His name is Nasir Ahmed and it won't ring a bell.
But hang on a minute because it will all make sense.
He went from Bangalore to the US in the early 60s for higher studies and for his PhD, he came up with the Discrete Cosine Transform - an algorithm that would prove to be crucial to the future of the world.
It compressed images and later was applied to video compression as well.
The major use at the time was for defense. The military had a massive network but it was next to impossible to send images over it with limited bandwidth.
As the web took root, Nasir Ahmed's algorithm became the default for sending images.
It was built into browsers and email programs by default.
Users, of course were oblivious of how images were moved across the net. All they had to do was attach a file and hit the 'Send' button.
The man who made it all possible languished in complete obscurity. He was well-known in academic circles and the enormity of what he achieved came into focus during the pandemic.
Zoom or Facetime or Google Meet. None of these would work without deploying the algorithm.
His net worth is a micro fraction of the wealth these companies have amassed. But he isn't bitter about it, merely bemused.
He speaks of the scientists at the time who developed the base technologies that drive today's internet focused only on their vocation.
And he changed the world by making the real time transmission of images and video long before anyone had found widespread global use for it.
Was the makeover only for the cameras?
It's one of the popular sub-genres on TV, but not in India as yet.
In the US, home makeover shows are quite popular.
Practically every channel has a take on how to do home arrangements, or cut clutter or tips to modify the home.
But there appears to be a seedy side to the sub-genre where reality stops with showing what's good on camera.
The format is quite simple - a home or a room is chosen for a transformation and while the family leaves town for a couple of weeks, the makeover team arrives to work their magic.
It's supposed to be done for free and viewers think that the chosen family probably has saved a ton of money by being selected.
It turns out that the reality is not as rosy.
Buzzfeed profiles several makeovers that went completely wrong and the residents ended up with a huge cleanup bill after the camera crews left.
Some of them complained that the whole thing was more like a set with everything held together with staples and glue.
The problem is that most of these shows start off with good intentions. But then, every makeover can't be a repeat of a previous episode. They have to riff off the themes.
And the final result has to be dramatic enough for viewers to tune in week after week.
That's probably where the divergence between expectations and reality happens.
And keeping TV viewers happy and coming back for more is quite different from making homes livable!
The soap, shampoo and toothpaste wars
In this one, the customers aren't involved at all. It's all behind the scenes.
The distributors of these products are the last place you expect an all-out flaming war.
For decades, they have followed a regular plodding cycle.
The distributor sends a sales team to collect orders, deliveries are made. Every year, the distributors and manufacturers haggle over the profit margin and compromises are made.
It was a system that sustained close to 600,000 distributors and the small shops they supplied to.
Then came the disruptors with the big bucks. Udaan, Jio mart and Big Basket had the capital to strike massive deals with manufacturers and pass on some of those profits to small store owners, cutting the distributors out.
It would also make small stores dependent on the larger suppliers over time, given that once the power shifts, the small stores would have less bargaining power.
And the distributors have decided they will do all they can to make things difficult.
So, they issued ultimatums to the big manufacturers - give the same rates to them as well or else they would boycott the brands altogether.
Now, manufacturers treat distributors with kid gloves because they know the havoc they can wreak on the supply chain, at least for now.
It's a cycle that repeats time and again. Remove the inefficiency from fragmented distribution networks and there's lots of money to be made - at the regional level, the state level and the international level.
For the moment, the boycott has been postponed because the manufacturers have bought time.
Distributors in India and small shopkeepers are wily and have quite a sting in the tail.
Especially when they assemble their collective firepower and disrupt the disruptors.
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