Professor Abhay Karandikar, the director of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, was on Saturday appointed the secretary of the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

He has been appointed to the post till the date of his attaining the age of 60 years, a Personnel Ministry order issued late Saturday night said.

The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet has approved the appointment of Prof. Karandikar to the post of DST secretary, it said.

Abhay Karandikar (born June 15, 1965) is an Indian educator, engineer and advisor, and philosopher best known for his work in telecommunication sector in India. He currently serves as the Director of Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.Prior to that, Karandikar has held a number of positions including Dean and Institute chair professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay; Centre for Development of Advanced Computing and TSDSI. He was one of the founding members of Telecom Standards Development Society of India and appointed as its first Vice Chairman from 2014 to 2016, and then was appointed its Chairman from 2016 to 2018.He was chairman of the committee to give recommendations to Government of India on size, scope and quantum of spectrum for experimental spectrum license for 5G.

Karandikar has also contributed to conceptualization and establishment of new technical standards work programmes for TSDSI. In 2016, he was awarded with IEEE SA's Standards Medallion for his work to Indian Technology, Policy and Standardization with IEEE guidelines.

Abhay Karandikar was born on 15 June 1965 in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Electronics Engineering from Madhav Institute of Technology and Science, Jiwaji University, Gwalior in 1986. He holds Masters and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

Karandikar joined the High Performance Computing and Communications Group at Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune to work on PARAM 9000. He began his career at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in year 1997. Karandikar held prominent positions at the Institute level as head, Computer Centre (2008 – 2011), head, Department of electrical engineering (2012 – 2015), first Professor in Charge, IIT Bombay Research Park (2014 – 2017) and Dean (Faculty Affairs 2017 -2018). While at IIT Bombay, Karandikar has also served as the coordinator of Tata Teleservices IIT Bombay Center of Excellence in Telecommunications (TICET) and the National Center of Excellence in Technology for Internal Security(NCETIS).Karandikar co-founded and incubated Eisodus Networks (2002) in IIT Bombay's business incubator.

Karandikar advises several technology companies and government agencies in India and serves on a number of boards including Central Electronics Limited, National Rail and Transportation Institute, Science and Engineering Research Board, India Police Foundation and is also a chairman for board of Institute of Advanced Studies in Science and Technology, Guwahati.