ICDAR is one of the most prestigious conferences in document analysis and recognition, attracting researchers from around the world to present innovative work, engage in deep technical discussions, and shape the future of the field. The 2025 edition in Wuhan brought together researchers, students, and industry practitioners to share breakthroughs, challenge assumptions, and push the boundaries of what is possible with document understanding.

Sahithi was awarded the Student Runner-Up Award, underscoring her research prowess and commitment to advancing the field of document analysis and recognition. She has consistently demonstrated a blend of theoretical depth and practical acumen. CVIT’s culture of interdisciplinary collaboration and cutting-edge research provides an ideal platform for emerging scholars like Sahithi to explore the frontiers of visual information technology, especially in the domain of document analysis, OCR, and related multimedia processing tasks.

 

Advisors and Mentorship:

  • Her primary supervisor is Dr. Ravi Kiran Sarvadevabhatla, and co-supervised by Dr. Mitesh Khapra (IIT Madras – AI4Bhāra) and Oikantik Nath (Ph.D. scholar, IIT Madras).
  • Her advisors were highly invested in their work, guiding them through experiments and analysis.
  • They had weekly meetings to plan their research.
  • After their paper was accepted for an oral presentation, Prof. Ravi Sir provided extensive guidance on presentation skills, including showing them a video on how to present and focusing on small details, answering questions, and overcoming stage fright.
  • He encouraged them to participate in a research fest for practice and experience.
  • Lab mates also provided feedback to help them improve.

 

Academic Background and Choice of CVIT:

  • Sahithi completed her B.Tech at IIT ISM Dhanbad.
  • Her hometown is Kamareddy, near Hyderabad.
  • She chose CVIT at IIIT Hyderabad because she audited a course taught by her advisor (likely Dr. Ravi Kiran Sarvadevabhatla) in her first semester. She found his teaching and organized slides very interesting.
  • She was impressed by his strictness, good work, and dedication, and wanted to learn from him.
  • Networking: Met many Indians from various countries studying or teaching abroad. Many recognized her advisor, Ravi Sir, or Joe Hassan.
  • Presentation Details:
    • Total 20 minutes: 15 minutes for presentation, 5 minutes for Q&A.
    • Both Sahithi and Oikantik presented; Oikantik spoke for 6-7 minutes, and Sahithi completed the rest.
    • They received positive feedback from international attendees who praised their presentation and acknowledged the good work being done in India.
  • Sightseeing in Wuhan: Visited East Lake (described as beautiful), Yellow Crane Tower (a popular historical site that has been rebuilt), and a Buddhist temple with over 5000 small Buddha statues on lotus flowers, each with different expressions.
  • Language Barrier: Faced difficulties with communication as most Chinese people didn't speak English. They relied heavily on Google Translate.
  • Locals: Found the local people polite, helpful, and hardworking.

 

Future Plans:

  • Sahithi's Master's degree is nearing completion, and she plans to start writing her thesis.
  • After her thesis, she intends to work for one or two years before pursuing further post-graduation.

The Student Runner-Up Award is a testament to Sahithi’s originality, methodological rigor, and potential to influence the discipline. It recognizes not only the quality of her research but also her ability to communicate complex ideas clearly to a diverse audience of peers and mentors. This honor places Sahithi among a select group of early-career researchers who are already contributing meaningful insights to document analysis and recognition.

 

Research Focus and Impact

While details of Sahithi’s award-winning work and the general themes in this field often include:

  • Handwritten and printed document analysis, including layout understanding and content extraction
  • Robust optical character recognition (OCR) under diverse languages and scripts
  • Document image enhancement and restoration for improved readability
  • Cross-domain and multilingual document processing
  • Efficient models suitable for real-world, resource-constrained deployments

Sahithi’s research likely intersects with these themes, combining rigorous experimentation with thoughtful analysis to address real-world challenges in document understanding.

 

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Acknowledgments and Community

This achievement reflects not only Sahithi’s individual talent but also the mentorship and collaboration fostered at CVIT, IIIT Hyderabad. The institute’s emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, access to state-of-the-art resources, and a supportive research community plays a crucial role in shaping researchers who can compete on the world stage.

As Sahithi continues her M.S. journey, the horizon is bright with opportunities:

  • Publishing in high-impact journals and conferences
  • Expanding collaborations with researchers across CVIT and beyond
  • Translating research insights into practical tools that assist industries in digitizing and understanding documents more effectively
  • Mentorship and leadership within the CVIT community, inspiring the next generation of researchers

 

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Award and Research:

  • Sahithi Kukkala received the Best Student Paper Runner-Up Award at ICDAR 2025 for research on "IndicDLP: A Foundational Dataset for Multi-Lingual and Multi-Domain Document Layout Parsing."
  • This work was a collaboration between IIT Madras and IIT Madras (likely a transcription error, probably IIIT Hyderabad and IIT Madras).
  • Her field of interest is machine learning, specifically document understanding and layout analysis of documents.

 

Congratulations to Sahithi Kukkala for this well-earned recognition at ICDAR 2025. The award reflects dedication, curiosity, and the drive to push the boundaries of what’s possible in document analysis and recognition. The CVIT community at IIIT Hyderabad is proud to celebrate this milestone and looks forward to the continued impact of her research.