March - 2000 - issue > Cover

In the sixties, when a bright young man graduated from the now-famous Indian Institutes of Technology, there were not many opportunities available. Certainly not within India. In fact, the dictum of the times for engineering school grads was: “Go west, young man.”
Years later, such emigration came to be known as “brain drain,” a term that doesn’t particularly appeal to Arun Netravali, now head of one the world’s legendary research institutions. Netravali’s simple answer to those crying “brain drain” is this: Without opportunities in India, the brain was going to be wasted anyway.

Truth be told, the young Netravali, fresh out of IIT, Mumbai, did not fully comprehend the opportunities that awaited him in the United States, certainly not the opportunity to one day head the world-renowned Bell Labs. Like many of his genre, he came to this country to study, secure only in the belief that this country offered the best education in technology. In 1967, soon after graduating from IIT, Mumbai, Netravali came to study at Rice University in Houston, where he earned MS and Ph.D degrees before launching into a 27-year career during which he has put his personal stamp on some of the world’s best technologies.

HDTV: Setting an Industry Standard

One of these technologies is HDTV, or high definition television. In 1990, when Netravali was nominated to head research into the creation of a HDTV, the challenges were many. Research was still in its early stages, and challenges lay in the fact that competing technologies were also emerging.

Last month, Netravali took some time off from his busy schedule to watch a Knicks game on HDTV, and was filled with pride. “Our system became the industry standard,” said Netravali.

At the heart of HDTV’s successful concept is a powerful video compression algorithm by Netravali, who is considered one of the foremost scientists in the area of digital video transmission. In addition, Netravali’s team, working together with Zenith, came up with a unique “bi-rate coding” that enabled enable transmission of interference-free signals to a broader geographical area than was possible with conventional broadcasts or other proposed HDTV systems.

The DSC-HDTV, as it is called, first identified and transmitted the most important image data in the two-level mode, actually a series of zeros and ones. It then transmitted the remainder of the picture in the four-level mode (which contains a series of zeros, ones, twos and threes), bringing true high-definition video and compact disc sound quality. With this technology, the two-level system would take over when the receiver is far from the transmitter, as in the far fringes of a broadcast area, and enabled broadcasters to extend the geographical area of coverage.

Netravali has been at the head of several other groundbreaking researches, among them a major broadband breakthrough, the first software-based network switch for both data and voice networks. He was also involved in the world’s first long-distance transmission of a terabit (a trillion bits) of information per second over a single strand of optical fiber; and the making of the world’s smaller working transistor — a major semiconductor breakthrough.

About his work with Bell Labs, Netravali says, “It’s a terrific time for technology and communications. Bell Labs has always been at the forefront of the information revolution and I am honored, excited, delighted at the prospect.”

Netravali is the ninth head of the research organization that will celebrate its 75th anniversary this year. Over this period, Bell Labs has produced six Nobel Prize winners and some 30 thousand inventions, playing a pivotal role in twentieth century technologies, including the revolutionary invention of the transistor. Bell Labs today employs about 25,000 employees in 20 countries, and, has a budget of almost $4 billion, making it by far the largest communications research organization in the world.

Indian Industry-Setter: Achievement or Non-Issue?

Is it a remarkable achievement for an Indian to be appointed to the position? Netravali brushes aside such talk. “I am heartened my bosses’ decision to put me in this position, but I have never felt that being an Indian made any difference,” he said. Bell Labs has always focused on technology and that is all that matters, he added.

According to Netravali, his example reinforces the fact that there is no glass ceiling. “I always went around getting a job done as quickly and as efficiently as possible and that is what has helped me reach this position,” he declared. The fact that they presented this honor to an Indian only proves that one’s nationality doesn’t matter, he added.

Loyalty and dedication probably doesn’t hurt, as well. Besides a couple of years’ work at NASA, Netravali has been at Bell Labs for almost his entire career, practically a lifetime. “It has been really, really exhilarating to work among so many smart people, and in leadership positions, helping them succeed, watch them put their terrific minds to the problems,” Netravali said enthusiastically. “In my position now, I just want to stay out of their way and only provide a good environment for research,” he added.

Many people think that Bell Labs being one company is one “monolithic” structure but far from it but “under the one company you find such a wide variety of experiences … new technology, new systems, new customers, new people, everything can be so different,” Netravali said. “Even though I have been in Bell Labs for 27 years, I have gone through several things and adapting to them was one of the challenges here.”

At 53, Netravali looks ahead to a long tenure as head of Bell Labs and the world looks forward to many more breathtaking inventions that will forever change our lives.