Congrats to Rohan on NASA's Beyond the Algorithm Challenge.

Author: vgvassilev

_posts/2025-08-10-rohan-timmaraju-neo-flood-nasa.md

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+---
+title: "Congratulations to Rohan Timmaraju & the NEO-FLOOD Team"
+layout: post
+excerpt: >
+  Congratulations to Rohan Timmaraju and the NEO-FLOOD team for their success in
+  NASA's Beyond the Algorithm Challenge. This win highlights the strength of
+  cross‑disciplinary thinking, where foundational research technologies enable
+  solutions to high‑stakes problems.
+sitemap: false
+author: Vassil Vassilev
+permalink: blogs/rohan-timmaraju-neo-flood-nasa/
+banner_image: /images/blog/nasa-beyond-algo.png
+date: 2025-10-08
+tags: [
+  nasa,
+  neo-flood,
+  rohan-timmaraju,
+  compiler-research,
+  neuromorphic-computing,
+  satellite-ai,
+  earth-observation,
+  flood-prediction,
+  research-award,
+  space-technology
+]
+---
+
+## Congratulations to Rohan Timmaraju & the NEO-FLOOD Team
+
+We’re thrilled to congratulate Rohan Timmaraju and his collaborators on their
+outstanding achievement in the Beyond the Algorithm Challenge with the NEO‑FLOOD
+project. This win highlights the strength of cross‑disciplinary thinking, where
+foundational research technologies enable solutions to high‑stakes problems.
+
+The NASA Earth Science Technology Office seeks solutions to complex Earth
+Science problems using transformative or unconventional computing technologies
+such as quantum computing, quantum machine learning, neuromorphic computing, or
+in-memory computing. The NEO-FLOOD team developed a novel, brain-inspired
+algorithm to detect floods in real-time on power-constrained neuromorphic
+hardware suitable for deployment in space.
+
+## Problem Space
+
+Floods cause *$100B+* in annual damages globally, yet critical response decisions
+are often delayed by 6–72 hours due to ground-based satellite processing
+bottlenecks. This “intelligence gap” makes high-quality Earth observation data
+operationally useless during the crucial “Golden Hour” — when rapid intervention
+can save lives. The NEO-FLOOD (Neuromorphic Earth Observation for Flood-mapping)
+approach directly addresses this challenge:
+  - **The problem:** Traditional satellites act as passive data collectors, sending
+    raw data to Earth for processing, creating dangerous delays.
+  - **The innovation:** A spiking neural network, Spike2Former-Flood, optimized
+    for real-time optical and SAR data directly on-satellite.
+  - **The hardware:** Space-validated neuromorphic processors (BrainChip Akida,
+    Intel Loihi 2) running at only 2–5W.
+  - **The impact:** Closes the intelligence gap from hours to minutes,
+    transforming satellites into autonomous decision-support systems. This
+    order-of-magnitude latency improvement could enable immediate flood response
+    coordination for emergency agencies, insurers, and humanitarian organizations.
+
+## A Compiler Researcher’s Role
+
+Rohan’s expertise in compilers and systems research provided key foundations for
+NEO-FLOOD’s success. Reconciling a novel AI paradigm and real-time systems
+required compiler-level thinking to:
+
+  - Optimize for the edge: optimize the model for performance and energy
+    efficiency on heavily constrained space hardware.
+  - Ensure Robustness: enable streamlined, reliable pipelines for sensor fusion
+    and onboard processing.
+  - Map to Novel Hardware: develop strategies for mapping a complex neural
+    network onto heterogeneous neuromorphic hardware.
+
+This achievement demonstrates that advances in compilers and systems research
+can directly influence solutions to pressing global problems, and bridge the gap
+between research infrastructure and mission-critical practice.
+<img src="/images/blog/rohan_interview.png" alt="Rohan Timmaraju interview photo"
+     style="float: left; margin: 0 1em 1em 0; width: 35%; border-radius: 8px;">
+Rohan's achievement with NEO-FLOOD is a testament to how foundational compiler
+and systems research can directly impact global resilience challenges.
+We couldn’t be prouder to see him bridging disciplines — from compiler
+technologies to neuromorphic AI in orbit. "Early on, we spent a lot of time
+trying to fit our flood analysis models onto the neuromorphic hardware. But the
+real breakthrough came when we stepped back and re-examined the core problem,"
+shares Rohan. "We realized the critical bottleneck wasn’t computational power,
+it was latency. The goal isn’t just to process data faster; it’s to eliminate
+the round-trip to Earth entirely. That insight shifted our focus from simply
+optimizing an algorithm to redesigning the entire decision-making workflow
+around the hardware's native strengths: low power and real-time processing
+directly in orbit."
+
+[Project gallery (NEO‑FLOOD)](https://www.nasa-beyond-challenge.org/project-gallery/neo-flood)
+
+
+[Rohan (Compiler Research profile)](https://compiler-research.org/team/RohanTimmaraju)