CV Radhakrishnan
CV Radhakrishnan at STMDocs campus in August, 2019
Born1953 (age 70–71)
Kuzhithurai, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, India
NationalityIndian
CitizenshipIndian
EducationGraduate
Alma materChristian College, Marthandam
OccupationSoftware developer
OrganizationRiver Valley Technologies
Known forSetting up of Indian TeX Users Group and Free Software Foundation of India
MovementFree software and open access publishing
SpouseVidhya
Websitewww.cvr.cc

Chandroth Vasudevan Radhakrishnan (ചന്ദ്രോത്ത് വാസുദേവൻ രാധാകൃഷ്ണൻ) aka CV Radhakrishnan aka CVR (born 20 January 1953), is an Indian free software developer, entrepreneur and the Founder of River Valley Technologies.[1] He is also one of the founding members of TeX Users Group in India.[2]

Early life

The eldest of four children, CV Radhakrishnan was born on 20 January 1953 in the village of Kuzhithurai in Kanyakumari district,[3] now part of the state of Tamil Nadu, India.

Career

Radhakrishnan started his career at the Indian Telecom department where he worked briefly for six months in 1973. From there, he moved to Delhi[4][1] and joined the Ministry of Shipping and Transport.[3] While working in Delhi, he experienced a weakness in his leg muscles and was diagnosed with a neurological disorder known as peroneal muscular dystrophy.[4][3][1][5][6] Informed by the doctors that he could not expect to live beyond five years,[3][5][1] he quit his job and returned to Kerala to stay with his parents.[4][3] In Kerala, he joined the administrative department of Kerala University.[4][3][5] He continued there for the next fifteen years until he quit in 1993 to set up River Valley Technologies.[4][3][5]

TeX and free software

CV Radhakrishnan began to learn about computers during his stint at Kerala University.[4] Having no formal training in them, he took it up as a way to distract himself from his disease.[5] During this time, his job at the university got him acquainted with Prof. K. S. S. Nambooripad of the Department of Mathematics.[3][4] The professor, an ardent TeX lover, introduced Radhakrishnan to the TeX language.[3] Radhakrishnan soon started exploring the possibilities of the TeX language.[1] Beginning with research papers of the university students, he went on to apply TeX in typesetting Entomon,[4] an entomology research journal of the Department of Zoology. In 1994, he set up River Valley Technologies as a proprietary firm offering typesetting services.[7]

Radhakrishnan's involvement with the Free Software movement started with the inauguration of the Indian TeX Users Group at Trivandrum in January 1998.[2] He was nominated as the secretary of the Indian TeX users group during the meeting.[2] Around this time, FreeDevelopers.Net, a commercial company based in Washington was incorporated. Richard Stallman was its Chief Ethical Officer.[8] The prime aim of FreeDevelopers. Net was to function as a democratic entity that stood for the development of free software. Radhakrishnan founded the Indian chapter of Free Software Foundation on 20 July 2001.[8][9][10] Radhakrishan maintains a number of LaTeX packages in CTAN.[11]

River Valley Technologies

River Valley Technologies came into existence on the premises of the Software Technology Park (STP)[3] in Trivandrum on 1 January 1994. Started as a proprietary concern dealing with software and IT enabled services and registered under the STP system, the firm soon began providing typesetting services to major publishing houses. In 2003, River Valley Technologies contributed to the timely publication of BSNL's telephone directory.[7] Later, Radhakrishnan registered a new private limited company that came to be known as STM Document Engineering Pvt Ltd (STMDocs).[3]

STMDocs Office Campus at Malayinkeezhu in March 2020

Working completely on free software, STMDocs is one of the main suppliers of Elsevier and has also provided typesetting services to Nature, Institute of Physics & Cambridge University Press.[4][3][5] Sprawled across a green stretch of four acres, the main campus of the company is located at Malayinkeezhu,[3] a village located 15 km from the city of Thiruvananthapuram. Radhakrishnan has designed the campus to be an eco sanctuary that houses a range of bio-diverse species from exotic trees to birds and bees. Running on renewable energy and rain water harvesting and actively practising organic farming, the company won the Special Jury award for Biodiversity from the Kerala State Biodiversity Board in 2019.[12][13]

Philanthropy

Radhakrishnan supports philanthropic efforts through non-profit projects spearheaded by the Sayahna Foundation, a virtual community set up by him to promote open access publishing and collaborative digitisation of all contents that enrich humanity, culture, heritage and history.[5][3] Sayahna has contributed to the digitization of prominent works of literature. The digitized version of Kerala Panineeyam, a treatise on Malayalam grammar and rhetoric was released under Creative Commons ShareAlike License in 2017.[14]

Personal life

Radhakrishnan is married[3] and lives in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "He battles debilitating disease". The Deccan Herald. 24 April 2010. Retrieved 24 April 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 Sebastian Rahtz, Inaugural meeting of TUGIndia – TUGboat, Volume 19 (1998), No. 1 (PDF).
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Cris (11 November 2019). "This computing pioneer was among the first to read an email in Thiruvananthapuram in 1984". The News Minute. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Saraswathy Nagarajan (1 January 2010). "The TUG of opportunities". The Hindu. Retrieved 1 January 2010.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "സൈബർ‌ലോകത്ത് മലയാളസപര്യ". Janapadham. No. November 2019. Retrieved 26 Nov 2019.
  6. ↑ "The typesetter of International Journals". Kerala Media Academy. 29 December 2019. Retrieved 29 December 2019.
  7. 1 2 K G Kumar (15 March 2003). "TEX Helps in Timely Publication of BSNL's Trivandrum Telephone Directory". Tug India. No. March 2008. Archived from the original on 2006-02-11. Retrieved 15 Mar 2003.
  8. 1 2 J T Smith (19 July 2001). "Stallman To Inaugurate FSF-India, Stanco To Inaugurate FreeDevelopers-India". Linux.com. No. July 2001. Retrieved 19 July 2001.
  9. ↑ V. Sasi Kumar, "The Origins of FSF India", Linux For You, December 2007, pp. 34–35.
  10. ↑ "FSF-India and FreeDevelopers-India To Be Inaugurated at Freedom First! Conference". LinuxToday. No. July 2001. 19 July 2001. Retrieved 19 July 2001.
  11. ↑ LaTeX packages maintained at CTAN .
  12. ↑ Biodiversity Awards
  13. ↑ "Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Biodiversity awards to be distributed". Indian Express. 5 June 2019. Retrieved 5 June 2019.
  14. ↑ "ലോകോത്തര ടൈപ്പ് സെറ്റിംഗ് സാങ്കേതിക വിദ്യയുടെ കരുത്തില്‍ കേരള പാണിനീയം ഡിജിറ്റലാവുന്നു". Asianet News Network Pvt Ltd (in Malayalam). Retrieved 16 August 2021.
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