A Transformative Experience at IIT Madras
The Fall semester of 1988 turned out to be quite something at my hostel, Alakananda (fondly referred to as Alak) - dozens of my classmates fell sick at the same time. Some of us got typhoid, and the rest were bestowed with jaundice. I, for one, picked up jaundice and saw my energy level drop rapidly. When I called my parents, my dad immediately took a train to Madras, picked me up from the Insti, and we headed to my home in Kalpathy, Palakkad. Little did I know that this was the beginning of a major change in my life.
I opted for Mechanical Engineering at IIT Madras when I was fortunate to get through the Joint Entrance Exam (JEE). When I landed in Alak in the summer of 1986, I was blown away by the intensity and beauty of II Madras's world-class campus. Even more impressive was how talented, bright and amazing my hostel mates were. It was quite a humbling experience when I was thrust into the middle of amazing and brilliant people who were good at everything under the sun. All branches shared a common curriculum in the first year of the B.Tech. program. I struggled and somehow got through my mechanical engineering courses in the second year, despite the many distractions that I couldn't resist. Hanging out with my classmates, seniors, and juniors was priceless. To this day, my hostel mates continue to inspire me.
I signed up for the course, Operations Research, in my fifth semester - the term had a hidden appeal for some reason. It was taught by the one and only Professor T.T. Narendran, fondly known as Mama. Mama is world famous for his pun - he never lets any moment pass without something "punny" to say. Mama made an incredible impression on me - I had grown up in a household where my dad, in particular, displayed a phenomenal sense of humour . Jokes and long and funny stories were rampant during mealtime and otherwise. Moreover, Mama made the subject of Operations Research (aka OR) highly delectable.
When I headed home with jaundice in the middle of the course, I packed the class-prescribed OR book with me. With both my parents at work during the day and me lying in bed to recoup from Hepatitis B, I started reading this book. Before I knew it, I had devoured it in its entirety - despite my jaundiced eyes. The type of problems and the mathematical constructs required to solve them were simply fascinating. Soon, I made up my mind to pursue OR and immerse myself in it at every possible opportunity. I was not alone in this journey - several of my esteemed classmates were also developing similar affinity. OR is known to have originated during the World War II days. It is designed to improve decision-making, and its applications are far reaching spanning areas such as manufacturing, communications, financial engineering, transportation and defense, to mention a few.
Mama was kind enough to be my advisor for the final year project in OR - on automated guided vehicles. Soon, it was time to explore the next steps post B.Tech. from IIT Madras. The technology landscape was shifting across the world. Higher education in the US beckoned. Getting an opportunity to do cutting-edge research in this field was something one couldn't pass up.
I arrived in Boston, and after a year at Northeastern University, I transferred to Boston University. Prof. Jian-Qiang Hu and his colleagues were setting up an amazing curriculum and research agenda addressing various aspects of Manufacturing Engineering with a sharp focus on Operations Research. Having done some seminal research at Harvard, Prof. Hu wanted to continue the pursuit of finding approximations for general open queueing networks. I was fortunate to get an opportunity to work on this research guided by Prof. Hu and mentored by Prof. Michael Caramanis, Prof. Pirooz Vakili and Prof. James Perkins. After a couple of decades of working in the communications networking area, I moved to the artificial intelligence and machine learning world. Many constructs in AI modelling leverage a variety of Operations Research methodologies. Just like how software has been eating the world, AI is front, right and center of every initiative today. AI is everywhere now - even Madras has become Chenn.ai.
It has been a transformative journey for me. IIT Madras made this happen.
BIO:
Dr. MuckAI Girish is the Co-founder & CEO of Rockfish Data, a Generative AI startup developing a Synthetic Data Workbench solution for Data Scientists. Girish has over a quarter century of experience in the AI/ML and tech industry. Girish also serves as the CEO and Board Member of IITM Madras Foundation. He holds a B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, an M.S. and PhD from Boston University and an MBA from the Wharton School.
