Latest news with #UniversityofTexasatAustin
News18
13 hours ago
- Science
- News18
Meet Eshan Chattopadhyay, Indian-Origin Cornell Professor, IIT Grad, Awarded Gödel Prize
Last Updated: From IIT-Kanpur to Gödel Prize: Eshan Chattopadhyay's work reshapes randomness and complexity theory. Eshan Chattopadhyay, an Indian-origin computer scientist and associate professor at Cornell University, has won the 2025 Gödel Prize. The Gödel Prize is one of the top honours in theoretical computer science. He shares the award with David Zuckerman of the University of Texas at Austin for a groundbreaking paper that tackles a long-standing challenge in computing: how to generate high-quality randomness from unreliable or weak sources. The research paper, titled 'Explicit Two-Source Extractors and Resilient Functions", was first presented in 2016 at the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, where it won the Best Paper award and was later published in the Annals of Mathematics in 2019. Chattopadhyay's work dives into randomness extraction, a crucial area in computer science and cryptography. One may think of it like this: if one had two rigged coins, this method would still find a way to give them fair, unpredictable outcomes. Though it might sound abstract to the uninitiated, its real-world impact is massive. Good randomness is the foundation of everything from secure communications and encryption to complex algorithms and data privacy. Without it, modern digital infrastructure becomes fragile. The paper's ideas have helped reshape how researchers approach pseudo-randomness, complexity theory and secure system design. Chattopadhyay, who did his BTech from IIT-Kanpur in 2011 and PhD from the University of Texas, has also held prestigious research positions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Simons Institute in Berkeley. Reacting to the award, he told Cornell it felt 'surreal and gratifying" to see his work recognised on such a global stage, as reported by LiveMint. The prize is jointly awarded by Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (ACM SIGACT) and the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science. The prize includes a $5,000 award. It recognises papers that have made lasting contributions to the field, both in theory and long-term relevance. Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from geopolitics to diplomacy and global trends. Stay informed with the latest world news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated!
CNBC
15 hours ago
- Business
- CNBC
In college, he spent $3,500 to launch a popsicle business—now it brings in $63 million a year
Daniel Goetz spent many late nights as a college senior cutting and blending fresh fruits, and freezing them into popsicles to sell to parched customers near the University of Texas at Austin. The advertising major fell in love with Mexican ice pops, called paletas, while visiting Mexico City with his college girlfriend. Inspired, Goetz started mocking up potential brand names and doodling logos during a class in 2009. He landed on the name "GoodPop." Today, the Austin-based organic popsicle and ice cream bar company's frozen desserts are sold in more than 10,000 locations across the U.S., including Costco, Walmart and Whole Foods Market. GoodPop brought in more than $63 million in gross sales in 2024, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. It's never taken external funding, says Goetz. GoodPop has been profitable nearly every year since its launch, with 2024 as an exception. It likely won't be profitable in 2025 either, following the winding down of an unpopular product line, but is projected to return to profitability in 2026, says a company still the company's CEO, built GoodPop with extremely little experience or industry expertise. He "knew nothing" about supply chains or the consumer packaged goods market, he says, and spent years "driving a lot ... running around all over Texas, making deliveries." He spent his first four years after graduation sleeping "rent-free" on friends' couches around Austin so he could save money while trying to build GoodPop, he says. He cut fruit and froze 80 popsicles per hour, by hand, in a local paleteria that let him use its kitchen after hours. "I just knew that we had this delicious pop with lower sugar, real fruit, and there was nothing like it on the market," says Goetz, 38, adding: "Any opportunity that I could to put these products in front of Austinites, to introduce them and to see if we were on to something, I did." Goetz's family has a history of entrepreneurship: His great-grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Russia over a century ago and "sold consigned ice out of a pushcart," he says. That great-grandfather then founded a grocery supply business in Houston in 1923, which grew into an operation with multibillion-dollar annual revenue by the time Goetz's family sold their interest in 2014. "I'm so fortunate to grow up in a family of entrepreneurs. But, at the same time, I knew that I needed to make my own mark on this world and do it on my own," says Goetz. With GoodPop, he spent $3,500 — money he'd saved from a lawn-mowing business he started in middle school — on signage, a pushcart of his own and produce to make and sell his first popsicles. He sold them for $2 apiece at local music festivals and farmer's markets, bought more ingredients with his proceeds, and spent three weeks making 18,000 popsicles to sell at the annual Austin City Limits music festival in October 2009, he says. Then, rain turned the festival into a "mud fest," he says. "It [was] a cold, sloppy mess ... and out of those 18,000 pops, we sold four. I thought that this was going to kickstart [the business] and change everything, and we were left with 17,996 pops that I had to figure out what to do with and [almost] no money." Goetz rushed the popsicles to a cold storage facility, paid $50 per month to store them and returned to school "dejected," he says. A few months later, he cut his losses and handed them out for free at Austin's annual SXSW festival. After graduating college, Goetz couldn't shake the GoodPop idea, he says. But the only remaining piece of the company was its website — so Goetz put his marketing skills to work, maximizing the site's search engine optimization (SEO). Soon, "when you searched for organic frozen pops or organic popsicles, because none existed at that time, GoodPop was actually the No. 1 result," he says. A week later, a marketing agency called Manifold asked GoodPop for a price quote for 50,000 organic popsicles with custom packaging. Goetz put in a bid and won it: Manifold paid him $80,000 for the job, giving him half the money up front to cover his production costs. "I hand-stamped every single pop stick," says Goetz. The second half of the payment was pure profit for Goetz, putting GoodPop back in business. Luck similarly gave GoodPop its first major retail partner: Goetz's roommate played recreational soccer with a Whole Foods employee, who put him in touch with a representative from the grocery chain's Southwest regional office. Goetz brought some samples and got the representative's approval to pitch buyers at individual Whole Foods stores. As he won buyers over — building relationships and shaking hands, he says — he spent four years sleeping on friends' couches, staying up late to make popsicles and getting up early to deliver them to Whole Foods locations and other, smaller grocery stores by 6 a.m. "I put 212,000 miles on my Toyota, running around all over Texas, making deliveries for years," says Goetz, adding that the hands-on dedication often left him "completely exhausted." By 2014, GoodPop's products sold well enough for Whole Foods to take over distribution for the Southwest and Rocky Mountain regions, meaning Goetz no longer had to make the deliveries himself. That year, GoodPop brought in $1.3 million in gross sales, the company says. In 2017, Whole Foods expanded GoodPop to national distribution. The brand got into Walmart and Costco the following year. The U.S. popsicle market was worth more than $1.3 billion in 2024, according to an estimate from Cognitive Market Research. That makes GoodPop a small player in a market dominated by packaged goods giants: Unilever, the world's largest ice cream producer, brought in more than $9.5 billion in 2024 revenue from frozen dessert brands like Magnum, Ben & Jerry's and the original Popsicle. Even among plant-based, real-fruit frozen desserts, GoodPop competes with brands like Outshine, owned by a joint venture between Nestlé and French private equity firm PAI Partners, and New York-based Chloe's, which sells low-sugar fruit pops in more than 10,000 stores nationwide, including Walmart and Wegman's. They all face a tough road convincing more Americans to buy lower-sugar desserts. In January, GoodPop wound down a line of low-sugar beverages — which mixed fruit juice with sparkling water — after customers said their kids didn't think the drinks were sweet enough. "We were not willing to compromise on any added sugar or any additional sweeteners," says Goetz, adding: "We have some tough times ahead, as far as continuing to reset those taste buds. But it's a worthwhile cause." Ultimately, Goetz's goal from college remains roughly the same: get GoodPop's desserts into as many new hands as possible. In February, the company landed a licensing deal with The Walt Disney Company, adding "Star Wars" and Mickey Mouse-themed products to GoodPop's offerings — a new strategy for the company to catch shoppers' attention. "The future looks like doubling down on what makes our products great," Goetz says.
India.com
a day ago
- Science
- India.com
Meet Indian Genius Who Was Awarded Godel Award For His Brilliant Maths Skill, Is Alumnus Of....Currently Works As...
photoDetails english 2918237 Updated:Jun 19, 2025, 10:36 AM IST Eshan Chattopadhyay, an Indian-origin computer scientist 1 / 7 Eshan Chattopadhyay, an Indian-origin computer scientist and associate professor at Cornell University, has been awarded the prestigious 2025 Gödel Prize—one of the top honors in theoretical computer science. He shares the prize with David Zuckerman from the University of Texas at Austin for their groundbreaking work on randomness extraction, which plays a key role in encryption, cybersecurity, and algorithm development. IIT Kanpur 2 / 7 Eshan Chattopadhyay was raised in India and completed his undergraduate studies at IIT Kanpur, one of the country's premier engineering institutes. He pursued his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin, where David Zuckerman mentored him. After that, he held research positions at institutions such as UC Berkeley, Microsoft Research, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Explicit Two-Source Extractors and Resilient Functions. 3 / 7 He received the award for his groundbreaking research paper titled 'Explicit Two-Source Extractors and Resilient Functions.' The paper tackles a major challenge in computer science—creating high-quality randomness from unreliable sources—which is essential for secure computing and cryptographic systems. Sloan Research Fellowship 4 / 7 In addition to the Gödel Prize, Eshan Chattopadhyay has been honored with the Sloan Research Fellowship and the NSF CAREER Award. He is also an active contributor to leading computer science conferences such as FOCS, STOC, and SODA. His work consistently advances the frontiers of theoretical computer science. Eshan's accomplishment 5 / 7 At a time when the spotlight is on Artificial Intelligence, Eshan's accomplishment serves as a reminder that core scientific principles continue to drive the technology we depend on daily. His success is a moment of pride for the entire nation. Research paper 6 / 7 The Gödel Prize, named in honor of renowned logician Kurt Gödel, is jointly presented by ACM SIGACT and the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science. It recognizes research papers that have made significant and lasting contributions to the field of theoretical computer science. Core concept in computer science 7 / 7 The research focuses on randomness extraction—a core concept in computer science and cryptography. It aims to generate dependable randomness using two weak or imperfect random sources, addressing a long-standing challenge with wide-reaching impact on encryption, cybersecurity, and algorithm development.
Mint
2 days ago
- Science
- Mint
Who is Eshan Chattopadhyay? All about Indian-origin professor awarded prestigious Godel Prize
Eshan Chattopadhyay, an Indian-origin computer scientist and associate professor at Cornell University, has received the 2025 Gödel Prize—one of the highest recognitions in the field of theoretical computer science. He shares the award with David Zuckerman of the University of Texas at Austin for their influential research on randomness extraction—an area crucial to encryption, cybersecurity, and algorithm design. The award was given for his breakthrough research paper titled 'Explicit Two-Source Extractors and Resilient Functions', which addresses a key challenge in computer science: how to generate high-quality randomness from unreliable sources, critical for secure computing and cryptographic systems. Published initially at the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC) in 2016, where it also won the Best Paper award, and later in the Annals of Mathematics in 2019, the paper introduced new techniques that have since shaped major advances in pseudo-randomness and complexity theory. Chattopadhyay completed his BTech in computer science from IIT Kanpur in 2011, followed by a PhD at the University of Texas in 2016. He later held postdoctoral positions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing at UC Berkeley, two of the most prominent institutions in the field. Named after legendary logician Kurt Gödel, the Gödel Prize is jointly awarded by the ACM SIGACT and the European Association for Theoretical Computer Science. It honours papers that have made lasting contributions to the field of theoretical computer science. The research deals with randomness extraction- a fundamental concept in computer science and cryptography. It focuses on creating reliable randomness from two flawed or weak random sources, a challenge that has implications for everything from encryption systems to algorithm design. In simple terms, imagine flipping two unfair coins and still being able to extract fair, unpredictable results. That's the essence of what Chattopadhyay and Zuckerman achieved, turning weak inputs into strong, usable randomness. He told Cornell University that the recognition is an incredible honour. He shared that it feels 'surreal and gratifying' that the paper was placed in that category.
India.com
3 days ago
- Science
- India.com
Meet Indian genius Eshan Chattopadhyay who is awarded Godel Award in Maths for..., alumnus of..., now he...
Success story: Indian-origin Eshan Chattopadhyay has been awarded the prestigious Gödel Award. We share with you his journey from IIT Kanpur to becoming an assistant professor at the Cornell University, New York, United States. Eshan Chattopadhyay has won the Gödel Award in Theoretical Computer Science. He received this prestigious award for solving a problem that had puzzled researchers for almost 30 years. This discovery is a milestone not only in his career but also in the wider world of computing and Indian education. Eshan grew up in India and graduated from IIT Kanpur, one of the top engineering institutes in the country. He earned his PhD at the University of Texas at Austin under the guidance of David Zuckerman. He then worked on research positions at places like UC Berkeley, Microsoft Research, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He joined Cornell University in 2018 and became an assistant professor there in 2024. Here his work focused on pseudo randomness, extractors, and computational complexity. These works are related to modern data security and computation. Apart from the Godel Prize, Ishan Chattopadhyay has also received the Sloan Research Fellowship and the NSF Career Award. He also contributes significantly to top conferences like FOCS, STOC, and SODA, and his research continues to push the boundaries of what is possible in computer science. While the emphasis is on Artificial Intelligence at this time, Ishaan's achievement reminds us that fundamental principles still power the technology we rely on every day. Today the whole of India is proud of Ishaan.
