Viral B. Shah Explained

Viral B. Shah
Birth Place:	Mumbai, India
Alma Mater:	UC Santa Barbara PVPP COE^[1]
Doctoral Advisor:	John R. Gilbert
Thesis Title:	An Interactive System for Combinatorial Scientific Computing with an Emphasis on Programmer Productivity
Thesis Year:	2007
Thesis Url:	http://gauss.cs.ucsb.edu/publication/Shah_thesis.pdf
Awards:	J. H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software (2019)

Viral B Shah (Hindi: वीरल बी. शाह|link=no) is an Indian computer scientist, best known for being a co-creator of the Julia programming language.^{[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]} He was also actively involved in the initial design of the Aadhaar project in India which provides a 12-digit unique identity number to each Indian resident based on their biometric and demographic data. Based on his experiences implementing Aadhaar and other complex technology projects in government, he co-authored the book Rebooting India with Nandan Nilekani.^[8]

Shah is currently the CEO of JuliaHub (former company name Julia Computing), which he co-founded as Julia Computing with Julia co-creators, Jeff Bezanson, Alan Edelman, Stefan Karpinski as well as Keno Fischer and Deepak Vinchhi.^[9] In July 2021, Julia Computing raised $24 Million in Series A round led by Dorilton Ventures, with participation from Menlo Ventures, General Catalyst, and HighSage Ventures.^[10]

Awards

• In 2013, Shah received The Spatial Ecology and Telemetry Working Group (SETWG) award for co-creating Circuitscape with Brad McRae.^{[11] [12]}
• In 2019, Shah was awarded the J. H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software with Jeff Bezanson and Stefan Karpinski for their work on the Julia programming language.^[13]

Notes and References

1. https://qz.com/india/963225/julia-an-indian-computer-scientist-built-a-new-programming-language-from-bengaluru
2. Web site: Bryant . Avi . Matlab, R, and Julia: Languages for data analysis . O'Reilly Strata .
3. Web site: Krill . Paul . New Julia language seeks to be the C for scientists . InfoWorld .
4. Web site: Finley . Klint . Out in the Open: Man Creates One Programming Language to Rule Them All . Wired .
5. Web site: Gibbs . Mark . Pure and Julia are cool languages worth checking out . column . Network World . 24 April 2017 .
6. Web site: Thomas . Maria. An Indian computer scientist helped build an alternative programming language in Bengaluru . Quartz . 20 April 2017.
7. Web site: PK . Jayadevan. Julia is killing it in the programming world. Meet its co-creator from India . FactorDaily . 19 October 2016.
8. Book: Nilekani . Nandan . Shah . Viral . 2015 . Rebooting India: Realizing a Billion Aspirations . Penguin Group .
9. Web site: Julia Computing: About Us. Julia Computing. 13 May 2017.
10. News: Julia Computing raises $24 mln in funding round led by Dorilton Ventures . 22 August 2021 . Reuters . 19 July 2021 . en.
11. News: SETWG Awards 2013 . 16 September 2019.
12. Web site: Conservation through Coding: 5 Questions with Viral Shah . 22 September 2019.
13. News: Jeff Bezanson, Stefan Karpinski, and Viral B. Shah - James H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software . 16 September 2019.