IndiaPost.com - 7 conferred Asian American Engineer of the Year award

NEW YORK: The Chinese Institute of Engineers USA, in conjunction with the National Engineers Week (E-Week), has conferred the 2008 Asian American Engineer of the Year Award (AAEOY) on seven prominent Indian Americans from various high tech companies all over the US.

The annual awards recognize the Asian American contributions in science and engineering for their impact on community. While Sanjiv Sidhu, Founder and Chairman of Board of i2 Technologies Inc. has been conferred the lifetime achievement award, Dr Sudhakar K. Rao, Kay K. Kapoor, Dr Venu Menon, Snehal R. Patel, Dr Gururaj Rao and Sanjeev Venkatesan have been awarded the Engineer of the Year Award. Sanjiv Sidhu founded i2 Technologies, Inc. in 1988 with the vision of helping businesses make more intelligent decisions by using information resources. Today he serves i2 as chairman of its board of directors.

He also works in a customer advisory role, and is the company's primary evangelist for the "Seven Principles of an Agile Enterprise," and the i2 Agile Business Process Platform. Under his leadership, i2 grew to become a market leader, serving such powerhouse clients as Texas Instruments, 3M, DaimlerChrysler, IBM, Ford Motor Company, Dell, Caterpillar, Toshiba, and VF Corporation. His multinational team of employees is one of the most experienced and highly educated workforces in the business. People all over the world-from local television viewers to soldiers on the battlefield-benefit from the technical accomplishments and innovations of Dr Sudhakar Rao. In his 33-year career, spanning four countries on three continents, he has become an internationally recognized expert in antenna systems used for multiple-beam and reconfigurable-beam payloads for satellite communications.

Dr Sudhakar Rao is deeply involved in community and charity services in rural India as well as in the US through the Salvation Army and UNICEF over the last two decades. He also does volunteer work for IEEE and other organizations that have far-reaching impact on the scientific community, graduate students, and researchers around the world.

This involvement with the scientific community not only benefits others, but also helps him to learn about new developments in technical fields. Kay K. Kapoor is currently serving as Vice President, Information Technology (IT) and Homeland Security (HLS) Programs for Lockheed Martin Washington Operations. Kapoor's commitment to deliver results and increase awareness of the Asian American culture is evidenced by her activities as an active member of both the Lockheed Martin Council for Asian American Leadership and Lockheed Martin Executive Diversity Council. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including Lockheed Martin's President's Award, on multiple occasions. Prior to her work at Lockheed Martin, she worked for Electronic Data Systems and Citicorp/Citibank. Dr Venu Menon, Vice President, Texas Instruments Inc. joined the company in 1995 as Worldwide Manager for Contamination and Yield Operations. In 2003 he was elected Vice President and manager of advanced CMOS development, and last year he became Vice President for Analog Technology Development where he leads analog research and development. Dr Menon is very active in the Asian American community, serving as an advisor to Texas Instruments' Dallas based Indian Diversity Initiative and as a mentor to young engineers of Asian origin. An interesting facet to Dr Menon is his passion for Indian music.

In 2005, Sony Music released a CD of his compositions in Hindi. Snehal Patel is acting Technical Director for GMR Networking Products for Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, The Boeing Company. Patel's last 10 years at The Boeing Company have been very exciting and challenging at the same time. He has been working on a project that will change the way the military communicates in the battle field and on projects that will help the US Navy detect underwater sea mines to help save lives. The experience has taught him invaluable lessons in working with teammates specializing in different engineering branches.

Patel is recipient of several awards for professional achievements as well as community service. Dr Gururaj Rao, Hardware Systems Chief Engineer, IBM Systems & Technology Group, joined IBM in 1978 in the Research Division and held various positions within the company. In 1999, he was named IBM Fellow for his contributions to the architecture, advanced technology and design of mainframes, and engineering their evolution into high performance servers of today. Dr Rao is also an elected member of the IBM Academy of Technology, and part of its Technology Council.

He was most recently elected VP of Americas. Sanjeev Venkatesan is Director of software for North Texas Engineering and a member of the Raytheon Company Network Centric Systems. His management, technical and research expertise lies in the area of artificial intelligence (AI), electronics and embedded systems. After supporting development activities for the Ballistics Missile Defense program, Venkatesan supported the software subcontract manager on the Future Combat Systems, Ground Sensor Integrator (GSI) program.

He is a graduate of Raytheon's Principal of Program Leadership program and an instructor of the course. He is also a Raytheon Six Sigma Specialist and a student of the 2006 Engineering Leadership Development program. The awardees will be honored on March 1 at the Renaissance Hotel in Richardson, Texas at the annual AAEOY annual convention.