Palo Alto, Calif.-- Google research scientist and Google News founder Krishna Bharat has joined the board of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford University.  

 

Each year, the program gives 20 journalists from around the world the opportunity to explore and develop proposals of their choosing to benefit journalism. It mentors journalists who will be the leaders and innovators in the evolving field of journalism and in countries where press freedoms are challenged. Fellows are enriched through interactions with one another, the academic resources of Stanford and the technology innovators of Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Knight Fellows have been engaged with Google News for the past several years. In an annual visit to its corporate offices, they present some of their ideas and learn about the latest Google News developments.

 

Bharat launched Google News in 2002. The automated news service that aggregates more than 50,000 sources today has 72 editions in over 30 languages. Google News won the 2003 Webby Award in the news category, and Bharat received the 2003 World Technology Award for Media & Journalism. In 2004 he founded Google's R&D operations in India and served as the center's first director until 2006.

 

Before joining Google in 1999, Bharat was a member of the research staff at DEC Systems Research Center in Palo Alto. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a native of India and was raised in Bangalore. He received an undergraduate degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras.

 

Bharat joins nine other members of the Board of Visitors, which provides policy guidance and advice for the Knight Fellowships program, and serves as a primary link between the program and the global journalism community. The board comprises top journalism executives and leaders. Bharat will be the first member from the Silicon Valley technology community.

 

More than 900 journalists have held journalism fellowships at Stanford since the program began. Fellows have won numerous honors, including 26 Pulitzer Prizes and other major print, broadcast and online awards.