TCS' Pune R&D arm moves to next level of innovation
The Times Of India — December 15, 2006

• How can you detect fraud and predict misuse in real time by analysing past patterns of usage from customers' electricity and phone bills?
• How can you safely use nano-materials to coat the outside of a buildings or inside of ceilings so that they become self-cleaning?
• How can we convert industrial waste into useful products like cement, that can be utilised to build roads?
• How do you ensure individual privacy while giving away data collected by government organisations, hospitals, etc. for research?
• How can you reduce load on large IT systems with terabytes of data flowing constantly and extract what you want, even as unrelated information keeps bombarding from various sources?

These are some of the questions people worldwide are grappling with. And the Pune-based Tata Research Development and Design Centre (TRDDC), a division of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is trying to figure out the answers. The dedicated software and engineering R&D centre, established in 1981, is the first such and the largest in the Indian software industry. The centre works on developing new technologies, models, tools and products to serve TCS clients. "We are only looking forward now, and will not delve into the past," said Mathai Joseph, executive director, TRDDC.

According to him, the way forward is data masking, privacy protection, fraud detection and information extraction in the software engineering space and nano-technology and transformation of industrial waste in the process engineering area. "Every material processing industry produces large amounts of waste - slag and fly-ash created in case of iron and steel production, and accumulation of 'red mud' in aluminium production. We are trying to transform such waste into something useful and create a business out of it," he said. As a part of the initiative, TRDDC scientists have developed a number of techniques for converting industrial waste into alinite cement, which has properties that closely match the more conventional portland cement.

The centre is also researching the use of nano-materials for industrial coatings, where special properties are required. But as these nano-materials are extremely small-sized and unsafe when dispersed in the air, whatever is made from it has to be handled carefully, Mathai said. The R&D centre is developing version 2.0 of Masketeer, a data-masking tool, to enhance the privacy of individual data, while permitting its use in controlled applications. It is collaborating with Stanford University in this area.

As more people begin using credit cards, mobile phones and health services, these organisations would get access to a lot of personal information of customers, making secure release of the data into the public domain a worldwide concern. The data-masking tools find use in financial services, healthcare and public information areas like census. The TCS apex research body is also developing software applications to detect fraud and identify patterns of potential misuse in large organisations like stock exchanges and public utilities in real time.

Most of the technologies, tools and products developed by it are being piloted at TCS' customer sites, including many Tata Group companies. Some are expected to be commercialised soon. But according to Mathai, research in all these 'areas of future' is far from over and TRDDC is expected to keep at it at least for the next 13-14 years, that is 2020.