IAOTP selects Devananda Sreekanth as Rising Tech Innovator of the Year

The International Association of Top Professionals will honor Devananda Sreekanth at its annual awards gala at the Plaza Hotel in New York City this December. The Kennesaw State University computer science student was recognized for her AI research, app development and academic record.

Why it matters: - IAOTP’s recognition puts Devananda Sreekanth on a national stage and highlights early-career talent in artificial intelligence and software development. - The award can increase visibility for her research, internships and technical projects as she moves from student work into the professional tech field.

What happened: - The International Association of Top Professionals selected Devananda Sreekanth as Rising Tech Innovator of the Year for 2026. - IAOTP will honor Sreekanth at its annual awards gala in New York City at the Plaza Hotel in December. - The organization plans to invite all award recipients to the gala. - More information about the gala is available in IAOTP’s award-gala announcement.

The details: - Sreekanth is pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science at Kennesaw State University. - She maintains a 4.0 GPA and has earned President’s List recognition for six consecutive semesters. - Her technical work includes adaptive quiz generation, AI music generation, AI chatbots, Retrieval-Augmented Generation systems and full-stack AI applications. - Her university AI lab work has focused on educational AI systems, adaptive learning tools, interview-preparation tools, recommendation systems and conversational AI. - She won first place in the Best Ground-Up Model category at UGA Hacks at the University of Georgia in Athens. - Her team’s project at that event was an AI-powered real-time ASL translation and communication application. - As a student AI assistant and undergraduate researcher at Kennesaw State University, Sreekanth has authored four peer-reviewed papers. - She has presented research twice at Kennesaw’s C-Day conference. - Her publications include work presented through IEEE Frontiers in Education on adaptive quiz generation and an agentic AI quiz-based learning system. - Her AI music generation research was presented through the International Conference on New Music Concepts and published in the International Journal of Music Science, Technology, and Art. - That research included work on fine-tuning Meta’s MusicGen. - Her research and development experience includes Retrieval-Augmented Generation, AI agents, prompt engineering, context engineering, model evaluation and optimization. - She also worked as an AI Software Engineer Intern at a leading investment bank through on-campus selection. - In that internship, she helped build an agentic AI recommendation system for personalized content. - The internship gave her experience in AI engineering, software development, data integration and large-scale enterprise collaboration. - IAOTP President Stephanie Cirami said the panel found Sreekanth to be “inspirational, influential, and a true visionary and thought leader.” - IAOTP also said its selection process weighs professional excellence, academic accomplishments, leadership, longevity, affiliations and community contributions.

Between the lines: - The award reflects IAOTP’s focus on combining academic performance with practical technical work, not just job title or seniority. - Sreekanth’s profile stands out because it mixes research, hackathon wins, publication credits and industry experience before graduation. - The recognition also shows how student-built AI projects are becoming part of the broader talent pipeline for enterprise technology roles.

What's next: - Sreekanth will be honored at IAOTP’s annual awards gala at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in December. - IAOTP said she will also be considered this year for The Empowered Woman Award and a feature in TIP magazine. - Sreekanth said she looks forward to expanding her knowledge and experience in her profession.

The bottom line: - IAOTP is betting on a young AI researcher whose mix of academic performance, publications and hands-on engineering already looks closer to an emerging professional portfolio than a student résumé.