Lok Sabha Elections 2024: Meet Ravi Poovaiah, an IIT graduate who designed EVM

EVM device is being used for the Indian general elections 2024 and while most people know what it is used for, the people who designed it are still unknown to the world.  Meanwhile, EVMs were first tried in 1982 in the by-election to Paravur assembly constituency in Kerala. 

Several of the largest IT businesses in the world are being led by IIT graduates. IIT alumni are renowned for their creativity, problem-solving skills, and unconventional thinking. They are also responsible for some well-known inventions that have improved people's lives all over the world.

The electronic voting machine (EVM) is one gadget that is making headlines as India is voting for the Lok Sabha Elections 2024. The majority of people are aware of the purpose of the EVM gadget, which will be utilized in the general elections in India in 2024, but the globe is still in the dark about who invented it. 

 To recall, EVMs were first tried in 1982 in the by-election to Paravur assembly constituency in Kerala. They were gradually incorporated into Indian elections beginning in the late 1990s. The two main members of the team that created the EVM were Ravi Poovaiah and AG Rao.

Professor Ravi Poovaiah is a senior faculty member at the Industrial Design Centre (IDC), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. He also holds the D L Shah Chair for Innovation at IIT Bombay. Poovaiah has degrees from IIT Madras in Mechanical Engineering, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Providence, USA, in Product Design and Graphic Arts, and IIT Bombay in M.Tech. Poovaiah has played a significant role in advocating for design education and open source at educational institutions.

Professor Poovaiah has worked on projects with major industry leaders such as Microsoft, Yahoo, Google India, Motorola India, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation, Bharat Electronics Limited, Siemens India, among others.