Odisha Man behind the UN World Food Programme’s Nobel Prize win in 2020

It is a proud moment for all Odisha residents -a Rourkela Boy – as the Nobel Peace Prize 2020 has been awarded to the World Food Programme where an Odisha resident plays a prominent role as its Advisory Council Member and Artificial Intelligence technology leader. He is Pranav Khaitan, 2009 BTech in Computer Science & Engineering, from NIT Rourkela. He also has a Masters from Stanford University, USA & is currently a Senior Engineering Lead at Google USA. Pranav’s family is from Rourkela, Odisha. Immediately after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the World Food Programme thanked Pranav and recognized his leadership in pioneering the development of artificial intelligence to revolutionize humanitarian operations.
The WFP has been doing outstanding work for decades and has helped lift hundreds of millions of people out of hunger. During times of conflict, the WFP has often been the first humanitarian organization to make contact with victims and provide them with assistance. Google Research under Pranav’s leadership has contributed to this mission by pioneering the use of Artificial Intelligence at the WFP and by serving on its Advisory Council. The partnership between Google and the WFP started about two years ago with Pranav partnering with them to ask “How can AI help reduce global hunger?”. Pranav then led his team to build AI technologies to assess the disaster damage within the crucial 24 to 72 hours, to make the delivery of the aid, timely and efficient. Thanks and huge congratulations again to Pranav for his leadership on innovative technologies that has such deep benefit for all of humanity.