STANFORD ❤ , the love of my Life, will always remain close to my heart. The beautiful weather, Highly motivated, humble and talented people all around and the crazy stuff that goes around is to die for. I miss you STANFORD , more than anything. The learning curve at STANFORD is beautiful; turning Ideas into reality; being the Pirate of the ship in the heart of Silicon Valley ; doing the unexpected and the unforseen is what makes STANFORD : 🔴 STANFORD 🔴
The beautiful campus and the beautiful weather is the place where you want to be. In the heart of Silicon Valley; there I was, making new friends from across the globe, discovering things and getting involved with opportunities I didn't have elsewhere, meeting people whom I followed and really admired. Heart raced when you get to have breakfast with JEFF DEAN ; Yes! you read it right; JEFF DEAN, The GOOGLE BRAIN LEAD. Dreams turned into reality ; My whole existence just came into perception in my mind; chuckled; smiled the widest and I danced a little in the STANFORD DORM when I received an email from JEFF DEAN ; The GOD of AI, Little did I knew, What was to come, It was just the beginning , STANFORD had a lot in store for me.
#PRE STANFORD 🐉
Hi I am Amartya, the guy who just had breakfast with Jeff Dean 💌 [ Thank You Jeff, your email meant a lot to me]. Back at home in Golaghat [ A very remote⛺ and small town in INDIA] , never did I dreamt of studying at STANFORD; Life and Destiny is really beautiful. My home-place is famous for Rice🌾 cultivation and Tea☕ ; We barely have any Computer Science people or community; lots of rice fields and rainfall. Growing up amidst the usual life of a farming town, all I had was a typical ~ 50 KB/ps Internet Connection and a craze for Computer Science Inside me. I wanted to learn Computer Science (The craze was real); I wanted to excel, I wanted to build something ; All I knew was, I want to do something for Computer Science in my life. High school went by, and just with a pentium-4 desktop setup, I started exploring how things worked in the Computer Science world. School Carriculum didn't helped much; I knew I wanted more; I started exploring more. Getting good grades(nearly perfect) until High School in CS was what I cared for (didn't cared much about other subjects ; 9.4/10 cgpa in High school (Total); I didn't had any motivation or environment/interest to learn other subjects well); with no one to guide, little did I knew how Important is Math and Logic. I used to ride with my friends a lot, capturing moments and had a neck for Physics (I love Physics🌌). I topped my Intermediate School (CBSE with 93+ %) in my small town back in 2015; In my town we didn't knew much about IIT-JEE (The Exam that we have to write to join Elite schools in India); nor did we had a single coaching centre in town, just around 2014 ,the term IIT made sense to me and I would travel 2 days a week for 3 months to a coaching centre 60-70 km away; just to get a feel of how do we have to prepare for IIT JEE. Boy it's a mouthful! Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics at its peak; brain teasers and puzzles; I had very little time to begin with. Even after passing Intermediate & IIT-JEE with a good enough score; getting a seat in a good enough institute; I had to take this risk ( I wanted to go to IIT so bad ; I knew it had the best Computer Science program in India). I dropped a year; I went back home; left Everything ; Studied (no tutor; no coaching; I was confident in myself; I was a self learner) and was pretty well prepared to appear for IIT-JEE, few months before the actual date of the examination.
Alas! It had to happen; I got sucked in to start learning CS again in midst of JEE preparation. Organic Chemistry was replaced by OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) routing protocol ; Atoms and molecules were replaced by data packets; I was subnetting more than differentiating; Boy; I lost control and CS took over me; I was all prepared to take the CCNA exam instead of JEE. I was well versed with Routing & Switching than Integrating. Little did I knew, how important is discrete math; I would have learnt it very well by then. Gave JEE (was sad didn't make it to IIT ; but I knew it was my fault); Gave CEE( The Exam for the elite colleges in North-East India) - was relieved that I got into the topmost premiere college of North-East India (founded in 1955) and was well reputed in Eastern India. Amartya joins college; I was sad that my CS education will not be top notch; little did I knew, MOOCs were coming to my rescue(2 from IIT, 1 from Harvard, 5+ from Stanford within first few semesters of college). Machine Learning was the 🆕🆒 in town. I invested time and eventually was very happy of how things turned out in my life. I also gotta tell you, I have a little bit of mischievious history; I spent a lot of time in P2P networks, forums, trackers ; I have explained it very well here in the H4CK3RS 4BO4RD section. My college - Assam Engineering College (AEC) didn't had a strong Computer Science program but Life had a lot in store for me for the upcoming days in AEC. I was also very happy to join college, as I was getting my very own laptop. My step to independent learning begins here, I belong to a middle class family from a place where computers weren't much popular , still my family made sure, I was following my dreams, Thank You for believing in me <3
I haven't travelled outside my state before joining college & after 1 year in college; the first ever flight🛫 I got into was a sponsored trip from Google India to its Bangalore office. Yayy, I got selected as a Google Student Facilitator, I was more confident than ever before. Days went by, I gathered knowledge and experience (won 2 National Machine Learning Hackathons - including Smart India Hacktahon (considered one of the largest hackathon in the world) where I leaded my team to deploy a Deep Learning solution to tackle poaching) ; travelling almost to all the major cities of India by the time I applied to Stanford [ Microsoft Student Partner took me to Rajasthan(BITS Pilani); Smart India Hackathon took me to Tamil Nadu ] :) also Happy to let you know that Intel supports me with hardware and software access for Deep Learning Research under their Intel AI Ambassador Program.
Amartya was skk by now; I also interned as a Computer Vision Researcher at Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology under Lipi ma'am , pushing the Breast Cancer accuracy beyond benchmark & learning a lot about Computer Vision; Third Semester Ends here 🚨 Pheww !! I have come a long way, I love how my life shifts and turns; Destiny made a boy , who was enjoying his life within rice fields, tea gardens to experience things which he loved the most in his life :) I will not stop. I just want to learn; I dont have anything to prove anyone, nor do I care much about placement or money; All I ask my life is, just a place to learn from the core, from scratch and an environment which challenges yet supports me. At that time, I was figuring out the CERN - deep learning framework called TMVA (inside root) , Xavier Valls (Switzerland) and Alejandro García Montoro (Spain) were helping me out, I wanted to learn ; I was very excited with Deep Learning and really appreciated efforts of Fei-Fei Li (from my Vision Experience) ; Andrew NG, Daphne Koller, Ian Goodfellow and many renown researchers I came to know later; Most of them were from STANFORD and in no time I found myself surfing Stanford's website; It is then, when I discovered Stanford Summer Session; Amartya Applies to Stanford Summer Session 🌋. Amartya gets IN
I was Excited; yet a bit worried at the same time; None of my family members from any Generation travelled abroad(Outside INDIA). I just completed 2 years in college and there I was, ready to travel 12k+ km, to a completely unknown destination; to a completely opposite time zone. I came from an Agricultural background, though my Father was the first Engineer (Electrical) from my family generations; I was lucky, he had a desktop computer for his official purposes when I was young. My Family supported me in pursuing my dreams; Cheered for me; STANFORD was something I really admired and I was confident to make it big out of this opportunity. Because I wanted it BAD; I was hungry for Silicon Valley and all the people I would meet. California 🎄🌎🌉 , here comes skk.
#SAN FRANCISCO 🌉✈
Journey to SF, California would have been very hard and daunting without my cousin - Dhrubajyoti Da's support; He managed everything from exchanging currency💱 to dropping me at airport for departure. Cousins friend - Subrata Da; who worked in California came to pick me up at SFO; without him , I would have been lost the first day. He showed me around the city and I took a good night's rest after dinner at a fancy restaurent; the next day was the day I was waiting for, "STANFORD"💟 | I was finally going to see "STANFORD" for the first time. All the flashbacks; all the memories of my parents came right in-front of my eyes. Thank You Mother, Father and Sister. I love you soo much💗.
#STANFORD 🏰⛅⛲
I fell in love with STANFORD the day I moved in. I was alloted room - 317, Meier Dorm, Lagunita Court, Santa Teresa St., Stanford. A day later my roommate arrived from CANADA and there he was "YULONG WANG" ; my roommate at STANFORD (The best roommate one could have had). We became good buddies and would eventually explore the Silicon Valley together. Weather was great; Lakeside dining was serving good food and we were bonding. Laura from Netherlands; and the Italians; we had good company; we enjoyed our time eating food together in Lakeside Dining. I still miss my apple juice with icecubes that quenched my thirst. It was great🍹.
I enrolled in CS:110 - Principles of Computer Systems and ME:344 - Introduction to High Performance Computing ; because I had to know Systems and HPC for distributed Deep Learning and Parallel processing. But CS:110 is a pretty notorious course at STANFORD( Here's a glimpse of the first assignment); It asked for too much prerequisite and CS:107 was a must; I had to change to CS:161 - Design and Analysis of Algorithms. I wanted to learn systems; so I audited the course; and gave exams for CS:161 and ME:344. For the quarter, I was learning CS:110, CS:161 & ME:344. I love how you can Audit courses you want to learn at STANFORD unlike in India. You get to learn soo much💕. I also came to know that in STANFORD; students can take courses from other majors as well and can learn as per their interests. If you wish ; You can Double Major as well. I felt very unlucky; I couldn't choose courses out of my major, back in my University. Days went by; At the end of the quarter, I earned a 3.7/4 GPA from STANFORD ; 8/8 credits ; with A-in the HPC course. The HPC course had 2 major projects ; weekly assignments and in-class participation. I was done with mid-sems and Finals. But attending classes and writing exams ; earning credits was the least of priority for me. My credits were not transferrable to my University back home; I knew I had CS:161 again in Final year in the University back home; CLRS again; but I wanted something different out of this opportunity. I wanted to achieve something that wasn't expected of me from Stanford; I wanted to explore and learn something unique to this place, to this 🌼beautiful🌷 University I called home.
In the first week of the quarter itself; I explored every corner of the Computer Science Building (Gates Computer Science); Fei-Fei Li and Andrew NG in mind; with the Stanford-T and Stanford ID, I would spend a lot of time going through the offices and laboratories, in a hope of bumping into either one. I emailed the Prof. and came to know that they weren't in campus at that time and were on a break for the summer. They were working on some exciting projects outside University. All I had was memories running down my mind; The Vision Group; ImageNet; CS231n; CS229; I would take photos of Fei-Fei and Andrew NG's office ; and the AI and Vision lab. I was there; I was just there; where it all started. I felt very good.
Prof. Fei Fei Li was leading Google Cloud and she was busy with Google Cloud Next (largest conference after Google I/O) being just around the corner. I joined Google Developers Group: Silicon Valley and excited I was to receive a free ticket to Google Cloud Next (costs $1000+); but only to realize that my mid-term date clashes with the ticket I received. Sad; and Unhappy; I couldn't meet them; but this is what ANDREW NG replied to my mail in the last week at STANFORD:
I wish I could have stayed longer; unfortunately all my Stanford AI Profs. were outside campus. I wish I could have stayed longer. I value their work so much; I felt, it was once in a lifetime opportunity to meet them. This is what Prof. Daphne Koller replied:
I lost most of my hope of meeting the people I admired the most from Stanford; I emailed Prof. Christopher Manning, Justin Johnson (from CS231n) but it was Summer and most were on vacation; I love their work; I respect & love them; I will meet them someday for sure; I left it for a week and approached the Stanford Robotics Club 👾 leads and Stanford Space Initiative leads. I wanted to work with them; I wanted to learn. Let me be honest, they are so nice and humble, I joined the club; we talked over slack for plans and projects for the Summer; In a few days I found myself with a lab coat in the ⚗ Bio-Science department, as Alan was explaining me & Julia, how to find Life on Mars / Yes , I joined the Stanford Mars Rover #science team (Thanks to Chandler Watson) and in no time, we were having a meeting for developing fluorescent microscopy onboard in the Stanford Mars Rover🗜. Soo Exciting ; isn't it ?? Michal showed me how they were 3D printing with Autodesk Fusoin 360 to make precise parts of the rover. The meetings were held in Lab 64; in the basement of Packard Electrical Engineering building. Exciting times indeed; very Exciting. Alan also gave me a tour of End Station-III, the home of SSI, where the undergrad students build and sends rockets to space. Yes , I know - The real space ☄✨ ; I was so thrilled and excited to be there; to be one of them; In a very short span of time- I was learning a lot; I was learning rocket-science. I could see large workspaces; lockheed martin banners and parts of ongoing projects. SSI and Robotics club kept me busy and I almost forgot about meeting the people I admired. Little did I know, what was to come.
#SILICON VALLEY 🌃🚀
Cry of Excitement and Joy; I couldn't believe it; I never dreamt of getting replies from the AI GODs from Industry. Yes I emailed PETER NORVIG (Director of Research, Google) & JEFF DEAN (Lead, Google Brain) and seeing their reply at the same time in two different threads, I couldnt believe my eyes; I almost blacked out. So much memories; so much inspiration from Peter & Jeff; and here I was: Hi from both of my inspiration ; Jeff and Peter. They are so humble and nice; they helped me quickly set up appointments with them. I asked my roommate If he was free and wanted to visit. He agreed ; says, "Why not bro!" and the rest is history.
I knew I had to meet all the legends ( IAN Goodfellow (Father of Deep Learning/GANs) and GUIDO VAN ROSSUM (Father of Python)). I was sceptical and not sure if they would accept my request to meet them, but time told a different story. They were the most humble and down to Earth legends we met. I was very inspired and learned a lot from them. My roommate & me; we prepared well enough AI questions - whose answers we desperately wanted to know; We asked personal questions about their journey; we wanted to know them; we wanted to feel their journey. I remember laughing very hard with JEFF , when I asked Jeff about Jeff Dean Jokes ; very nice guy ; GUIDO is such a nice guy - he says he believes in me and is open for questions or push along my journey as a developer; Also, Thank you for Lunch & all the wonderful things you mentioned, Ian; I will always cherish that I met them and for me they are my source of motivation/ my master. Thank You so much 💗
I was sitting right there in my room-317 ; chuckled; I felt very lucky , Peter's AIMA ; Ian's Deep Learning ; Guido's Python & Jeff's Work are extraordinary and they are one in the whole world, and I was right there with them. Such Happiness and Inspiration. In no time I found myself chatting with François Chollet (Father of Keras) ; Geoffrey Hinton ( GOD-Father of Deep Learning ) ; Sheryl Sandberg; Steve Wozniak - and in no time ; I was in the heart of Deep Learning ❤
I had weekly assignments as well; midterms ; finals ; projects ; but I had to manage time at night to taste the best of both worlds. We were out to explore again, this time we were hosted by Shubho Sengupta, Senior Engineer in Facebook AI Research (FAIR); we got to see FAIR workspaces; learned how things work within Facebook and even passed by Zuckerberg's office, He was right there.
We were on a roll; met Aman Raj from Googleplex, It was very exciting and wonderful when he showed us (me and Rutul) around campus and we learned a lot from him. Very humble and very down to Earth, we were meeting the right people in the valley. We were learning a lot; I was Happy. Apart from visiting Silicon valley ; this time me and some of my Chinese and Taiwanese friends visited San Francisco. Chilly weather; Cold Breeze ; 🌊San Francisco is beautiful. Visited the Golden Gate Bridge🌉; Pier 39; California Academy of Science and lot more. It was a wonderful day; explored a lot and the day ended with a delightful dinner in China-Town [In no time I was using chop-sticks for the first-time]. I captured some of the moments in this 🔮vlog 🔮, hope you enjoy it. Also, most of the photos are here.
[Something was missing] ; Being in Silicon Valley , how could we miss out Elon Musk??? I was really interested in Autopilot and Vision involved in Tesla; self-driving and next generation technology in these electric cars were revolutionary. To know more about Tesla and to get better insights; I reached out and in no time, we were hosted by our Super intelligent host Darren Hau from Tesla. We got a sneak peak of Tesla's R&D HQ in Palo Alto and learned a lot about its charging infrastructure and business models. Lots of Tesla ; Teslas everywhere. It was a great evening and we had to bid adieu to our host Darren taking back a lot of insights about Tesla. Thank You Darren; Tesla was Amazing 🚘.
We were running out of time; lot of places to visit ,yet we had only a a week with us. We had our Finals too ; and it required preparation. We began preparing for Finals ; Do you remember, how I ditched JEE and prepared for CCNA during my High school days. Yes, memories of CCNA revived and was very happy when my host "Pranjal Daga" accepted to show us( me & Agastya) around CISCO HQ. Met Gyana Dash, Sr. Manager, Innovation and ML/AI R&D, Aijan, Data Scientist and Pranjal,Data Scientist at Cisco. Thank you ; learned a lot about AI and Cisco; and how are we approaching a cyber AI world. It was amazing and our host were very humble. Finally made quick visits to NASA Ammes Research Centre ; Apple and that was it. FINALS ! FINALS! had to study for FINALS! 🎃
I made a lot of friends in Stanford ; Jennifer Portillo, Noah (Captain Noah) , Michael Brooks ; Laura Mausolf (from Netherlands); Saloni Goel🍁; Laura Brogi (from Italy); Yoonji & Andy from (Canada); Rutul Thakkar; Filipo(Italy), Aaron (Hawaii), Kaushal, Akshay, Agastya, Priyanka, Jason, Addie, Yecheng, Aarushi, Pooja and lots of Friends. These people are the nicest friends I met & will cherish our friendship forever. My ME:344 project partners , Michael Bauer and Fabian Boemer are genuises (They were NASA/ Tesla Interns and both Undergrad from Caltech and studying Masters at Stanford), they are very humble and nice; helped me learn a lot and solve problems, that came my way. Forever they will stay Golden🌰 in my memory. Also my professor Steve Jones (Director, Stanford HPC) from Stanford is very Humble and Friendly; Very nice guy and because of him, I got to learn a lot. Thank You Steve for oganizing the INTEL Data Center tour and inviting Intel IT, CTO Shesha Krishnapura as guest lecturer. The class was very productive and I got to learn a lot. Interesting fact: there were only two Undergrad in the course out of ~ 58 students. Little bit of challenging , but was taught very well and really enjoyed the course. Thank You🍄.
I guess my 🌸STANFORD🌸 journey ends here ; though I had only 2 month of time; I made sure, apart from learning the courses, I learned a great deal of things outside the box. I am very happy and satisfied with my Summer. Thank You 🔴 STANFORD 🔴
#POST STANFORD 🌏
With a heavy heart; I bid goodbye to STANFORD, group hugged my room-mate Yulong and my Good friend Laura in the San Francisco International Airport. We knew; it was a goodbye for a very long time. Goodbye 💐 skk will always be there for you. Though it was only a quarter; I felt I knew them for a lifetime. It was hard, but it is the beauty of Life. My family was waiting back home. Skk flies out of SFO ; lands in INDIA (Mumbai).
By then I made a lot of new friends Internationally, who were doing amazing things in CS; The day I landed, I met my friend Kalpit Veerwal from IIT Bombay, CSE [Yes, the topmost computer science school in India] and he showed me around campus. Kalpit was the topper in IIT JEE - M , scoring a perfect 360/360; ending in Limca book of records; Yes, the same exam I didn't make through. Life is beautiful. The twists and turns in life will take you where you belong; you just have to be yourself.
Do I miss Silicon Valley ?
Yes, I do. The people ; the community; and the craziness that goes around there. With a beautiful weather, that helps concentrate and really dedicate oneself to something; is to die for. I felt bad, leaving my second home; the place that gave me so much; the place where I felt safe and hungry each day. I wanted to be there; the projects and opportunities I would miss; the innovation and motivation I would need; was all there. Sigh ! a Deep breath, I hope someday I get to do something for Computer Science; for Humanity; I promised Guido and Ian to come back; to do something worthy. I promise I will ; someday 🌠
Signing off