Kannan has been an entrepreneur and innovator during his entire career. His consistent focus has been on delivering impactful products through innovative engineering. Towards this, he has built cross-functional teams that assemble workable ideas from multiple disciplines to create solutions that are tailored to specific target groups.

His designs are characterized by economy in the definition of scope, so that the resulting offerings are affordable, austere, and shorn of flab – without compromising on anything that adds value to the user. He believes that more time should be spent in studying a problem than in putting together the solution.

He was awarded the Distinguished Alumnus Award of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, 2014, in recognition of his innovations and pioneering work in sustainable solutions for the rural environment.