VA Shiva Ayyadurai
VA Shiva Ayyadurai
Inventor of Email
VA Shiva Ayyadurai is a scientist-technologist, entrepreneur and educator. He is the inventor of email. In 1978, while a 14-year-old high school student he invented EMAIL, the world’s first email system, which was the full-scale emulation of the interoffice paper-based mail system, for which he was awarded the first US Copyright. He holds four degrees from MIT, is a Fulbright Scholar, Lemelson-MIT Awards Finalist and Westinghouse Science Talent Honors Award recipient.
VA Shiva Ayyadurai was born 2 December 1963 in Bombay, India. At the age of seven, he left with his family to live in the United States. At 14, he attended a special summer program at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University (NYU) to study computer programming, and later went on to graduate from Livingston High School in Livingston, New Jersey. While attending high school, he also worked at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) as a research fellow. His undergraduate degree from MIT was in electrical engineering and computer science; he took a master's degree in visual studies from the MIT Media Laboratory on scientific visualization; concurrently, he completed another master’s degree in mechanical engineering, also from MIT; and in 2007, he obtained a Ph.D. in biological engineering from MIT in systems biology, with his thesis focusing on modeling the whole cell by integrating molecular pathway models. In 2008, he was awarded a Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant to study the integration of Siddha, India’s oldest system of traditional medicine, with modern systems biology in India.
VA Shiva’s research on pattern recognition and large-scale systems development has resulted in multiple patents, numerous industry awards, new computational platforms such as CytoSolve, commercial products such as EchoMail, and scientific and industry publications.
Since the age of 5, VA Shiva, was intrigued by medicine as he observed his grandmother, a farmer and healer, in the small village of Muhavur in Tamilnadu, apply Siddha to heal and support local villagers. Those early experiences drove him to pursue modern Western science and technology and Eastern medicine with the aim of becoming a scientist and healer. Over the last three decades, his formal Western research and study focused on developing new systems for pattern analysis across multiple disciplines. In parallel, he trained in many Eastern modalities including various forms of Yoga, Meditation, Nutritional and Herbal Medicines, learning from esteemed sages and masters in the oral tradition.
Today, VA.Shiva teaches a pioneering new course at MIT called Systems Visualization in MIT’s Department of Comparative Media Studies. He is the Chairman & CEO of CytoSolve, Inc., and Executive Director of the International Center for Integrative Systems located in Cambridge. He has started and successfully grown several start-up companies.
VA Shiva Ayyadurai is the founder of the email service company EchoMail, Inc. EchoMail's core technology originated from VA Shiva Ayyadurai's invention for classifying inbound email for the U.S. White House, which was seeking a reliable encryption and classification system for President Clinton's email. Three patents were the basis of the EchoMail platform, a system for automatically categorizing and managing inbound email as well as managing both inbound and outbound email. This system was implemented for large companies to make the reading and response of customer service emails faster as well as to support targeted email marketing for companies such as Allstate, Nike, Unilever, and JCPenney.
VA Shiva continues his passion for entrepreneurialism as Managing Director of General Interactive, a venture fund that incubates, mentors and funds new startups in various areas including rural healthcare, media, biotechnology, information technology, to name a few. He has also started InnovationCorps to fuel innovation among teenagers worldwide. He serves as a consultant to CEOs and Executive Management at Fortune 1000 companies, as well as government organizations such as the United States Postal Service, Office of Inspector General.
In 2009, VA Shiva Ayyadurai was recruited as the First Outstanding Scientist and Technologist of Indian Origin by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India to establish a new private-public partnership to run Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) Tech, which was tasked with finding new ways to spin off new ventures from CSIR labs. He was appointed as Scientist Level H, an Additional Secretary in the Indian government, reporting to Samir Brahmachari, the Director-General of CSIR.
CSIR, over its nearly 70-year history, had produced 2,500 patents across its 37 labs and nearly 4,500 scientists; however, it had generated less than 200 million dollars of revenue. Ayyadurai developed a strategy for such spin-offs and published the strategy and his positive and negative criticisms of CSIR. After submitting a draft report critical of the agency's leadership and organization, he was fired and given three days to vacate his accommodations. CSIR claims he was dismissed for "unprofessional conduct", while Ayyadurai claims he was dismissed for the critical report he prepared on CSIR’s governance.
He has appeared in The MIT Technology Review, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, NBC News, USA Today and other major media. Shiva was named Top 40 in the Improper Bostonian. He has also authored three books on the Internet and EMAIL: Arts and the Internet, The Internet Publicity Guide and The EMAIL Revolution, which will be coming out this year.
VA Shiva is a member of Sigma-Xi, Eta Kappa Nu and Tau Beta Pi. He supports the Shanthi Foundation, which raises money to provide scholarships for education of orphaned girls. He is also a supporter of various arts and non-profit organizations including the Guggenheim Museum, Very Special Arts, National Public Radio and the National Geographic Society. VA Shiva enjoys yoga, travel, tennis, animals, art and architecture, and lives Belmont, MA, USA.
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