Johnson Controls has Indian origin Global VP & CTO, Vijay Sankaran

In our urban environments, buildings account for almost 40% of global greenhouse gases

We know there are Intelligent, healthy, living, breathing, and responsive humans. We also know of green, unpolluted environments mostly in reference to our land, forests, fauna, and the planet as a whole.

But rarely, if at all, do we think of these adjectives when we look at those massive steel, concrete, glass, and iron buildings dotting our landscape, that is now part of our daily lives – from office to home, we are in and out of these structures daily.

But for Vijay Sankaran, vice president, and chief technology officer for Johnson Controls (JC), there is no other way to look at buildings. Across 150 countries in the world, Vijay looks at millions of buildings and sees in them living, breathing, wide open spaces – filled with humans and other living creatures – where people spend large chunks of their lives.

Be it offices, homes, shopping complexes, hospitals, schools, industrial complexes, or plain old warehouses, Johnson Controls is spearheading new solutions to make these structures smarter, more efficient, and sustainable through technologies and software solutions deployed in buildings across over 2000 locations in the world.

And in his current role, Vijay Sankaran, heads the entire technology, software, and platforms development that power these buildings. Whether it is the security and access systems for entering these spaces, the cleanliness of the air inside or the hundreds of devices that enable life inside buildings, (air conditioners, thermostats, cooling/heating controllers, electrical gadgets) Vijay’s job is to ensure these are running seamlessly, smoothly and delivering comfort to inhabitants.

Be it offices, homes, shopping complexes, hospitals, schools, industrial complexes, or plain old warehouses, Johnson Controls is spearheading new solutions to make these structures smarter, more efficient, and sustainable through technologies and software solutions deployed in buildings across over 2000 locations in the world.

Till recently Vijay was the Chief Information Officer and Head of Innovation at TD Ameritrade, a financial services firm dealing in stocks, trading, mutual funds, and cash management services. Some of Vijay’s responsibilities here were taking care of digital strategy, software engineering, technology operations, cybersecurity, and data analytics. Prior to this, he held senior executive roles in the automobile industry – at Ford Motor Co. where he was the IT CTO and leader of applications development. Thus, the smart building transition, though a bit unexpected, was easy given his multi-dimensional career.

He is clearly excited about his role in creating the smart buildings of the future. “For one, these smarter spaces will help sustainability on a variety of parameters,” he said.

For example, the Gurgaon office of JC brings a feeling of wide open spaces, pleasant ambient lighting (close to natural light), and a buzzing, energetic team moving around their daily work.

In our urban environments, buildings account for almost 40% of global greenhouse gases. Enabling them with better energy management and efficiency reduces the operating costs for owners. It also significantly minimizes the carbon footprint. As the human race continues to build more, managing the impact of carbon emissions is a major goal for JC. And also for Vijay.

We’ve taken a very distinctly outside-in view, which is: what aspirations and challenges our customers have and how we can solve them through data analytics, AI, digital experiences, and digital solutions in an overall software platform.

“This will play a very significant part in managing global warming and climate change,” he says, speaking to Voice&Data during one of his recent trips to meet the JC India Team, which is expanding fast across multiple cities and working out of amazingly smart buildings.

Smart buildings will not only be better for tenants, but also for owners and the global environment. “We now need more people to think about making buildings sustainable,” says Vijay.

Healthy buildings have become an obsession for everyone post-Covid-19. JC technologies are ensuring that buildings manage their environments autonomously, and respond to changes. Vijay explains this: “Intelligent Buildings – are all about data. How to use the data from inside the building, from the edge devices in use, and the external data, with AI and ML, to drive customisations for better outcomes.”

“We often think of how autonomous vehicles could change our lives in the future. But, how often do we consider the impact an autonomous building could have?”

How is this achieved?

It is part of his portfolio. Vijay is heading an initiative inside of JC that brings cutting-edge solutions to handle the challenges of smart buildings. To bring data from the many sources – security equipment, fire detectors, automation like lifts and escalators, the chillers and HVAC units that keep buildings at a steady temperature, and many more – onto a platform called the Open Blue Bridge. It connects all the diverse devices inside a building on a single platform and aggregates information, data points, and inputs to derive greater intelligence and thereby manage the system better.

“We’ve taken a very distinctly outside-in view, which is: what aspiration and challenges our customers have and how we can solve them through data analytics, AI, digital experiences, and digital solutions in an overall software platform.”

Johnson Controls and the technologies being overseen by Vijay are comprehensive engineering solutions that use remote diagnostics for effective responses to day-to-day operational management of equipment and facilities.

For Vijay Sankaran who holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, these are exciting areas to apply his expertise.

He is also clearly excited to be able to oversee the creation of such cutting-edge solutions in India and deployed here. The roots are deep. Vijay was born in the US, where his parents had migrated. But after decades in the American corporate sector, he is thrilled to work with Indian companies again and be a part of where the country is headed as a leader in technology and as a nation.

“India’s digital revolution started some years back, and we have seen great improvement in sectors like e-commerce, digital payments, Internet connectivity, and more data centers,” he says. “India is poised to be a global technology leader in years to come,” he adds. Some of this technology will include solutions for smart buildings of the future from JCI development centers in Pune, Bangalore, and Gurgaon.

This will also allow Sankaran to travel to India more often and witness other changes like in the area of sports, where India is beginning to make a mark in nearly every discipline in all global events. Vijay is himself a sports enthusiast, a keen follower of football and basketball in the US, and a fan of the Michigan University teams. Both his sons are also competitive Tennis players.

In his spare time, Vijay enjoys watching fantasy movies and television shows – which perhaps serve to transport him into the future and to new frontiers of technology that may be relevant for our buildings and the planet. Because this is the only Planet we have.

By Aanchal Ghatak

feedbackvnd@cybermedia.co.in