Estimates put Internet penetration in India at less than 5 per cent of the population, of which the number of customers using high-speed broadband services is a mere 5.65 million. This means there is plenty of scope for growth in the sector, and HashCache could well be the catalyst.

Other than fixing his in-laws’ computer at Dombivili, Mumbai, four years ago, Pai, whose parents moved to the US when he was two, hasn’t worked in India. His research, though, is aimed at improving Internet access in developing countries. He has also been involved in the development of CoDeeN, a Web proxy cache system that moves frequently-accessed content closer to users and speeds up Internet access.

Researchers who collaborated with Pai on the HashCache project include PhD student and IIT-Madras graduate Anirudh Badam, KyoungSoo Park, professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Larry Peterson, professor and department chair at Princeton, and Marc Fiuczynski, research scientist at Princeton.