Pune
Edition, 24th July 2008
Chennai: Two years ago, at 15, S. Chandrasekar
was the youngest engineering graduate in the country. On
July 25, he will be the youngest post-graduate from IIT-Madras
when he receives his degree at the convocation. The teenager
has also topped his class.
Born on September 25, 1990, Chandrasekar was a precocious
child, according to his parents. “His teachers used
to complain that he would finish his work quickly and disturb
other children, so we asked them to give him some books
to read after he finishes work so he doesn’t trouble
the other children,” says Chandrasekar’s father
R. Subramanian.
A family friend, who noticed that the boy was inquisitive
and picking up things very quickly, thought it would be
interesting to put him in an international certificate programme.
That is how Chandrasekar became the youngest Microsoft Certified
Systems Engineer and Cisco Certified Network Associate at
11 years.
Chandrasekar was appointed an honorary director of the Technology
Information Forecasting and Assessment Council - Center
of Relevance and Excellence in network engineering in August
2002.
In 2002, an Anna University committee, headed by the then
vice-chancellor Dr Balaguruswamy, assessed the boy’s
capabilities and decided to admit him into the BE programme,
which he cleared when he was 15. He then took the Graduate
Aptitude Test in Engineering and scored 99.32 percentile,
which left no room for academics at IIT-M to have second
thoughts about admitting him into the MTech course.
“The best thing about him is his consistent performance.
When he is interested in something, he pursues it with great
commitment and purpose,” says Subramanian.
“BE was academically not very hard. In the first semester,
the environment was new, so I had a little difficulty both
academically and psychologically. But Dr Thangaraj, now
vice-chancellor of Kalasalingam university, gave me a nice
home-like atmosphere, and after the first four or five months,
there was never a problem,” says Sekar, as his close
acquaintances call him.
Prof Pandurangan of IIT, under whose guidance Sekar works,
says, “It’s a pleasure to teach and do research
with him. He has showed mastery and mathematical maturity
ahead of his age.”
Sekar attributes his success to Bell’s Matriculation
School in Tirunelveli, which never put any academic pressure
on him and allowed him to grow in his own time, Covansys,
Dr Thangaraj of Kalasalingam university, Anna university,
which bent rules to accommodate his genius, and TCS for
extending its resources for his development.
