Prabhu Rajagopal — Co-Founder
Trained at IIT Madras (IITM - BTech & DD MTech) and Imperial College London (PhD, Postdoc), Dr. Prabhu Rajagopal has expertise in non-invasive diagnostics. Full Professor since 2019, currently he is the Advisor for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, heading Automation & Data Engineering at the Center for NDE at IITM and the spin-out company Plenome. With 30+ funded projects, 225+ technical articles and 33 granted IPs, he is widely recognised for his work on digital transformation in the industrial (energy and mobility) and social (water, sanitation and health) contexts. He is recipient of India's most prestigious award for mid-career scientists, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prize for Technology and Innovation (2024). Prof Prabhu’s research is collaborative, with engagements across the world, particularly the UK and Kenya. At IITM he is also an associate of the Centers of Excellence in Quantum Information Communication & Computing, Cybersecurity, Trust & Reliability, Space Manufacturing, and Research on Startups & Risk Financing. Prof. Prabhu is passionate about service-oriented engineering education and technology translation, co-founding several Startups that are disrupting the infrastructure maintenance space with their original offerings in digital asset integrity monitoring. Today, river crossings of rail and road bridges, and distribution water pipes are inspected across India and several locations in the world by Planys and Solinas. Planys also has a suite of robotic solutions for online inspections of storage tanks and marine drones for rapid waterbody assessments. Xyma develops waveguide ultrasonic sensors for maintenance of large industrial plants, applied across mineral ore processing, petrochemical and glass industries. More recently, Plenome focuses on Blockchain and advanced AI based prognostics for data-sensitive use cases in healthcare, voting, finance and more. Recipient of prestigious Early Career awards (National Design Award from Institution of Engineers (India), and Young Scientist Awards from: Indian Society for NDT and Institute for Smart Structures and Systems, Institute R&D Award from IITM and the National Swarnajayanti Fellowship from DST, Govt of India), Prof. Prabhu is member of the Editorial Boards of international peer-reviewed journals, Ultrasonics and NDT&E International. At IITM, he is the faculty in-charge of the maker space Center for Innovation and the pre-incubator Nirmaan. He is on the Advisory Board of the TECHIN, the Incubator of IIT Palakkad, as well as serving on their Global Sanitation Center of Excellence.
Stackforce AI infers this person is a leader in Nondestructive Testing and Engineering Innovation.
Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
Experience: 18 yrs 7 mos
Skills
- Nondestructive Testing (ndt)
- Early-stage Startups
Career Highlights
- Recipient of Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prize for Technology and Innovation.
- Expertise in non-invasive diagnostics and digital transformation.
- Co-founder of multiple startups in infrastructure maintenance.
Work Experience
Indian National Academy of Engineering (INAE)
Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering (6 mos)
NEIL - Kenya Network of Entrepreneurial Institutions Leaders
Technical Advisor (8 mos)
Terraclime Technologies
Co-founder & Technology Strategist (10 mos)
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Head, School of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (6 mos)
Advisor, Intellectual Property ( IP) Cell (2 yrs)
Faculty in charge ( Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship) (2 yrs 7 mos)
Faculty in charge, Centre for Innovation (5 yrs 3 mos)
International Committee for NDT
Vice Chair of Working Group 3 - Research & Education (11 mos)
Krishaka
Co-Founder & Chief Adviser (1 yr 3 mos)
Matterize
Co-Founder & Chief Adviser (1 yr 6 mos)
Indian Society of Nondestructive Testing (ISNT)
Chairman-Elect (1 yr 8 mos)
Vice chairman, Chennai Chapter (3 yrs 6 mos)
Chairman Technical Committee at Chennai Chapter (2 yrs 8 mos)
BotForge Labs
Co-Founder & Technology Strategist (1 yr 9 mos)
NDT&E International
Member of Editorial Board (2 yrs 8 mos)
TECHIN of IIT Palakkad
Member of the Board of Directors (2 yrs 9 mos)
Plenome
Founder Chairman & acting CEO (2 yrs 11 mos)
Hedera
Council Member (4 yrs 7 mos)
Elsevier
Associate Editor - Ultrasonics Journal (4 yrs)
Ministry of External Affairs, India
Freelance Writer (11 mos)
XYMA Analytics Pvt Ltd
Co-founder and Strategist (6 yrs 10 mos)
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
Professor (7 yrs)
Associate Professor (4 yrs 7 mos)
Assistant Professor (3 yrs 7 mos)
A*STAR - Agency for Science, Technology and Research, ARTC
Advisor, NDT (4 yrs 4 mos)
Solinas Integrity Pvt. Ltd.
Co-founder and Strategist (7 yrs 11 mos)
Planys Technologies
Co Founder & Strategist (10 yrs 9 mos)
Centre for NDE, IIT-Madras
Associate (15 yrs 3 mos)
Imperial College London
Post-Doctoral Researcher (3 yrs 3 mos)
Education
PhD at Imperial College London
Master of Technology at Indian Institute of Technology, Madras
