Insights · Notes from our team

Notes from the field.

Op-eds, thought-pieces and field notes on what we're seeing as we build the deep-tech platform India needs.

Interactive artifact · Insights N° 014

Maps of futures, drawn for builders.

109 technologies. Four lines. Twenty years - from what's shipping today to what's pre-paradigm in 2045. Click any station for the bet, the open problems, and the India angle. Interchanges mark where two lines collapse into one company.

Explore the map
Translation Endeavors · Volume V
thesis
Jun 2026·Translation Endeavors · Volume V

India's next leap is translation.

Why translation is the lever that turns India's science, talent, and capital into deep-tech companies at scale, and what Bharat Innovates in Nice signals about the opportunity ahead.

Kunal Upadhyay
Translation Endeavors · Volume I
thesis
Apr 2026·Translation Endeavors · Volume I

The Indian energy transition will be built, not bought.

Why the next decade of climate and energy founders will be Indian - and why Translation Endeavors is positioned to back them.

Translation Endeavors team
Translation Endeavors · Volume II
thesis
Apr 2026·Translation Endeavors · Volume II

Indian biology, global pipelines.

The next decade of therapeutics, diagnostics, and devices will be discovered, engineered, and manufactured in India.

Translation Endeavors team
Translation Endeavors · Volume III
thesis
Apr 2026·Translation Endeavors · Volume III

Sovereign tech, frontier science.

Why the Indian deep-tech founder wave of 2024 to 2030 will produce more category leaders than the previous fifteen years combined.

Translation Endeavors team
Translation Endeavors · Volume IV
thesis
Apr 2026·Translation Endeavors · Volume IV

India will not build OpenAI.

And that is the right strategy. The Indian AI opportunity is sovereign, vertical, and physical.

Translation Endeavors team
Engineering evolution is a high-stakes race between cure and chaos.
The Hindu · Sci-Tech
op-ed
Jul 2026·The Hindu · Sci-Tech

Engineering evolution is a high-stakes race between cure and chaos.

Gene drives and CRISPR now let us rewrite entire wild populations - a power that could end malaria or unravel an ecosystem, and one we must learn to govern before we release it.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
Size and the single cell.
Shaastra · IITM
essay
Jun 2026·Shaastra · IITM

Size and the single cell.

With cells, size is never just about dimensions - it is a record of the evolutionary history carried by every living thing.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
Talk about evolution!
Shaastra · IITM
essay
May 2026·Shaastra · IITM

Talk about evolution!

Speech, thought and action co-evolved in a single tangle - and how they did is what makes the human story unique.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
Branching out.
Shaastra · IITM
essay
Apr 2026·Shaastra · IITM

Branching out.

Trees, river deltas, lightning and cracks all branch by the same few rules - a shared grammar written across the natural world.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
What lies beneath.
Shaastra · IITM
essay
Feb 2026·Shaastra · IITM

What lies beneath.

The roots of plants are subterranean architects - how they form and extract nutrients is a fascinating story of evolution.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
Societies embrace gene therapy, but resist genetic change in crops.
The Hindu · Sci-Tech
op-ed
2026·The Hindu · Sci-Tech

Societies embrace gene therapy, but resist genetic change in crops.

Why a discipline tolerates one kind of genetic intervention but recoils from another - and what that means for India's bio-economy.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
Aatmanirbhar Bharat: a science of patience, scale, and collaboration.
Economic Times · Opinion
op-ed
2026·Economic Times · Opinion

Aatmanirbhar Bharat: a science of patience, scale, and collaboration.

What it actually takes to translate Indian research into companies of consequence - written from inside the institution that is trying.

Prof. Bharat Bhasker · Director, IIMA
A whale of a puzzle.
Shaastra · IITM
essay
Nov 2025·Shaastra · IITM

A whale of a puzzle.

These gentle giants share their ancestry with hippos - and other species first discovered in a Himalayan sea.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
A bridge (not) too far.
Shaastra · IITM
essay
Sep 2025·Shaastra · IITM

A bridge (not) too far.

Split-brain studies and brain-computer interfaces are re-establishing a fundamental connection that defines human function.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
Mission insects.
Shaastra · IITM
essay
Nov 2024·Shaastra · IITM

Mission insects.

Insects keep our planet running. There is urgency to stem their decline - but it will take science and technology working in tandem.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
Architect's plan and builder's craft.
Shaastra · IITM
essay
Jul 2024·Shaastra · IITM

Architect's plan and builder's craft.

Genetic influence is important, for sure - but cells, too, are critical to how we are made.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
Long live the queen!
Shaastra · IITM
essay
Jun 2024·Shaastra · IITM

Long live the queen!

A queen ant manages a long lifespan despite overeating and being inactive. Researchers offer insights into her charmed life.

K. VijayRaghavan · Founding Chair
AcknowledgmentsEssays republished with thanks to Shaastra, IIT Madras. Op-eds courtesy The Hindu and The Economic Times. All rights remain with the original publishers.