India’s entries to the Oscars may not have made it to the nominations but there will still be a person of Indian-origin who will be receiving an Oscar this year. Rahul Thakkar.

Why is Rahul Thakkar wining an Oscar? 

Thakkar will be the recepient of an Oscar for ‘groundbreaking design’ of a system.  

Thakkar will be sharing the award with Richard Chuang for their work on the DreamWorks Animation Media Review System.  He’ll receive his award during the annual Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation on February 13.

b’Representational image. | Source: AFP image’

In its citation the Academy said: 

Over its nearly two decades of development, this pioneering system enabled desktop and digital theater review. It continues to provide artist-driven, integrated, consistent and highly scalable studio-wide playback and interactive reviews.

Thakkar got his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Mumbai University and then went on to do a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Utah State University. He now has over 20 years of experience in product design and research. He is presently the Vice President at Brivo Systems.

An Indian film, incidentally, is still to win an Oscar for the Best Film Category, though Thakkar would hardly be the first person of Indian-origin to lift the prized statuette. Many Indians have won the award in various categories in the past. 

Musician AR Rahman, lyricist Gulzar, Resul Pookutty, legendary director Satyajit Ray and designer Bhanu Athaiya are among those who have received individual Oscars in the past.