In the summer of 2016, I was a third year Computer Science engineering student at the College of Engineering, Guindy in Chennai desperately looking for a summer internship. A chance encounter with a senior from college, who was then a Research Associate (RA) here, is how I first heard of Precog. What followed was a year long journey in which I’ve gained mentors, friends and an admit at the Ohio State University for the MS in CSE program (Let me assure you that my time at Precog is what got me in). Here I try to summarize my observations on what makes Precog awesome. What makes Precog Precog? Extreme organization. After working…

Hi, all. I (Kartik Sethi, B.Tech. Final year at BITS Pilani, Hyderabad Campus) interned at the Precog Research Group of IIIT Delhi in the summers of 2017 (May – July). I have tried to express my experiences through the following paragraphs. A – Amazing was the word, which flashed in my mind when the programme started. B – Best environment and bonhomie was the hallmark of the internship. I found the environment and infrastructure in IIIT as one of the best in any such institution. C – Challenges. Every difficult problem is usually entailed with an innovative solution and every new solution is associated with challenges of its own. I…

As curtains drew on the summer vacations of 2016, I was already planning on doing something constructive during my next summers. My mentor at IIT Kharagpur sent me a circular about an internship opportunity at a research lab in IIIT-Delhi. This is how I first got to know about professor Ponnurangam Kumaraguru and this supercool group known as Precog! I found the work in conformity with my interests and applied at once. After some rigorous technical rounds and interviews, I was informed of my selection. On 8th May 2017, I joined the group. Having got hostel accommodation at IIIT-Delhi itself, I got settled in my room. Soon after, PK invited…

Before joining IIIT-Delhi, my father and I sat together to go through the list of faculty members who would teach me. We were awed by them all but some names stood out, one being PK’s. I read about his achievements and was eager to enroll in one of his courses when I joined IIIT-Delhi. After completing my first year, I was presented with several domains within computer science which I did not know existed; I wanted to explore them all. During the same time, Backpack was a hot product which students and professors were gushing about. I was told that a few of PK’s students had created Backpack and my…

Like every engineering student, when I took admission in engineering college I had high hopes and ambitions of doing something big and worthy. But the monotonous curriculum, seniority dogma, student-faculty gap never provided conducive environment for research and those high ambitions somehow faded away. Engineering seemed to be limited to only what was there in textbooks. However when I finished my summer internship this year (2017) at Precog, I suddenly experienced a revival of my engineering ambitions. People around were working and building stuffs that are being applied to solve real world problems and being one of them was like dream come true! My stay at precog was the most enriching part…

So, what is Precog? A research group, a culture, a lifestyle? At the risk of sounding unbelievably corny, I’m going to go ahead with the last one. But really, it was.   Ever since we had arrived at IIIT-Delhi almost four years ago, Precog (along with Dr. PK) had been one of the most “heard about” groups over here. Some of our batch-mates had already started working for Find-A-Way and Backpack, while most of us were still trying to work on our skill-sets to even be able to think of doing the same somewhere down the line. Fast forward to the summers before the 4th year, I finally thought that…

Hey there. My tryst with PreCog happened in my second semester at IIIT Delhi. I had been catching up with Megha Arora (PreCog Alum now MS CS Candidate at CMU) about what she had been up to, and I was pleasantly informed about this cool research group she works with. She also kept on going on and on and on about this professor who likes to call him PK. That same day, I went online and looked up PreCog and I was awestruck. My jaw dropped to the floor when I saw PK’s CV. I had to work with the coolest professor in town. I had to work with these…