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Life at Precog: Coolness overloaded
I first heard about PK and Precog lab from some of my friends in my 4th semester (February 2019). Back then, PK was on sabbatical at my college, IIIT Hyderabad. I had zero research experience & was looking to expand my knowledge in Computer Science to find my passion. I started digging into his work and found his papers very interesting. I and a few of my friends talked to Kanay who was working with him on “The Lok Sabha Elections Project”. He referred us and that’s how we got the opportunity to work with the lab on the #Election2019 project. After working for a few days, I liked the…
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My Journey with Precog
My journey with Precog started from March 2018 during the 4th semester of college. During that time, I was exploring different fields (for my Honors project) and was trying to find something that’s not only technically challenging but also has an impact on real life problems. With the help of some digging around, I came across PK sir and Precog group from IIIT-D. What piqued my interest was the kind of problems that Precog was working on, especially the ones related to OSM (Online Social Media) and privacy. Being a regular user of such platforms, I had always wondered about the potential and impact of such systems and how analysing…
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Is a Democrat more likely to wear a mask than a Republican?? Unmasking the partisan combat, an analysis through Instagram
We analyze 3.91 million Instagram posts collected throughout 2020 from the 4 top Democratic and 4 top Republican states. Posts from Democratic states were found to have significantly higher percentages of detected masks, and significantly lower percentages of group photos, showing higher adoption of mask-wearing and social distancing measures than Republican states. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed life in the world including, United States, with the country recording over 32.3 million cases and 574,000 deaths as of April, 2020. With the ongoing widespread vaccine rollout, the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions like mask-wearing mandates and stay-at-home laws have proved to be critical for stopping possible transmission routes. In the lead-up to…
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Excerpts from “Models of My Life: The Remarkable Autobiography of the Nobel Prize winning Social Scientist & Father of AI” by Herbert A Simon
My March 2021 book! Have heard so many things about Prof. Herbert Simon on CMU campus, was always curious about his life, this book satisfies my curiosity about his childhood, teenage, UG days, Ph.D. life, Nobel Prize Laureate, etc. I first read the Chapter 9 “Building a Business School: The Graduate School of Industrial Administration” called as GSIA on campus, renamed to Tepper School and then rest of the chapters. Was lovely to read about CMU in many chapters 😛 [Page xix] I have been a scientist, but in many sciences. I have explored mazes, but they do not connect into a single maze. My aspirations dod not extend to…
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Koo: The New King? Characterizing India’s Emerging Social Network
India’s recent multilingual social network, Koo, has generated quite a buzz in the past few months. The platform, which closely resembles the microblogging service Twitter, was launched in March 2020 to encourage online discourse in Indian languages. Koo saw an enormous surge in popularity due to the Indian Government’s standoff with Twitter over the latter’s refusal to block accounts the Centre claimed were spreading fake news related to the February 2021 farmers’ protests. Many politicians, celebrities, and government departments tweeted about their shift to Koo and encouraged others to join. As Koo became the talk of the town, we decided to collect data and characterize the platform based on its…
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Capitol Riots/Aftermath : The Road from Washington to Arrest
In the aftermath of the Capitol riots that took place on January 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C., federal prosecutors continue to charge participants involved. USA TODAY is gathering details of these cases as the FBI keeps identifying and prosecuting more perpetrators involved in the storming. They have compiled a list [Link] of people arrested on a range of charges filed by federal prosecutors, as well as those arrested by Capitol Police and D.C. Metro Police for storming the capitol building. Information for each arrest includes the date of arrest/charge, home state, the charges and a brief summary of what happened. We have collected data from the first arrest taking place…
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Excerpts from “A Promised Land” by Barack Obama
Don’t think there is any explanation needed why I started reading this book; a couple of days after the release of the book, when I posted on Twitter about starting to read, a student of mine commented [paraphrased], “was expecting you to read this book, and looking forward for the summary blog” 😛 Even though I finished the book middle of Jan, got around to write the blog now! This is definitely one of the best books I have read! Was so gripping and engaging. [Page 14] all those misfits who took the scraps that others overlooked or discarded and made beauty no one had seen before. [15] But if…
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#ResearchGiri: My expedition with Precog
It’s fascinating how time flies and how fate works as I sit here and recall my entire journey with Precog, especially with PK. I clearly remember seeing him with his distinct “red cap” for the first time at KCIS during the summer of 2018. Around the same period, there was a buzz among the students that a well-renowned professor has come to IIIT-H for a sabbatical, and at the least, I knew that he would be advising me one day. After learning about him more, I read some of his works, which were impactful and had a social cause to them, and then (a dramatic pause here !) I looked…
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From a Random Idea to 100+ PhD Clinic Sessions, The Journey!
TLDR; an idea with discussion among PhD students on campus – ACM India elections nomination – Starting PhD Clinic in a humble way with 4 mentors – Getting elected for ACM India Council – Starting Clinic under ACM umbrella – Curating mentors – Starting AMA sessions – Completing 100+ students and have regular student requests – Amazing feedback from students, faculty and others – Thanks to many for helping with this #StrengthofWellWishers Oct 2019: As part of my Dean of Student Affairs role, I organized Open-House to meet with students on campus, once a month; this was done regularly among UG, Masters, and PhD students separately. During one of these…
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Moving Ahead with PreCog and #Profgiri
Formally, my journey with Precog and PK began on January 4th, 2018 (Precog’s Birthday). #Preface However, it started in August 2017 when PK gave a talk about the work at PreCog and said they were looking for new members. I instantly connected with the group and their work. I desperately wanted to be a part of the cool projects they were working on. I got back to my room, formatted my Resume, wrote a Statement of Purpose, and sent my application. Like in any good story, I didn’t get through the first time. It was a major disappointment for me, but I knew I had to make my profile better.…