Dr. Puneet Bawa is an academician, researcher, and innovator in the field of Computer Science and Engineering, with specialized expertise in speech processing, multimodal systems, artificial intelligence, and assistive technologies for low-resource environments. He has made significant scholarly contributions, with journal articles, international conference papers, and book chapters, covering topics such as autism spectrum disorder detection, Alzheimer’s classification, Punjabi speech recognition, and noise-robust ASR systems. Dr. Bawa is an innovator, credited with published/granted patents and multiple granted copyrights in areas ranging from AI-based health monitoring and speech enhancement to gesture detection systems and neuro-assistive devices. He has also led and contributed to government and institutionally funded R&D projects, including the Krishi Estra-Kit (DST NIDHI PRAYAS), Briltab-Edukit (NewGenIEDC) for braille-based learning, aimed at empowering visually impaired students, and the Intelligent Urea Spreading Machine (NewGenIEDC) for ease and controlled spread of urea by the farmers.

Dr. Bawa’s academic and technological contributions have been recognized through numerous national and international awards. He received the “Most International Project” award at the Ingenuity Finals 2019 held at the University of Nottingham, China, for his global innovation in assistive education. He was the winner of Novate+ 2018 in Himachal Pradesh, receiving a grant of ₹2.5 lakhs for his solution. He was invited for a talk at NIT Kurukshetra in 2k19 organized by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities in India. His team was also the winner of Punjab Innovation Summit organized by the Government of Punjab, and one of the winners of ACM Technology Solution Contest organized by Sikkim Manipal University, Jaipur. His project innovations were honored by ISTE as “Most Eminent Project,” and he was a semi-finalist and quarter-finalist in successive editions of the India Innovation Challenge Design Contest (IICDC). He has also actively participated and mentored in national-level hackathons, including the Smart India Hackathon and Hack & Reboot (SIIC IIT Kanpur).

With a vision to leverage computing for societal good, Dr. Puneet Bawa aspires to bridge the gap between academic research and inclusive innovation. His goal is to contribute meaningfully to the fields of AI, healthcare, and education through translational research and the cultivation of the next generation of socially responsible engineers and innovators.