“Kartik, what do you do?” – asked you. Lets see – nowadays I design AI algorithms. I have designed Integrated Circuits, solar powered irrigation pumps in India, have founded a company, have some US patents. But what do I do? The 42nd time someone asked me this, I went deeper.
As an undergraduate student at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur, I remember this sinking feeling at the end of every semester – I don’t see myself doing that for the rest of my life! Four years and something like forty courses, and at the end of it, I still had no idea what I wanted to do – every course had been a struggle.
So I did the only logical thing – enrolled for a masters. It wasn’t until the second semester of graduate school at Notre Dame that I found a course that I just “got” – Algorithms. Of course, realization has taken many more happy years to sink in.
That interest in algorithms took me to signal processing early in my career. I designed delta sigma ADCs (or sigma delta, if you must!), digital filters, DSPs. Since these don’t exist in air, what I was actually doing was building mixed signal ICs. I started to think of myself as an IC guy (really! Prof. Kar’s course!!).
But algorithms wasn’t done with me yet – I moved on to solar, or more specifically, generating electricity from solar. From designing ICs, to coding algorithms for building irrigation pumps that run directly from a solar PV panel. Solar, though, is more than just a product for me. It has enabled me to return to India (where I was born), to rural India – what a learning experience that has been. I am now also more conscious of the environment, and of how we live our lives.
My focus nowadays is Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically deep learning using neural nets. Projects include looking for anomalies in audio signals, audio keyword recognition, identifying anomalies in images taken by a drone. All of these are algorithms – AI is but another tool. A powerful tool though, that makes it possible to do things we couldn’t earlier. I believe that AI complements human intelligence, not replace it. In other words, do things that humans cannot do or find too painful (expensive, tedious) to do.
So, what do I do? – I design algorithms and build products around them. That is me, in a nutshell. I call Austin, Texas home, am married and have two wonderful daughters. I like the outdoors – in the pre-Corona days you could find me on Lady Bird Lake at least three evenings every week.
OK, what do you do? Can I help you with your next thing? Do write …