosys Prize 2021.

Murthy highlighted how seminal works across fields such as physics, philosophy, computer science and economics have shaped the world during the past two millennia.

Professor Gagandeep Kang, a top microbiologist who was the chief guest at the ceremony, said, “When scientists try to convey the limits of our current understanding or uncertainty of what the future might hold, they struggle to be heard over the authoritative and authoritarian voices that come from those that advocate unproven traditional remedies at one end and a misplaced sense of patriotism at the other.”

“Whether it is the IITs or IISc, the brightest students have traditionally been directed to science. Those individuals in India and globally have shown their application of science and technology in great measure, but not necessarily in (scientific) discovery at the same level,” she added.

Infosys co-founder and former chairman Kris Gopalakrishnan, in a welcome address at the ceremony, said that to solve any global problem, representation of India's diversity is a must for the solution to work for the entire humanity. “More people doing research will solve the problems faster. The cost of doing research is lower in India -- for every $5 in developed countries, $1 dollar spent in India doubles the reach output,” he observed.

The Infosys Prize, in its 13th year currently, focused on some contemporary challenges, such as studying the effects of climate change on fragile ecosystems and contributing to more effective conservation strategies, designing a robust indigenous platform for rapid testing of deadly diseases like Covid-19 and TB, understanding the nuclear force to better harness nuclear energy for the benefit of humankind, and addressing issues such as sexual violence and jurisprudence in our society.

The Infosys Prize 2021 for Engineering and Computer Science was awarded to Dr Chandrasekhar Nair, CTO of Molbio Diagnostics in Bengaluru, for his development and large-scale deployment of TrueNat, a new point-of-care testing platform for PCR based medical diagnostics. Dr. Nair’s work, invented and produced in India, has enabled rapid testing for millions of Covid-19 and TB cases in India and other resource-limited countries around the world.