Express News Service By

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Adding another golden feather in Kerala’s startup cap, a 34-year-old entrepreneur from the city has bagged an international recognition.

Rahul Alex Panicker, co-founder of Embrace Innovations based in Bengaluru, features in the list of top technology innovators in the world who are under the age of 35. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Review brought out the list after they revealed its annual list of Innovators under 35. He has been recognised for his efforts to build technology products in the field of bio-technology and medicine through his startup ‘Embrace Innovations’. Rahul, an alumnus of IIT Madras and Stanford, is also the only Malayalee in the list among 35 innovators cum entrepreneurs across the globe. Speaking to ‘Express’, Rahul said that he was happy to receive the recognition as it would be a major boost for the Indian innovators in the IT industry as a whole. “This is also a global recognition for Bengaluru”, he said.

MIT Technology Review, which is wholly owned by MIT, creates award-winning technology-related editorial content on a variety of platforms for an audience of millions of business leaders, innovators, and thought leaders, in six languages. Rahul had earlier won ‘The Economist’ Innovation Award 2013, Industrial Design Society of America’s Gold Award, and was also recognised as Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2013 by the World Economic Forum. He has a BTech from IIT Madras, and a Masters and PhD in artificial intelligence and optics from Stanford University, and is an alumnus of the Stanford D School. Rahul, a native of Thiruvananthapuram, is the son of P C Mathen Panicker and Moly Panicker of Vayalikada.

His Predecessors

Some of the previous winners include icons like Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jonathan Ive of Apple and Max Levchin - co-founder of PayPal