“We should adapt the innovations, I always advice my students to opt technology regularly,” Dr Tausif Diwan expressed his opinions in a conversation with ‘The Hitavada’. “Ample amount of data is available today. As I recall, at the initial phase of my journey, we used to collect data from the books and then file our research,” he added. Dr Diwan is a leading computer engineer, researcher and academic whose work stands at the intersection of artificial intelligence, parallel computing, cybersecurity and data science.

 

Hailing from a small town, Saunsar in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh, his journey from a modest middle-class background to becoming a national research leader is inspiring and deeply rooted in discipline, curiosity and perseverance. Born into an academically inclined family, his father being a junior college Principal, education was embedded into his upbringing. From an early age, Dr Diwan exhibited a strong analytical mindset and a fascination for emerging technologies. His academic interests gradually matured into a deep engagement with parallel computing, pattern recognition, advanced algorithms and multicore architecture.

 

He completed his PhD at VNIT Nagpur, where his research on parallelisation of dynamic programming algorithms using multicore and manycore architectures set new benchmarks in the field under the guidance of Dr S R Sathe. Leveraging advanced technologies like OpenMP and CUDA, his work significantly contributed to the evolution of high-performance computing. Dr Diwan began his academic career as an Assistant Professor at Ramdeobaba College of Engineering, Nagpur (2011-2019), where he laid a strong foundation as a teacher and mentor. In 2019, he joined IIIT Nagpur, where his leadership, research vision and administrative skills led to his rapid rise, first as Head of the Department and later, in 2024, as Associate Dean. At IIIT Nagpur, he currently leads multiple high-impact research projects, including a prestigious Rs 100-crore ANRF-PAIR project (with IIT Bombay hub), national security-focused voice signal processing projects funded by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and deep-learning-based ocean wind profiling research contributing to climate studies.

 

These initiatives have positioned IIIT Nagpur on the global research map. Beyond academia, Dr Diwan is a prolific innovator with multiple patents in healthcare AI, stroke risk prediction, smart data storage. His expertise in AI and deep learning has earned him global recognition as an NVIDIA Certified DLI Instructor (Platinum) and NVIDIA University Ambassador. When asked about the deepfake AI scams in India, Dr Diwan explained how the IP Address of the scammer helps the Government to track him and arrest the person who performed the crime and also, Government has announced the website through which people can remove their AI generated image which is being used wrongfully. He believes research should not remain confined to labs but must address societal challenges.