Dr. Kannan Srinathan, Assistant Professor and Lead Faculty at IIIT Hyderabad’s Center for Security, Theory and Algorithms (CSTAR) shares his unique journey that mirrors the transformation of Gachibowli, from a thorny forest in the 1980s to its present avatar as Telangana’s glitzy software hub, with imposing glass & chrome edifices.

Prof. Kannan Srinathan’s interesting life story reads like something straight out of Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book.

Born into an extremely scholarly family, to Prof. V Kannan, a senior mathematician of international repute at the University of Hyderabad (UoH), Srinathan grew up in a Gurukulam-like environment, playing in open jungles and sports fields by day, while scoring top-grades at the local Kendriya Vidyalaya.

Simple living, Gachibowli-style
“In my entire life, I applied to and joined only one college – IIT Madras for my undergraduate, masters and doctorate and my sole job application was to IIIT Hyderabad. That’s how simple my life has been,” smiles the expert in Cryptography.   “As senior faculty at UoH, my father lived on the Gachibowli campus. Two decades before IIIT Hyderabad was launched, this entire area was a forest” recalls Srinathan who completed his B. Tech in civil engineering (1994-98), and Masters – Ph. D in computer science engineering (1998-2005) from IIT Madras.

On his vacations home from college, he noticed that there was a new institute coming up. “In 2005, post my Ph. D, I decided to join IIIT Hyderabad, that was pleasantly and pleasurably placed exactly where I wanted it to be”.

Bushel of meaningful memories at IIIT Hyderabad
IIIT Hyderabad is a wonderful place and it is a privilege to be a part of it, states Srinathan. “In the early days, the Institute had a startup kind of environment, that was exhilarating. Being an academic institute, IIITH attracted the right set of people very early in its setup; like IIITH’s first Chairman Prof. Raj Reddy, a Turing award winner”.

“In the initial years, I was a hostel warden, sports-in-charge and teaching several courses.  Within the first three years, I had notched up a few research papers, collaborating with every research center at that time; Prof. Madhava Krishna in robotics, Prof. Anoop Namboodiri in biometrics, Prof. CV Jawahar in computer vision, and Prof. Vasudeva Varma in LTRC.  The outcomes were actually surprising, with publications in premier conferences of their domains.

Collaborative research with every center was getting done in a very nimble way; which anywhere else in the world, Ivy league or otherwise, would have been very difficult. I have taught over fifty distinct courses, related to mathematics, algorithms, information security and quantum cryptography. As a guest lecturer, I must have crossed four digits, clocking almost a lecture a week for the last 20 years, between Kurukshetra in the north, Guwahati in the east, Surat in the West and the southern most part in Tirunelveli”.

Decrypting his work in cryptography and security protocols
With a varied portfolio of academic collaborations, Kannan has co-authored papers with several scholars. His doctoral research on secure distributed communication looks at how a sender and receiver in a huge peer-to-peer network can securely communicate and hoodwink eavesdroppers to achieve security. “During my Ph.D tenure, with my advisor being out of the country, I got to work with many talented undergraduate students. As it turns out, almost all of my co-authors in that era are now big shots in Ivy League colleges – MIT, Princeton, UC Berkeley etc. I was the inaugural recipient of the IBM Outstanding Ph.D student Award. Looking back, very early in my career, that craze for awards which was once a good driving force and I made the most of it, is no longer there”, quips Srinathan.  

“After I hit one hundred publications within the first decade of my career, I chose to focus on becoming a contributor to science. It’s always my co-authors who present my work,” notes the researcher who has edited a book on LNCS. In the last 10 to 15 years, the quest for truth has become the natural driving force. “I have a list of things that I want to achieve before I leave the planet,” he says tongue in cheek. “There should be a startup on the cards this year and possibly a book in the near future.”

In layman terms, Srinathan’s work in cloud computing allows individuals and organizations to store data and run their programs with a third party. Use cases like hospitals, governments or banks require fully homomorphic encryption in the domain itself, which is one area of interest. “My field of work is vast but is still in messy waters because almost all the security protocols in use, whether in industry or academics are not proven to be secure unconditionally and are based on certain assumptions which could be false and in some cases, susceptible to quantum attacks.

Though cryptography and security has matured over several decades, it is still not a done deal and leaves some faithful followers of science in anguish.   The advent of quantum computing has stirred the messy waters even further. “I am looking at placing the role of quantum mechanics in the field of security with a deeper insight about what it can do. There are several impossibility proofs which can be circumvented and that is the school of thought that has been incubating in my head for almost a decade now.  Here everyone stands on the shoulders of giants. But I would say that I have been thinking about hard problems for long enough to realize that I have probably digressed from my peers, in a manner that may be completely out the box”.

Growing in a Gurukulam called Home
It was an extraordinary childhood for Srinathan, growing up in a serene setting brimming with erudition, with two very different and inspiring parents.  “My father Prof. V Kannan is one in infinity”, says the proud son. “A polymath, he is an international mathematician of repute, a Ramanujan Medalist, Fellow of all the academies of sciences in India and Pro-Vice chancellor of the University of Hyderabad. At the same time, he is an extraordinary pundit, well-versed in all our ancient scriptural texts, an Aasu-Kavi who writes extempore poetry in Sanskrit and is equally well-versed in Tamil, his mother tongue. There was a time when my father had authored a hundred books, in a single year.  These are divine qualities; and I am blessed to be sharing and learning from such an extraordinary person, who despite his achievements, does not care for money or fame”.

Since the UoH campus had extraordinary sports infrastructure, young Srinathan was teamed up and pitted against postgraduate students, who were in their physical prime.  “With sheer competitive spirit, they taught me to excel, to the extent that I was part of my school sports team in table tennis, cricket, chess, carroms and badminton. I was a deep thinker very early in life and after tenth grade, I chose to relegate sports to the backseat”. But funnily enough, when Srinathan took up weightlifting at IIT Madras, both he and his coach immediately recognized that he was just there to clock the time and they didn’t bother each other after that.

Srinathan’s father has a treasure trove of books in his home library and the University of Hyderabad has one of the finest libraries. “With easy access to gems of books, I unfortunately haven’t done justice to it”, rues the thinker with a grin. “I preferred to embrace Einstein’s statement, that imagination is more important than reading, to salve my ego”.

Work is life for the scholar who believes that contributing to science and being a thinker is not work. “I am blessed with an extraordinary spouse who takes care of the nitty-gritties of life”.   Srinathan and his wife Anuradha have three children; Padmini, who is in final year B.Sc. and younger twins Navneet and Vibha in high school. “My family understands that I am an innate thinker and this is my tapas, my mission and passion”.

The professor has two life hacks for the student of science. Appreciate your freedom and use it wisely and constructively. Work towards mastery by striving to improve every day.  When the appreciation of freedom meets urge for mastery, your education is complete.