Venkat Rangan

In 2003, Amma appointed Dr. P. Venkat Rangan as the Vice Chancellor of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. Previously, Dr. Rangan founded and directed the Multimedia Laboratory and Internet & Wireless Networks (WiFi) Research at the University of California, San Diego, (UCSD) where he served as a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering for 16 years. He is an internationally recognized pioneer of research in Multimedia Systems and Internet E Commerce. In 1996, Dr. Rangan became one of the youngest faculty members to be awarded the Full Professor position at the University of California – just 7 years after his Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley in 1989. Dr. Rangan has over 75 publications in International (mainly IEEE and ACM) Journals and Conferences, and also holds over 20 US Patents.

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is a young and dynamic “deemed to be University” established by its Chancellor, Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, popularly called Amma all over the world and one of the foremost humanitarian leaders of the world today. Amma is recipient of the prestigious 2002 Gandhi-King International Award at the United Nations in Geneva. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, under Amma’s guidance is well on its way to becoming one of the foremost institutions of education, learning and research in engineering, information technology, medical sciences, as well as management.

In 1993, Dr. Rangan founded the first International Conference on Multimedia: ACM Multimedia 93, for which he was the Program Chairman. This is now the premier world-wide conference on multimedia. Dr. Rangan also founded the first International Journal on Multimedia: ACM/Springer-Verlag Multimedia Systems, which is now the premier journal on Multimedia. Several startup companies have emerged from Dr. Rangan’s Multimedia Lab: these include: San Diego based Intervu (1995) and InnovaTV (1997), successful pioneers in Internet video streaming.

In 1999, Dr. Rangan took a two and a half year leave of absence from UCSD to found Yodlee, Inc.. He raised about $40 million for Yodlee from Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, AOL, Bank of America, etc., invented online account aggregation, built Yodlee’s business with major portals and banks, served as its President and CEO during the first two years, after which he hired a full management team to run Yodlee. Dr. Rangan continued to serve as Founder and Chairman of the Board of Yodlee till August 2002. Yodlee is now a multinational company with a 98% market share in online account aggregation with over 100 customers that include almost all of the top 10 portals and top 50 financial institutions of the world. In July 2000, Internet World featured Dr. Rangan on its cover page and named him as one of the top 25 Stars of Internet Technologies.