Chandroth Vasudevan Radhakrishnan

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Chandroth Vasudevan Radhakrishnan, also known as CV Radhakrishnan or CVR, is an Indian software developer, entrepreneur and a pioneer of free software and open access publishing. Born on January 20, 1953, in Kuzhithurai, Kanyakumari district, Tamil Nadu, he founded River Valley Technologies and helped start the Indian TeX Users Group. He also started the Indian chapter of the Free Software Foundation.

Early life and career
Radhakrishnan began his career in 1973 with the Indian Telecom department, then moved to Delhi to work in the Ministry of Shipping and Transport. While in Delhi he developed a neurological condition called peroneal muscular dystrophy. Doctors told him he might not live long, so he returned to Kerala to live with his parents. At Kerala University, he joined the administrative department and worked there for about 15 years before leaving in 1993 to start his own company.

Learning and TeX
He learned about computers largely on his own, using his work at the university as a launching pad. He met Professor K. S. S. Nambooripad, who introduced him to TeX, a powerful typesetting system. Radhakrishnan began using TeX to typeset research papers and even an entomology journal called Entomon.

River Valley Technologies and STMDocs
In 1994 he founded River Valley Technologies, which started as a typesetting services company. It grew to work with major publishers and contributed to projects like the BSNL telephone directory in 2003. He later started STM Document Engineering Pvt Ltd (STMDocs), a company that operates entirely with free software. STMDocs has provided typesetting for publishers such as Elsevier, Nature, the Institute of Physics, and Cambridge University Press. The main campus is in Malayinkeezhu, near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, spread over four acres. The campus is designed as an eco sanctuary with renewable energy, rainwater harvesting and organic farming. In 2019, it received the Special Jury Award for Biodiversity from the Kerala State Biodiversity Board.

Open source, digitization and philanthropy
Radhakrishnan helped launch the Indian TeX Users Group in Trivandrum in 1998 and founded the Indian chapter of the Free Software Foundation in 2001. He maintains many LaTeX packages in CTAN and promotes free software and open access publishing.

Sayahna Foundation and digitization
He runs the Sayahna Foundation, a virtual community that promotes open access publishing and digitization of knowledge. Sayahna has digitized important works, including Kerala Panineeyam, which was released in 2017 under a Creative Commons ShareAlike license.

Personal life
CV Radhakrishnan is married to Vidhya and lives in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.