Kapali P. Eswaran

One of the founding members of the IBM System R Project — the genesis of relational database technology — Eswaran is also recognized as one of the inventors of the SQL language. He graduated from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, and went on to serve as an architect of System R, the precursor to DB2. The Eswaran principle relating to database locking and transactions was a contribution he made along with Jim Gray and Irv Traiger while working as a scientist at IBM Research.

Subsequently, Eswaran launched Esvel, Inc. (acquired by Cullinet Software in 1987, which itself was acquired by Computer Associates) and Kaps Corporation (technology acquired by a subsidiary of BP, Hewlett-Packard, and by Carlysle Library Systems). He has served as the CEO of Integrated Informatics Inc. Eswaran pursued his career primarily working as a researcher and software designer at IBM Research, where he contributed to several major database and transaction processing systems, including System R.

He has served as founder and CEO of Esvel, Inc. and Integrated Informatics Inc., which developed and marketed solutions for Paperless Browser Based Pharmacy Order Management, Medication Administration & Bedside Scanning, Medication Reconciliation, and Patient Centric Health Records.