Six scientists win Infosys Prize 2020 for research 'improving the world'

The Infosys Prize for 2020 will go to six scientists for their research that has the "the potential to improve our world".

The winners are Hari Balakrishnan, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology for engineering and computer Science; Prachi Deshpande, of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences for humanities; Rajan Sankaranarayanan, of the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology for life sciences, Sourav Chatterjee, of Stanford University for mathematical sciences; Arindam Ghosh, of Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru for physical sciences, and Raj Chetty, of Harvard University for social sciences. 

“Developed countries have succeeded mainly by improving their higher education and research systems. The Infosys Prize contributes to this mission in India by honoring the best scientists and researchers, whose work has the potential to improve our world,” said Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys and president of Infosys Science Foundation. 

India will see higher budget allocation to R&D going forward as the country takes initiatives in creating infrastructure for higher education and research, he said.

The prize consists of a gold medal, a citation and a purse of $100,000 and is awarded in six fields, namely Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Physical Sciences and Social Sciences.

Earlier winners of the prize include former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and economist Abhijit Banerjee, the Nobel winner for economics last year.