IITian Krishan Sabnani’s philosophy in life is to keep making the world flatter and flatter—make it better connected and provide free information for everyone. This enablement would create a more prosperous and conflict-free world, he feels

Sabnani is senior vice-president of the Networking Research Laboratory at Bell Labs in New Jersey. He has conceived and launched numerous systems projects in the areas of internetworking and wireless networking and led successful transfers of research ideas to products in Lucent and AT&T business units. He has built organisations known for technical excellence by recruiting and coaching the most talented people in the industry.

Sabnani was born in 1954 in New Delhi. He received his B.Tech in electrical engineering from the elite Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi in 1975 and came to US in August 1977 to study computer networking and to become a researcher. He studied at Columbia University, NY, and completed a PhD in computer networking in 1981 and joined Bell Labs in 1981.
Sabnani’s philosophy in life is to keep making world flatter and flatter (i.e., make it better connected and provide free information for everyone); this enablement would create a more prosperous and conflict-free world. His global vision is that all countries should become dependent on one another for business. This dependence will make everyone prosperous and prevent conflicts because of mutual dependence.

Sabnani has also conducted extensive personal research in data and wireless networking. He has made major contributions to the communications protocols area. For instance, he designed several protocols such as SNR, RMTP 
and Airmail.

Sabnani is not only working for the developed countries but for the developing countries as well. In India he is helping by providing some support to IIT Delhi in its efforts to become a world-class leader in networking. He is a visiting honorary professor at this institution. He also played a key role in setting up a Bell Labs research department in India; such very-high outsourcing would help in India becoming a top nation in research.

Sabnani has helped others grow under his guidance and strong leadership by providing a combination of strong support and constant challenge. This approach helped them in continuously growing in a supportive environment without any complacency.

Sabnani gives maximum credit for his success to his parents, especially his mother. He said his mother always believed in his eventual success when he was at the bottom of class in his early years. 
He also said that he was very weak physically until the age of 14 and had a number of physical problems such as frequent nose bleeding and weak eyesight. “These problems combined with some attention deficit syndrome put me at the bottom of my class until about VI grade. But due to his mother’s vision and a focus to achieve he could reach for the heights.

Sabnani’s wife Indu Sabnani has also provided him strong support at all times. His wife has supported him while he has been working more than 100 hours a week for most of his life. Although she herself is a physician, she has raised the family well. The Sabnanis have two kids, Kirk and Elia.

Krishan Sabnani received the 2005 IEEE Eric E. Sumner Award and the 2005 IEEE W. Wallace McDowell Award. He is a Bell Labs Fellow and a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM). He received the Leonard G. Abraham Prize Paper Award from the IEEE Communications Society in 1991. 

Sabnani also received the 2005 Distinguished Alumni Award from IIT New Delhi. He has also won the 2005 Thomas Elva Patent Award from the R&D Council of New Jersey. He holds 37 patents and has published more than 70 papers.

November 2005