Sasikala greets Oscar-winning Kiran Bhat of TN

AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala on Wednesday congratulated Tamil Nadu-based techie Kiran Bhat, who has won Oscar award for technical achievement.

She has written a letter to Bhat, in which she said it was a glad news for all Tamils that a person from the state has won the Oscar, which is the greatest award in cinema.

On February 11, when the annual scientific and technical awards of Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are presented at Beverly Hills, among those receiving the awards will be two Indian American technologists — Parag Havaldar and Kiran Bhat.

While Parag Havaldar will receive the award for developing expression-based facial performance-capture technology at Sony Pictures Imageworks, the team of Kiran Bhat, Michael Koperwas, Brian Cantwell, and Paige Warner will receive it for design and development of the ILM facial performance-capture solving system.

Kiran, 41, an alumnus of Stanes Anglo Indian School in Coimbatore, completed his dual degree in mechanical and electrical and electronics engineering at Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani. He then pursued his doctorate in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, US.

Around six years ago, Kiran, along with his colleagues Michael Koperwas, Brian Cantwell and Paige Warner from ILM developed the facial performance-capture system.