Prof. Jaswant G. Krishnayya was a faculty member of IIMA between 1965 and 1974, initiated IIMA’s computer programme and was a pioneer in heralding India’s IT age, by his own contributions and by recruiting and mentoring Narayana Murthy (who later founded Infosys) to work with him in his group at IIMA in 1969.

Born on April 12, 1935, Prof. Jaswant G. Krishnayya earned his Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) in Telecommunication Engineering from COEP Technological University in Pune in 1955. He furthered his education by obtaining a Master of Science (M.S.) in Electrical Engineering, specializing in Electrical, Electronics, and Communication Engineering, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1963. On September 14, 1965, Prof. Krishnayya joined IIMA as a faculty member in the Operations Research area. In June 1966, he returned from the Harvard Business School, where he participated in the International Teachers Programme during the 1965-66 academic year.

In the early years of his tenure at IIMA, Prof. Krishnayya played a pivotal role as the coordinator of the "Programme on Corporate Accounting & Control Systems," collaborating with fellow faculty members while also engaging in teaching and various projects. Notably, during the 1967-68 academic year, he initiated an innovative Seed Money Project titled "Business Communications System." In 1968-69, he expanded his professional horizons by consulting for both public and private sector organizations. That same year, he led a significant project, "Management Uses of the Computer in India," in collaboration with other faculty members, which was financed by the institute. Additionally, he served as a speaker at a seminar on April 2, 1969, discussing "Computer Facilities at the Institute."

Prof. Krishnayya's contributions to the field extended beyond teaching and consulting; he also coordinated a workshop on "Uses of Computer Simulation," held in Bombay from January 21 to 24, 1970. His extensive involvement in consultancy projects with various organizations and government departments further underscored his commitment to advancing the application of technology in management.

Subsequent to approval by the Board of the proposed computer grant by the Ford Foundation to IIMA, steps were taken to procure the desired components to make up the Institute's Computer System, and Prof. Krishnayya was deputed to the USA for two months in April-June 1970, for checking the proposed hardware and working out the most economical way of securing the desired configuration.

In January 1971, the Second Annual Computer Workshop took place in Ahmedabad. During this event, he played a pivotal role alongside fellow faculty members and external stakeholders from Ohio University, USA, contributing significantly to the workshop's success. The workshop involved each participant in nearly 13 hours of online computer use. This was the first time in India that such a facility was offered. By this time the distinctive feature of the computer system had defined for the computer centre its three areas -- Information Retrieval System, Simulation, and Interactive Computer Use. In time for the Computer Workshop in January, the first Online Data Bank in India was constructed, containing information on 300 towns and cities accessible through IIMA's Mark-I information Retrieval System. Other packages on CPM Project Management, Production Scheduling, Simulation, Linear Programming, and Statistical Analysis were also available. This project would make teaching packages available to instructors of the Post-Graduate Programme, both in the first year and the second year, in Marketing, Accounting, and Quantitative Methods for the first term of the academic year 1971-72. Prof. Krishnayya also participated in a seminar on "Computer Aids for National Policy" in mid-1971.

During his tenure at the Institute, he served on several Academic Administration Committees, including as Placement Chair and a member of the Computer Committee. He left IIMA on June 26, 1974, to take on the role of Director at the Systems Research Institute in Pune and focused on consultancy for government projects.

Throughout the years, Prof. Krishnayya maintained a strong connection with IIMA and is fondly remembered by his students, colleagues, and other stakeholders for his contributions and mentorship. His LinkedIn profile highlights his extensive experience and dedication to the field: -

“I did not realise it then, but in fact I have lived through the entire history of mini- and micro-computers, after 1961, when MIT's IBM 704 mainframe computer was installed in place of the Electronics Laboratory where my office used to be (Interestingly, I moved from there to Vannevar Bush's old office on the 2nd Floor, where I remained until I left). I never learnt how to programme the 704 or the 709, and worked instead on small machines, beginning with the predecessor to DEC's PDP-5 which had six or 8 bits (I forget now) and which had only 4 hardware instructions.

When I worked at Inforonics Inc, I had access to a PDP 5, which was an 8-bit machine with 3-bit instructions and 5-bit memory reference. A pretty good machine. Years later, in 1971 at IIMA, Narayana Murthy worked with me to develop a BASIC interpreter for the ECIL-8 (which was an exact copy of the PDP-5 except that it had 4-bit instruction and 4-bit memory (This made it very very difficult to programme, since it required lots of indirect addressing).

At IIMA, thanks to the Ford Foundation's Computer Adviser, we were allowed to buy the HP 2000A BASIC Time share computer system (built on the HP 2116 16-bit CPU) with a "large" drum memory. This enabled 16 users to run programmes simultaneously (being swapped out by an algorithm to the drum when appropriate). This was the ONLY time-share computer system in India from 1970 till 75, when TIFR installed theirs! We even had 2 graphic displays (the other terminals were Teletypes).

The 2000A was very good as a thinking tool - we even were able to programme on it the WORLD-3 model by Dennis Meadows; to create a Marketing data base of 5000 towns in India that could be referred to by logical queries.

Interestingly the NRN Murthy project for ECIL was prefaced by writing a Simulator for the ECIL computer on our machine, so that all the work could be done at Ahmedabad, and Murthy only needed to go to Hyderabad to present the final working solution!”

On June 27, 2025, IIMA hosted the inaugural award ceremony of the ‘Professor Jaswant G. Krishnayya Merit Scholarship’, instituted by Narayana Murthy, founder of Infosys and Catamaran, and former Chairperson, Board of Governors of IIMA, to support academic excellence at IIMA. The scholarship honours Prof. Jaswant G. Krishnayya, one of IIMA’s founding faculty members and a pioneer in computer science, decision sciences, and management systems who played a formative role in shaping the academic rigour of IIMA.

To be awarded annually, this full-fee, inflation-protected scholarship will support a second-year student from the flagship Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGP) who has demonstrated exceptional academic performance in their first year and achieves the highest CGPA at the end of the first year of the PGP programme. The scholarship, funded by Mr. Murthy for a period of 20 years, will fully cover the recipient’s annual tuition fee, hostel expenses, course material, and mess charges for the duration of the two-year PGP programme.

Sharing his thoughts on this occasion, Narayana Murthy said, “This scholarship is not just a tribute to a great teacher, but a way to pass forward the values he stood for— intellectual discipline, curiosity, and humility. It is my privilege to honour Professor Krishnayya by supporting bright young minds at IIMA, and I hope this initiative encourages others to remember those who shaped their paths.”

Mr. MD Ranganath (PGP, 1991, IIMA), Chairman of Catamaran Ventures, moderated the Fireside Chat with Prof. Krishnayya during this maiden award ceremony.

(Bio written in July 2025)

Date of Birth: April 12, 1935