Manohar Swaminathan

Principal Researcher, Microsoft & Co-Convener, CAGS

Manohar Swaminathan (Swami Manohar) is a Principal researcher at Microsoft Research India, where he is part of the Technologies for Emerging Markets group. Manohar is an academic-turned technology entrepreneur-turned researcher with a driving passion to build and deploy technology for positive social impact. He has a PhD in CS from Brown University, was a Professor at the Indian Institute of Science, and has co-founded, managed, advised, and angel-funded several technology startups in India.

He has guided over 40 graduate students and has more than 50 refereed publications. His research and development focus over the past two decades has been to create technology solutions for the global south, with the Simputer being a significant example. His current research is in applying to diverse areas of disability, Ludic design for accessibility, a new methodology which puts play and playfulness central to all technology solutions for accessibility: Computational thinking for children with vision impairments, multi-modal interfaces for digital skilling of children with disabilities, and the use of spatial audio to enable people with vision impairments to enjoy AR/VR systems are some examples.