Real reason Padma awardee Ajay V Bhatt invented USB
What's the story
The genius behind the revolutionary Universal Serial Bus (USB) Ajay V Bhatt said in an old interview that he never invented the technology for money.
"I did this to bring about change, and it's not very often that somebody gets a chance to bring about this big a change," he once told Business Insider.
Fast forward the years and he has now been honored with the Padma Shri in the field of science and engineering.
Journey
His journey began in 1990s
His journey began in the early 1990s amid the expanding tangle of bulky cables and portals that linked the different devices on PCs and laptops.
He recalled that one cable would connect to the keyboard and another to the modem. A different cable allowed printing, while another connected the hard disk to the monitor.
"It was more difficult than it needed to be," he told CNN.
With that in mind, he started about building a single connection for computers.
Challenges
He worked at Intel
For six years, he lobbied colleagues at Intel, where he worked, and then other computer companies, asking everyone to follow suit.
"Initially, it was difficult for them to understand the merits. We had a big tent and we included everybody, we listened to everybody's input and tried to address them to the best of our abilities and that's why USB is successful," Bhatt said.
Today, approximately two billion USBs are shipped annually, with millions being sold on a daily basis.
Career path
Bhatt's educational background and career at Intel
What is even more humbling is that the project has never been about the money, Bhatt said.
"Somebody interviewed me once and they said, I don't know, I don't know, if I made a penny per USB point and Intel made a penny per USB point then we would have made a lot of money," he said.
Rather than money, for any engineer to see their ideas, visions on a shelf in a store is an incredible feeling, he added.
Global influence
Bhatt's recognition and influence in the tech world
Bhatt's contribution to the tech world has been immense, which is why he made it to 'The 50 Most Influential Global Indians's list by GQ India in July 2010.
A Baroda native, Bhatt graduated from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India.
He then received his Master's degree from The City University of New York. He joined Intel in 1990 as a senior staff architect on the chipset architecture team in Folsom.
Technological advancements
Bhatt's contributions extend beyond USB technology
Over his career, Bhatt has been granted 132 US and international patents with several more pending approval.
Apart from inventing the USB, Bhatt has also played a role in the development of other important technologies.
These include the Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP), PCI Express, Platform Power management architecture, and several chipset improvements.
His work at Intel has not just revolutionized data storage and transfer but also greatly advanced computer graphics and power management systems.