Dr. Vivek Seshadri Receives ACM India Early Career Researcher (ECR) 2025 Award

January 15, 2026

The ACM India Council is delighted to announce Dr. Vivek Seshadri as the recipient of the ACM India ACM India Early Career Researcher (ECR) Award for 2025 . 

The ACM India Early Career Researcher (ECR) Award recognizes individuals in early stages of their careers, who have made fundamental, innovative, and impactful contributions to the computing field while primarily working in India. The ECR award carries a prize of ₹15 lakhs. Financial support for this award is provided by the Persistent Foundation.

Vivek Seshadri is recognized for his multidisciplinary research leading to the co-founding of the revolutionary data cooperative company Karya (https://www.karya.in/), demonstrating an exemplary trajectory of translating high quality research into large-scale societal impact. Karya provides dignified digital work and supplementary sources of income for people in underserved communities and thus far employed 130K+ workers in three countries, including 28 states and 70 languages in India. The novel “Karya Promise” aims to establish revenue sharing lines with the workers who created the data sets each time those data sets generate revenue. In a well-recognized set of papers at conferences like CHI, FaaCT, LREC, and COMPASS, Vivek and his team uncovered a multilayered approach to crowdsourced work that addresses challenges in socio-economic, cultural, usability, and technological aspects. This research forms the foundation for the viability of Karya and the sound engineering that went into building it. Vivek has also been appreciated as a fabulous mentor, with a particular emphasis on diversity, by numerous young scholars.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Vivek Seshadri as the recipient of the ACM India ECR for 2025.