Misc

→ Selected to attend the CIFAR Deep Learning and Reinforcement Learning Summer School. I've written about my experiences from one of the sessions here.

→ Briefly collaborated with researchers at the Center for Policy Research, New Delhi on analyzing demographic data from the Right to Education (RTE) Act. The broader problem was a nice blend of optimization and statistics. Of chief concern was balancing the tradeoff of constructing public schools closer or farther away from villages. This has downstream effects on the ability to maintain full staff and the overall levels of student attendance. Opened my eyes to interesting problems that lie at the interface of CS and public policy.

→ Started a TEDx event with friends to provide a light to local voices. We built a team of over 40 people across a breadth of backgrounds (design, operations, tech). Invited to attend the first ever TEDx workshop in Mysore, India where we met and learnt from the amazing volunteers and TEDxers who'd traveled from all over the country (and world!), just to teach one another the ins and outs of putting on a great event. The final lineup of speakers was incredible, from engineers who'd designed CubeSats for space satellite launches, to founders that were creating devices to help people with hearing disabilities dance in sync with music :) ( Event Page, Talks )

→ A long, long time ago, interviewed Arvind Gupta for a Children's Day special on making toys from everyday objects, to illustrate scientific principles.