Thiru Vikram (born July 25, 1995) is an

inventor An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

, engineer and entrepreneur, who is the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Buffalo Automation Buffalo Automation is an artificial intelligence (AI) startup that develops autonomous navigation technology for commercial ships, recreational boats, and water taxis with the goal to improve maritime safety. It is a private company based in Bu ...

, an artificial intelligence company headquartered in Buffalo, New York, that provides autonomous navigation technology for commercial ships and recreational boats.

Early life and career

Vikram attended the Lawrence School, Lovedale in Ootacamund, Tamil Nadu, India. Vikram was a Headboy and a member of the Robotics Club at Lovedale. He studied computer science and

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

at the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences where he co-founded

with Alexander Zhitelzeyf and Emilie Reynolds, who were fellow engineering students at the university. The company was initially founded to design and build an artificial intelligence system that enables ships and boats to self-navigate. In 2015, Vikram left the University at Buffalo to focus on the company full-time. Vikram is a Dravidian Indian-American originally from Tamil Nadu in South India, and is a

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

. Vikram serves in the US Army Reserve as a combat engineer.

Awards

Vikram was awarded first place in the 2018 Entrepreneurs' Organization Global Student Entrepreneurship Awards Western NY Competition. In 2021, Vikram was recognized as a CSE Distinguished Junior Alumni by the University at Buffalo. In 2022, Vikram was featured as one of the United States’ 18 Top CEO’s in the Assistive Technology Startup Space and among the top 44 in Navigation by Boardroom Media.

Inventions

Vikram is listed as an inventor in a few patents related to autonomous navigation technology. These include a sensor system for maritime vessels, a

deep learning Deep learning (also known as deep structured learning) is part of a broader family of machine learning methods based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. Learning can be supervised, semi-supervised or unsupervised. De ...

intelligent sensing system integration, training a deep learning system for maritime applications, a deep learning intelligent sensing system for port operations, and a lane and object detection systems and methods.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vikram, Thiru American engineers 1995 births Living people