How Indian-American startup Softworthy won the US Innovation Award

Saurabh Kewlani is part of a project that has been conferred the prestigious National Science Foundation Innovation-Corps (NSF I-Corps) Teams Award in the United States. Saurabh serves in a leadership role at SoftWorthy, the U.S. start-up whose team has been presented with the award by NSF, in recognition of an innovation that will help design reliable, next-generation electronic devices.

Founded in 2020, SoftWorthy develops cutting-edge scientific computing and data analysis tools that address complex engineering problems in the industry. The company is led by a team of Indian engineers trained at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Harvard University.

Saurabh, also a core contributor to the project, currently guides the team on issues related to IT systems & IT security. He also serves in various leadership roles in the IT sector, where he advises Government & Industry bodies in matters of Information Technology & Information Security.

SoftWorthy's award-winning project is focused on developing state-of-the-art computational methods for 'stochastic modeling, design simulation & sensitivity analysis' of electronic devices like printed-circuit-boards (PCBs), which are critical for the growth of novel technological applications like driverless vehicles and energy-efficient smart buildings.

Speaking about the team's accomplishment, Saurabh Kelwani, said:

“We are honored to receive the NSF I-Corps Teams award. PCBs have become an essential foundation of today’s electronic products & industrial technology, and the algorithms developed by our team will eventually lead to more robust, failure-resistant PCBs that can operate in uncertain environments. These algorithms will also reduce the PCB design-time due to the advanced innovative techniques used.”

He further said that the team believes the research algorithms will have a wide-ranging impact in a multitude of fields undergoing a technological revolution. The commercialization efforts will provide key breakthroughs in transportation and energy domains, and the NSF I-Corps Teams program will be a great step in this direction for us.”

The NSF, a U.S. federal agency, created the I-Corps program in order to promote scientifically advances in the United States, reduce the time and risk associated with translating promising ideas and technologies from the laboratory to the marketplace.

The program supports the commercialization of deep technologies revolving around fundamental discoveries in science and engineering. All NSF I-Corps applicants and their research proposals are evaluated through the use of three National Science Board-approved merit criteria, namely, intellectual merit, the broader impact of the proposed research, and the team's ability to take the research to commercialization.

Prior to receiving the NSF I-Corps Teams award, their project was supported by the MIT Venture Mentoring Service I-Corps Flex program. SoftWorthy is also working on using the algorithms for performing better medical device design simulations, which will help develop robust point-of-care devices faster, which is of major significance given the current pandemic.

Saurabh in a statement said that the next-generation diagnostic devices developed using our simulation tool can play a crucial role in rapid short-term response to control the spread of infections, and enhance long-term access to primary healthcare, thereby significantly improving public well-being, particularly in resource-constrained settings.

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