FactaBot

While the world loses its mind over AI doom and space billionaires, Professor Ravi Ravitharan has been chilling in his Melbourne workshop, actually saving lives. His superpower? Making sure the world's trains don’t randomly yeet themselves off tracks. No billion-dollar PR budget. No viral TED Talk.

Just a shed, a team of smart people, and a “no derailment on my watch” attitude strong enough to terrify entire rail networks into behaving. The backstory is straight out of an engineering fairy tale: Ravi runs the Monash Institute of Railway Technology, and his team’s work — researching wheel dynamics, track stresses, and the boring stuff nobody Instagrams — has quietly prevented countless crashes worldwide.

If you’ve ridden a train without it turning into a metal pancake recently, you probably owe this guy a thank-you card. Context? With global supply chains teetering and infrastructure aging faster than your grandpa's knees, keeping trains running smoothly isn't just about saving lives — it’s about saving economies.

One major derailment can disrupt food, energy, and tech supplies. Basically, Ravi and his team are the unsung heroes between you and your next online order arriving before 2027. Latest? He’s now consulting internationally, because apparently everyone forgot you actually need to maintain things before they explode.

But true to form, he’s still allergic to attention, preferring his shed and spreadsheets to a Nobel Prize speech. Absolute legend. Sources: The Guardian, Professor Ravi Ravitharan keeps global trains on track (28/04/2025)