Professor Bijendra Nath Jain is the Senior Academic Advisor to Ashoka university. He is also a Professor of Computer Science at IIT Delhi since Aug 2015, having earlier spent 5 years as Vice Chancellor at BITS Pilani, a university with campuses in Pilani, Goa, Hyderabad and Dubai. He planned and rolled out an agenda for the complete transformation of BITS Pilani as a research-led university and for significant growth in student strength in its UG, PG and PhD programs.
Between 1975 and 2010, he was with IIT Delhi, where he was Professor of Computer Science and at different times a Microsoft Chair Professor, Head of the Department, Dean Alumni Affairs and International Programs, and Deputy Director (Faculty). He has also held visiting assignments with University of Texas, University of Maryland, Bell Labs, Cisco Systems, and University of Western Australia, Perth.
Prof. Jain obtained B. Tech. from IIT Kanpur in 1970 and Ph. D. from SUNY, Stony Brook (NY) in 1975, both in Electrical Engg.
His teaching and research interests are in Computer Networks and Systems. In addition to authoring a number of research papers in international journals and conferences, he has co-authored the book ‘OSI: Its Architecture and Protocols’ published in 1993 by McGraw Hill, New York (later translated into Japanese). He is a co-inventor, with researchers from Cisco Systems, in seven US patents.
In 1983, Prof. Jain was the first to propose a nation-wide data network for India. With funding from Government of India and UNDP, and together with developers from other IITs, IISc in India, he built and launched in 1989 India’s first data network, ERNet. India thus became the 14th country to be part of the global Internet.
He has helped several organizations in India build their data networks. These include RECL, PNB, NTPC, NDDB, UNICEF, and (most recently) Customs & Excise Department. He is (or was) a member of several apex committees, including Governing Council of CDAC, DRDO’s Naval Research Board, Technology Assessment Board of Microsoft Research, and Boards of Governors of IIT Delhi, IIT Roorkee and of IIIT Delhi.
Professor Jain is a co-founder and past-Chairman of Kritikal Solutions, a technology start-up focused on computer vision, embedded systems and networks.
