At St Vincent’s,an old boy returns from Stanford to roll back the years

In January this year,the government acknowledged his pioneering work and awarded him the Padmabhushan. While he has been inducted into the Silicon Valley of Fame and has received honorary degrees from Sweden’s Linkoping University,Scotland’s Strathclyde University and others,Prof Kailath recalled how he disliked mathematics.

“I was good at languages,specially English,thanks to the excellent education imparted by the then Principal Father Riklin and other teachers. However it was my mathematics teacher G M Joshi who helped me realise my true potential in the subject,”reminisced Prof Kailath during an interaction with media persons.

A student of the 1951 batch,Kailath recollected how Pune was then a city of bicycles and how the same Maths teacher was his inspiration and encouraged him to take up higher studies at a college at the other end of town. “Normally Vincentians and students from the Cantonment area preferred to study in Wadia college due to the proximity as well but I was told to go Fergusson College and it was quite a distance then,” he recalled.

But it was a decision that stood him in good stead as he excelled in his academic career. Kailath who was awarded the Medal of Honour by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers,IEEE,the world’s leading professional association for the advancement of technology,will be felicitated on Saturday by COEP.