Guru Banavar

Guru Banavar is vice president and chief science officer of cognitive computing at IBM Research, responsible for creating the next generation of cognitive/AI systems in the Watson family. He has worked across IBM’s businesses to co-innovate with clients, for example, to build a city operations center in Rio de Janeiro.

Banavar served on NY Governor Cuomo’s commission for improving New York state’s resilience to natural disasters after Hurricane Sandy. Guru has spoken on the stages of Nobel, Turing, Milken, and Aspen, and his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Economist, and other international media. While being Director of IBM Research in India, he and his team received a 2009 National Innovation Award by the President of India for the Spoken Web project. On his own time, Guru enjoys music and songwriting and has recently released a studio album called ‘Rise 8 Times’ under his artistic name Guru Vasist.