Director’s Profile

Krishna Venkatesh

Krishna Venkatesh, a GATE scholar, mechanical engineer by profession and an alumni of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, holds a Ph.D. in Nanoengineering. He has over 25 years of industrial, research, academic, consultancy and administrative experience. He is currently the Founder-Director of CIIRC®, the centralized research centre of Jyothy Institute of Technology, duly supported by Sri Sharada Peetham, Sringeri. CIIRC® is also a SIRO Centre recognized by DSIR.  As Founding Director, he has established research cum incubation labs in 18 different domains of science & technology alongside an Atal Incubation Centre (AIC JIT Foundation) from NITI Aayog, GoI. He is  a member of the Vision Group on Nanotechnology, GoK, and Steering Committee Member, TUV Rheinland, Germany. He has also been the Executive Council Member of Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) and Member, Karnataka Knowledge Commission (Unmanned Systems Technology).

During his two decade career, he has worked with NAL, BEML, IISc, DRDO, Visvesvaraya Technological University and Jain University in different capacities. Previously, at Jain University, he was responsible in shaping numerous initiatives and held concurrent roles as the Dean and Director of the Research and Engineering wing having been its Founder- Director. He was also responsible for the Technology Business Incubator (TBI) funded by DST and Alstom from France, being its CEO. He was  instrumental in setting up a FIST centre from DST for an Advanced Instrument Facility. Additionally, he also established the TUV Rheinland Energy programme and a programme on Food Technology funded by MOFPI.

He  has completed numerous research projects and has been instrumental in CIIRC® getting more than 50 projects worth  Crores of Rupees, funded by DRDO, DOS, DST, DBT, DAE, DIC, MOES, NCAOR, VGST, AYUSH, NITI Aayog and several private bodies. Dr. Venkatesh has numerous research publications (80), citations (2300), products (5), monographs, book chapters and patents filed and granted to his credit. He has been conferred with awards from Diamant of Germany, KSCST, Honeywell, Indian Institution of Engineers, and others.  Additionally, he is the  Director of Drone Aerospace, a company that is into the development of Micro Air Vehicles(MAVs). Drone Aero space represented India at The US Army Technology demonstration for Micro Air Vehicles and Unmanned ground vehicles and finished in the top 10 from among competitors competing worldwide in 2008; Drone Aero space also won the 2014 edition of National Programme on Micro Air Vehicles (NP-MICAV) event in mission mode sponsored by DRDO and CSIR.

His research interests include Tribology, Autonomous Systems and initiating start-ups. He is a Fellow of various professional bodies such as IEI, TSI, ISAMPE, IIPE and others, besides having been a delegate to various countries as part of FICCI, GoK, etc. An avid sports person, he represented the State and University in his younger years as a swimmer and is the recipient of many awards. Besides, he is into white water rafting and spice farming. He has also officiated as the Technical Advisor to the teams that won the

  • 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 SAE Aero Design USA Micro Air Vehicle Competition, ISRO Small Satellite Design, Indian National Academy of Engineering award for design of secondary payload for a microsatellite, Innovate India Award instituted by National Research Development Corporation, Govt. of India.
  • Numerous other aero events organized by IITs, Boeing and others.