Biography

Prof. (Dr.) Prahlad Vadakkepat

Dr. Prahlad VADAKKEPAT, a Professor at the National University of Singapore is the founder secretary of the Federation of International Robot-soccer Association and was the FIRA General Secretary during 2000-16. Dr. Vadakkepat has over 3 decades of research expertise in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. His translational research had led to several start-ups in Robotics, AI and 3D printing in Singapore and India. He is the founding director of the NUS GRIP startup, ‘Aruvii’ [www.aruvii.com, 2019~present], Singapore. He was the founder director to an entrepreneurial start-up ‘Robhatah Robotic Solutions’ [2004-2010] at Singapore and Bangalore. He was the founding director of Ionic3DP (a 3D printing company), Singapore, 2017 ~2019. He is an advisor to the Indventr [www.indventr.org] consortium developing affordable emergency care ventilators during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Dr. VADAKKEPAT chaired the Futurescape 2025 panel on “I, Robot” by A*STAR Singapore. He was the Editor-In-Chief for the Springer Reference Book on Humanoid Robotics. He is an associate editor of the International Journal of Humanoid Robotics. He was the general chair to the FIRA Robot World Cup & Congress Singapore 2005, General Program Chair to FIRA Robot World Congress Incheon 2009 and General Chair to FIRA Robot World Cup & Congress Bangalore 2010. His Humanoid robots and robot soccer teams have consistently won several international prizes: First prize and overall championship in Humanoid robot soccer at the FIRA Robot World Cup (Germany 2006, Singapore 2005, and Austria 2003), First Prize (open category) in Singapore Robotic Games (2004) and Second prize in FIRA 2004. 

Dr. VADAKKEPAT was the founding Editor-in-Chief for the Springer Journal of Frugal Innovation (JFI) which was as an open access Journal aimed at creating a platform for ideas and innovations for an inclusive growth. He runs the ‘Ideas for Life’ Social Entrepreneurship Challenge seeking design innovations which are simple and novel and directs the Frugal Innovation effort of NUS.

He is a Senior Member of IEEE (USA, since 2005) and a life member of the IEEE HKN honor society. He was the (elected) Secretary to the IEEE Singapore Section in 2005. He had served as Technical Activity Coordinator to the IEEE Region 10 (Asia-Pacific) during 2001-2002. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Telecommunications Engineers (IETE), India. He was a nominated member of the Loka Kerala Sabha (World Kerala Assembly) initiated by Govt. of Kerala, India (2018~2021). He was one of the resource persons in the Igniting Minds movement by Vijyana Bharathi India (VIBHA) which is a programme enabling students to shed conventions and think out of the box. He has produced a full-length feature film, Churuttinte Gandham - Scent of Cigar, in Malayalam language which has received accolades at international film festivals.

Dr. VADAKKEPAT received the B.Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering from Calicut University, Kerala in 1986, and the M.Tech. and Ph.D. degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras in 1989 and 1996, respectively. While pursuing post-Doctoral studies at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST, 96-98), he was awarded the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) fellowship. Since 1999, he is with the National University of Singapore. In 2017 August he was appointed as the Master to Pioneer House, an NUS residential college where he lives with students extending pastoral care and mentoring. He established the House model for residential living and learning community in NUS. His research interests include AI, Big Data, robotics, humanoid robotics, and frugal innovation.