Insta-Ali

When he's not studying or working, Ali Aljunied hangs out with his 'working-adult' friends at a local joint in Kembangan or watches that next Naruto filler. He is, in his words, 'a dinosaur of a Year 5 CS student' who may feel out of place sometimes, but he still totally rocked it at #NUSOpenDay2014, with his immensely popular live hashtag printing service, Tagronauts, drawing people from all the different events and halls across UTown that day to the SoC booth!

What are you working on and why are you passionate about it?

I would not consider it working, cause, well, it’s more of a side-project - Tagronauts. You could say I’m passionate about Tagronauts cause it’s something I made on my own, from scratch. I hacked a program to be able to automatically print Instagram photographs. Since I'm in Computing, obviously it had to be THE best Instagram printing service in Singapore, and it is. Really. 

After showcasing it around (big props to the NOC and NHouse RA's), people were really impressed by it. And after some thought, it could be the next big thing in the events industry, or at least until the fad dies.

Describe your SoC experience.

My SoC experience was (past tense cause like I’m graduating, finally, I hope) a pretty an intense, very rewarding roller-coaster ride. My favourite thing about SoC are the professors. They are like soooo friendly and extremely patient! (especially my FYP profs, Prof. Wynne Hsu and Prof. Lee Mong Li. And they are always together so much so they are like BFFs!)  

I think Prof. Ben Leong and Prof. Wei Tsang Ooi made a huge impressions on me. Prof. Ben obviously cause...well...he's Prof. Ben. If you are a Year 1 student, you CANNOT graduate without taking at least one of his modules. You'll understand why when you do! For Prof. Ooi, he has this way of teaching that just makes you feel like he is really interested in teaching you something, which gives you that warm fuzzy feeling in lecture and consultations. Their lessons are really enjoyable in very different ways. 

I think the non-academic staff are very supportive of the students (big props to External Relations Team!). They always look for student feedback and trying to improve things in-line with the latest trends among students. 

Oh, [I also like] the fact that SoC is fully air-conditioned. And we have awesome labs. And awesome equipment. And the print quota. And the many lockers. And that awesome sofa in the basement. 

If there was something I would have done differently during my time here, maybe I would have studied smarter and harder in Year 1? But that would change since there’s no more grading system in Year 1. So jealous. 

I stay in Pasir Ris, and the halls/residences are pretty expensive. I typically take the last bus home cause once I reach home after the gruelling travel, productivity is zero. So I'd do my work till then. For most part of my semesters during year 2 and year 4 (I went to NOC Silicon Valley in Year 3), I'd sleep in computing (remember the sofa?) and shower in iCube. It just doesn’t make sense to travel 1.5hrs, to go home, to take a shower, and sleep, and only to wake up 5-6hrs later, having to rush and travel for another 1.5hrs, for that morning lecture, which I'd most probably be late for anyway. So I slept in school. For free. Well, not really free since I’m paying tuition fees. Heh.

What do you count as your most significant achievements to date? 

Tagronauts of course! Oh and that networked multiplayer game project I did for CS4243 Networked and Mobile Gaming. During STePs, I had two students (specifically these two) who were so engrossed by the game. If any of you two are reading this, yes, you made my heart melt. <3 

Tagronauts happened one night, in my room, some months back when I was bored and broke and I felt I was wasting my life playing games. I had to learn how to make a desktop application from scratch, and boy did that take a lot of patience, perseverance and time. But once you get the hang of it, adding a button or a checkbox for options suddenly seems to be so much fun, even if it’s just to print to console. haha. 

I pestered my friends to tag old photos and upload new photos for me to test the system. And my darling younger brother who taught me WPF and the custom controls and helped me compile a setup file so that I could install the software on other computers. And lent me his laptop cause my laptop's LCD screen wasn’t and still isn’t working when I had showcases. And helped me fix dependencies with the DLLs. <3 Muhammad. (He applied for SoC too!)

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you?

That I slept in school. And that my surname is actually Aljunied, and not cause I stay in Aljunied. And that I’m actually the descendent of one of the forefathers of Singapore, Syed Sharif Omar bin Ali Aljunied. If you are interested you can watch a video about my grandfather’s road (pun intended). 

What advice would you give a prospective SoC student?

It will be a tough journey at the start. But once you brave the storm, you'll be reaping in the sweet, sweet rewards of having a computing background. It’s all perseverance in computing. I came in with zero computing experience, and it was a huge struggle. But it will definitely pay off (and it has for me) especially when Facebook buys your app/software for a few billion dollars.

Also, if you are in Computing, definitely sign up for NOC Silicon Valley. Why you ask?

Cause this.

That’s why.

I also wrote a little blog post called Musing of the 1st NUS Intern in Ensuant about my NOC internship back in 2012 and I have this Awesome Album is Awesome I compiled during my stint in NOC Silicon Valley.

Ali and Elmo striking the pose in front of Radio City Music Hall, New York.

What are your future plans?

Send out my resumes to the cool and hip places to work in Silicon Valley and see who wants me. Heh.

Quick-Fire! Most interesting development in technology this year?

Facebook buying WhatsApp for 19 billion definitely.

Singapore’s best kept secret?

Tagronauts - Live Hashtag Printing.

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

ViSenze’s Li Guangda

Li Guangda, who hails from the coastal city of Tianjin in northern China, completed his PhD at SoC in 2011. He is now the Chief Technology Officer at ViSenze, a start-up he co-founded with Professor Chua Tat-Seng. As you will glean, he is a very busy man and yet still managed to find the time to share his experiences with us.

What do you do now? 

I am the CTO and a co-founder of ViSenze. We build visual search and recognition platform, with the focus on building scalability, latency and performance robustness in a highly distributed, multi-component AWS architecture serving hundreds of millions of queries each day.

What are you working on and why are you passionate about it?

I believe visual search using image as input is another pillar of search engine besides the ordinary text and speech input. And that’s what we do. We are helping companies and developers to power their own products and applications by using of our visual search and recognition platform.

What effect do you think your area of work will have on the world in the next decade?

More and more people will use mobile phone camera to interact with the physical world and look for information. ViSenze is developing this technology.

Briefly describe your experience as a SoC student.

When I was doing academic research, I enjoyed the feeling of pushing boundaries of technologies. But now, since I work more on practical problems, I am happier to see my products being used by real people every day. My favourite thing about studying at SoC was that I really made a lot of friends, whom I still meet up with very often after graduation.

Which faculty members made impressions on you?

My supervisor, Professor Chua Tat-Seng, who is also a co-founder of ViSenze. He guided me throughout my PhD and gave me enough freedom to try new directions and make mistakes. He is a natural leader who influences me much. I have also learned a lot from him about critical, innovative and independent thinking.

Is there anything you would have done differently during your time here?

I should have travelled to more places. I hardly went to any place for holiday since the company was founded due to the busy schedule.

If there is one thing you would change about SoC, what would it be?

There are quite a lot interesting small and medium size high-tech companies in Singapore. But based on my experience so far, many students have only heard about the big names like banks and listed companies, and very few would show interest in SMEs (Small & Medium Enterprises). Maybe it’s because most SMEs don’t market themselves well enough but I think SoC should have more intro sessions about the local tech scene and encourage students to join the local high-tech industry. Fresh graduates will develop their professional skills very quickly by working on real large-scale application and practicing the stat-of-art software development methodology. In addition, there are local tech companies, like us, willing to offer attractive remuneration package and also a promising career path.

What do you count as your most significant achievements to date? 

During my last year of PhD study, I planned to commercialize my PhD research. Switching from thinking academically to that of a real business perspective was one of the challenges I was faced with. It was a tough process but I am quite lucky to get through it. Of course there is still a lot to learn every day but I enjoy what I’m doing now. I am very proud that ViSenze is attracting more talented fresh graduates and alumni from NUS who will be joining us this year.

Tell us who we should we talk to next. Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Soares, Stockholm & Start-Ups

If Soares Chen had to eat from one of the NUS stalls for the rest of his life, it would be the Western Food stall at the The Terrace. He grew up in Penang, Malaysia, and misses his favourite Penang street food while he’s here. He enjoys spending his free nights playing Team Fortress 2 with his Hackerspace.sg mates. I keep hearing that we have the best, most-caring, and committed faculty members and Soares’ story is definitely a testament to that. 

What are you working on and why are you passionate about it?

I am passionate in working on things that can bring the most impact to the world. Right now I am working on an open source Node.js project called Quiver.js. It is a server-side component system that introduces a new paradigm for writing web applications. 

I also work part-time for a music startup in Stockholm, on a music app called ScoreCloud. It has music and audio recognition technology that can turn songs into music notations. I developed the back-end system of ScoreCloud using Node.js.

I’ve been told that you have a ‘unique study path’. Tell me about it.

I study Computer Engineering and it’s my sixth year (!) of undergraduate study at NUS. Despite my current achievements, I was never regarded as a bright student and I always had problems performing in school. I like to learn things on my own and do not follow the conventional ways of learning, such as doing assignments and scoring good grades.  

During my third year study in 2008, I got lost in what I wanted to do in the future. I had big dreams and didn’t want to work for the rest of my life in big corporations. That was the time I first learned about entrepreneurship and I wanted to try things differently to find my own way to success. With that, I took a two-year leave of absence in 2009, went back to my hometown Penang and ran a computer retail and servicing business with a friend. 

The small business soon failed due to dispute in partnership, but from there I learned many valuable lessons about startups and entrepreneurship. I realized that to become truly successful I need to expand my network and meet with other successful entrepreneurs around the world. After returning to school in 2011, I applied for NOC and was lucky enough to get accepted into a one-year internship programme in Stockholm. 

The year 2012 in Stockholm was a life-changing experience to me. At that time I was desperately seeking acknowledgement on my technical abilities, and I worked incredibly hard as an intern in a music startup. I also took the chance to travel to conferences around Europe and meet with many talented people. In the end I overachieved in my company and eventually stayed for another half-year, working full time. 

I returned to Singapore in mid-2013 to resume my study. With my overseas exposure, I now have very different worldview than others. Although I am still struggling to fit back into the current education system in NUS, I am confident of my abilities and will continue to work hard in my own way.

Describe your experience as an SoC student. 

I am particularly grateful to my mentor Prof Khoo Siau Cheng for listening to me and helping me out when I was facing difficulties. Back in my second year Prof Khoo was my mentor in Special Programme in Computing. He recognized that I was different than other students - the way I came up with many wild ideas. He also noticed my weakness in communicating with people and gave me suggestions in improving my soft skills. Without an SoC member who is so caring to me like Prof Khoo, I’d probably no longer be in SoC by now. 

I was a student with low self-esteem and had difficulties communicating with my peers due to differences in our ways of thinking. I wish that, at that time, I could have known of the other possibilities and opportunities available to me outside of NUS. I also wish that I could have learned better ways to communicate with people.

What’s the craziest thing that you did here?

There was a time I got so annoyed with commuting within NUS that I bought an electric bicycle. I didn’t buy a normal bicycle because I thought the steep terrain in NUS was not friendly to cyclists or pedestrians at all. It turned out that not even the electric bicycle had enough power to cross the hills. At least my proudest achievement with it was that at midnight I was able to cycle from PGP to Fong Seng for supper with less than 10 minutes of traveling.

If there is one thing you would change about SoC, what would it be?

I hope that the SoC can be more adapted to the latest technology trends and expose students more to the tech startup scenes. I occasionally join NUS Hackers and can see that students’ involvement with the tech scene is gradually increasing. However, overall, a lot of students are still very detached from the tech scene happening outside of school. 

The NOC programme has been trying very hard to attract more SoC students to join the developer team in tech startups. However, the participation rate is very low and there has been almost no students with technical skills joining NOC Stockholm after my batch. 

Singapore has a very vibrant and growing startup ecosystem now. But the major complaint I heard from startups is the lack of technical talent available in Singapore. I think NUS and SoC plays an important role for Singapore to build a successful startup ecosystem. It is a difficult problem, but radical changes are needed to make sure that graduating students have the right skills that these startups looking for.

What advice would you give a prospective SoC undergraduate student?

Make full use of the free resources on the Internet to learn technical skills on your own. Do not expect the school to teach you much beyond basic programming skills. Instead, make full use of your privilege as SoC student to learn soft skills like leadership and entrepreneurship. Singapore has a very vibrant tech startup community. Go outside of the school to talk to these people and you’ll be surprised at how much help you’d get with anything.

Quick-fire: Most annoying word?

Windows!

Worst public transport experience?

The NUS shuttle bus service has never been improved. It takes the same amount of time to take 10 stops of MRT to Buona Vista as the time to go from Buona Vista to SoC. I blame it on the lack of direct shuttle buses from Kent Ridge MRT to SoC via PGP. Quick tip – I find it faster to come to SoC by stopping at Haw Par Villa Station and taking the public bus to Heng Mui Keng Terrace. There is also a shortcut available at the basement of Mochtar Riady building where you can take the lift up to 4th floor and cross the overhead bridge to SoC with much less stair-climbing. 

Got ideas about questions we should be asking or people we should be chatting with? Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Dancing Tuan

Tuan Q. Phan and his wife have a friendly, Facebook-ing, Scottish fold cat. During the little free time that he has as a professor, he enjoys non-fiction (“because reality is so much crazier than what we can imagine”), dances, plays with his 3-D printer, treks, builds circuits and reads the business news – which may explain his penchant for responding to students’ emails at all ungodly hours. Despite having published his first academic paper in high school (on detecting Factor V Leiden using air cycling PCR with DNA), Tuan finds Singlish challenging!    

Where did you grow up?

I was born in Vietnam and moved to the Utah in the US at 5 years old. My aunt was a “boat person” at a young age that fortunately made it. A family in Utah eventually adopted her and helped her to sponsor her sisters, my grandmother, my parents, and I. Having never experienced the cold, we arrived in Utah in one of the worst winters with only $5 for all of us. 

Although my father had a university degree and taught, he had to go back to school and worked as a fulltime laborer to put food on the table. Later, my mother also went on to get her master’s degree.  By the time they finished, it was time for me to go to college. So, I guess I was always in the university environment. 

After I did my undergrad at MIT, I had an international startup providing computer graphics solutions for mobile devices. Through this experience, I realized I could apply engineering and science to business, and found a fascination for modeling people and companies as complex systems. Thus, I decided to go back to school to do a PhD in marketing at Harvard.

Describe your research and its significance.

My research focuses on social networks and social media, both online and offline. I build theory on how information spreads through word-of-mouth, as well as use Big Data and analytics to find supporting evidence. Social networks affect everything in our daily lives from diseases, adoption of products, our lifestyle, and our social circle. My research provides actionable items for how businesses can use social media to drive profit and how governments can leverage these platforms to help people. For example, my students and I find narcissist users tend to comment on social media, but not necessarily buy products on fanpages. I also find individuals use their social network in cope with natural disasters like hurricanes. In terms of online privacy, although all users say they want privacy, their actions show that they only want the perception of privacy. My research combines social sciences and computational methods such as creating tools for image sentiment analysis. 

Although we have some beliefs that things happen on human social networks, we can now scientifically find evidence and quantify it. This has huge economic, political, health, and societal effects. For example, many peer evaluation activities, such as judging Olympic sports like figure skating and ballroom dancing or reviewing your coworkers’ performance, are greatly affected by social ties. This can result in “reciprocity” or even corrupt behavior. Aside from the substantive research, doing computational social science will change the way we understand psychology and human behavior.

Describe your experience as an SoC faculty member.

Although I did my PhD at a business school, I feel quite a home at SoC where students and faculty are not afraid to use computers as a tool. It’s been a fulfilling experience combining the “left brain” and “right brain.”

The SoC community has really become a second “family.” Students, faculty and staff have been warm, welcoming, and nurturing everyone to reach their full potential. My FYP and PhD students have been fantastic! I like the opportunity to work closely with them and see them develop. I learn so much from my students as well! 

Although the community has a lot of creativity, energy, and talent, sometimes the policies and bureaucracy can be a barrier to others from trying something different. I would encourage students to take more risks, do the best at something they find exciting and go as far as they can it!

What is something most people would be surprised to learn about you?

I was considered a “slow” student up to fourth grade - in a special program for those who need extra help. By end of fifth grade, I was already in the advance program for gifted students.

At the Blackpool Dance Festival

Tell me about your competitive ballroom dancing.

I got into ballroom because of girls, of course! My mother used to watch it on TV. I didn’t really get into it until a female friend brought me dancing with her. I quickly realized that a 1:10 male-female ratio was in my favor, as compared to other “jock” sports where there are too many sweaty guys trying to touch each other. However, quickly I became obsessed about perfection and the theory of dance. Dancing is quite holistic – it’s technical, artistic, athletic and social. My friend who was captain of the Yale team noticed that the majority of their members came from the science and engineering faculties – his conclusion was that these nerds needed instructions to touch and interact with the opposite gender.  He is now a neurosurgeon. 

Actually, I chose MIT because it had both a good dance team and robots! Dancing, like any artistic discipline, requires technical proficiency before it becomes an art. One of the dance coaches was also a PhD student in computer science at MIT, and an international finalist! Lessons consisted of vectors, angular velocity, momentum, radians, and fluid dynamics. Another coach was a doctor that talked about the xiphoid process, iliotibial band, and fascia. 

Dancing was also not easy. My father always wanted me to focus on my studies and work, like all traditional Asian parents. Research has shown, however, that exercise, and dancing in particular, is good for the brain. With more things to do (work, school, dancing) and deadlines, you also learn to work efficiently and effectively. It’s a constraint optimization problem, which is nice since you also avoid over-choice and procrastination. For example, since I was almost triple majoring, I had business classes starting at 7am, EECS classes in the afternoon, then exams 6-9pm, dance practice 9pm-12am, then start-up work 12-4am, and rinse and repeat. 

We primarily competed in the “international standard” styles which included 5 dances – waltz, tango, Viennese waltz, foxtrot, and quickstep. For these, practices would be 4 hours a day, 6 or 7 times a week. We worked with our coaches 4 times a week. One of our coaches was in New York City, about a 4.5 hour commute each way from Boston. We would see him every week. In addition, we trained with weights 2-3 times a week, and worked with a personal trainer every week. My wife and I used to compete in 10 dances, but had to drop the Latin dances so I could graduate. 

Of course, some of the best moments were when we did well, such as placing 10th in North America at Ohio Star Ball. Besides that, our first trip to Blackpool Dance Festival, the Grand Slam of ballroom dancing, was inspirational. We danced on the same floor as with the best dancers in the world, and were judged by dance legends! Fortunately, we also did quite well and got in the top 96 round out of hundreds of competitors in the open amateur and rising star categories. We got to dance to the famous live band in a palace in the highlight evening event after almost a week of competing. 

Probably the best moment of all, however, is finding my wife and dance partner.  If you can work together through a dance partnership, you know the marriage will be easy. 

I met some of the most amazing and smartest people through dancing – many with little or no formal education, and made many personal and professional connections through dancing. I have great respect for dancers who have such dedication and passion, and who physically push their bodies every day. It is a tough life, even though many have other, better and more comfortable options.  

Although we are semi-retired, we have been helping to form the NUS Ballroom Team. As the academic advisors, we are happy to volunteer our time and share our knowledge amongst friends and dancers alike. With the team, we practice twice a week, and I teach 1-2 times. Within the first semester, new team members competed at the Singapore Open Dance Championships in November. My wife and I love to help nurture the next generation of dancers in Singapore. 

With the team, our friends and the help of the general Singapore dance community, we organized the inaugural NUS Open Ballroom Championship in January 2014. This was a big accomplishment since no other tertiary institution has organized a ballroom competition in Singapore, or even in Southeast Asia – and this, for a team not more than 1 year old. It welcomed over 60 competitors from Singapore, Philippines and Malaysia, and judges from the UK, Australia, USA and Singapore. It also offered a free performance for NUS students by the Asia-Pacific Latin champions. Keep an eye out for our event next year!

Quick-Fire! Most interesting development in technology this year?

3-D printers, Bitcoin, Omate smartwatch

Guilty pleasures?

Dancing? Vietnamese food (Pho, Banh Xeo, etc...) and Vietnamese drip coffee!

 Three ultimate dinner party guests?

Picasso and my grandfathers who have lived through so much.

Got ideas about questions we should be asking or people we should be chatting with? Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Yong Jie

Some may find it surprising that Wong Yong Jie is only 21 years old and already in his third year of his Communications and Media and CMU Concurrent Degree programme. He spent his younger years in Subang Jaya, Malaysia, but has been living in Singapore since he was 13. Yong Jie started up his web solutions company on an impulse, played the old man in SoC’s Rag performance last year, and thinks pure algorithms are “ugh!”.

Watch out Taiwan! Don't get in the way of this man and his noodles!

Describe your experience as an SoC student.

Beyond its academic merits, I think the best thing about SoC is that it's like a tightly knit family. In every class I take in SoC, I'm quite certain to find some friends who can take away the potential boredom of weekly lectures/tutorials. I have very nice close friends whom I enjoy spending time with every day. 

Currently, I'm the de facto advisor to the current Management Committee after retiring as President in the last academic year. As I intend to spend the year focusing on my academic studies, my involvement is currently minimal. I'm also currently in the Alumni Relations Cell of Computing Club. I stay over in school more often than most people. Sometimes I walk to school at 2 am just to get some things done (I stay on campus, though). I do feel more sense of attachment to the school, I guess. 

[The thing I find most challenging is] Mathematics (in any form). I'm well aware that math is the foundation of CS, but I seem to take double the effort to learn as compared to some others. So far, the most useful module I have done is CS3246 Multimedia Content Analysis and Search. We were made to build 3 search engines in just a single semester! Despite the heavy workload, everything we learnt had close to real-world applications - especially with the renewed focus on data mining and information retrieval. [If there is one thing I could change about SoC,] I'd wish for higher project weightage rather than examinations. I tend to do very poorly in examinations, unfortunately. 

In general, I do think that faculty members are really friendly people in almost all occasions, and are very enthusiastic and dedicated as teaching staff. Among those who have taught me in many ways are (in no particular order): Associate Professor Irene Woon (IS1103/1105), Mr. Aaron Tan (CS1010), Associate Professor Khoo Siau Cheng, Dr. Colin Tan, Dr. Soo Yuen Jien (CS2100), Dr. Damith Rajapakse (CS2103), Dr. Bimlesh Wadhwa (CS3240), Associate Professor Leong Hon Wai, Associate Professor Lee Wee Sun and Professor Chua Tat Seng (CS3246).

I hear you have a web solutions company. Tell me a bit about that.

I actually started out as a freelancer for web development. Over the years, the freelance market became flooded with extremely cheap services with no guarantees of quality or support. Formulating my services as part of a company gives more confidence to customers and allows more flexibility in marketing.  

Being in this industry requires a blend of skills - one has to first learn the technical aspects of web development. [Then] there needs to be some artistic flair to ensure visual appeal. One also needs communication skills to communicate effectively with clients, and some marketing skills to promote solutions in a crowded market. 

My company is currently largely dormant (beyond some maintenance tasks for older clients), as I lack the time to stay focused on it. Riding the wave of the Web is a challenging one - new technologies appear and existing technologies are deprecated all the time. Now, one has to design web solutions in the context of "many screens" - from mobiles to tablets, laptops to full-sized PCs, or even the big screen (TVs), and take advantage of relatively new things such as WebRTC to enrich user experiences. While challenging, the Web is an exciting place to be in.

Ah Pek Jie dispensing advice

What advice would you give a prospective SoC student?

Discover your passion - it will make your life much easier. Make more friends and join more Computing Club activities - it will expand your reach and give you opportunities to build your network.

What are your future plans?

My immediate plan is to work on my 3rd year project (CS3283/84 Media Technology Project) and my Final Year Project. I'm still not certain about what I am going to do after graduation (may be a bad sign...), as I still have a wide range of interests. I may find stability in being a full-stack developer for a company, but I find thrill[s] in setting up a start-up.

What do you enjoy doing when you are not studying?

Spending some time with my girlfriend, lazing around with my family (haven't been enjoying the comfort of my home for months!), playing badminton or cycling. I like music and dance too. [For dance,] I like hip hop the most. I'd have to put up a huge disclaimer here though – I don't think I'm good at it. I'm not trained in dance whatsoever, but I just enjoy moving along with music with good beats :P

Quick‐Fire time. Best place you’ve been to?

Since I just got back from Taiwan, I think Taiwan is an awesome place with awesome food! :D

Pet peeve?

Imperfect pixels on screen.

Guilty pleasure?

Sleeping too much.

Got ideas about questions we should be asking or people we should be chatting with? Email tien@nus.edu.sg

Merry Jerry

Jerry Ye is an Information Science major and Internet aficionado who will be graduating this year. During his time here in SoC, Jerry has created four start-ups, convinced a girl to be his girlfriend 24 hours after they met and had a dream to change the world. He hails from Anqing, Anhui, China and is apparently struggling to play the classic Tang Dynasty song ‘River on a Spring Night’ on his poor guitar. 

What do you do now?

I am the CEO of StreetGAGA. I am working on social commerce in women’s fashion. I am not particularly passionate about women’s fashion - I just like the Internet. [The] Internet is just a baby now. In the next decade, our assets will be programmable. 

Briefly describe your experience as an SoC student.

I made many good friends in SoC. Students and professors here are hard-working, providing a very good studying environment. The education [I receive at] SoC inspires me and teaches me how to think.  I also learn how to create and innovate here. I enjoy [doing] new [things] that my prof and friends [have] never heard or thought of before. [If there was one thing I would change about SoC, it would be to have more] emphasis on innovation.

Which faculty members made impressions on you?

Prof. Ben Leong from Computer Science is impressive. Unlike other professors, he directly objects my opinions. And the communication with him is a shortcut for my self-development. Thus, I always remember him.

What is something most people would find surprising about you?

[My] narcissism.

What are your future plans?

To build something new for O2O first. [Then] later build a new virtual currency. 

Quick-Fire! Pet peeve?

Socialism.

Guilty pleasure?

Destroy[ing] others’ world view[s].

Three ultimate dinner party guests?

My grandpa - I never [met] him

[A] little girl from my childhood - I never [met her again] 

Picasso - maybe I need to talk to him

Got ideas about questions we should be asking or people we should be chatting with? Email tien@nus.edu.sg

This Sharmili Ain't Shy

Sharmili Roy’s favourite local foods are Yong Tau Foo and Kaya Toast. The fourth year CS PhD student doesn’t think she’s made for routine, repetitive jobs, having previously worked in MNCs and government bodies, and instead prefers to work independently and on new problems (which research and academia will allow). Sharmili already has Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Engineering and won The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship in July last year. Also, ‘Sharmili’ means ‘someone who is shy’ in Hindi, but she assures us that she is not.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up all across India. I was born in the eastern part of India, in the oldest metro city, Calcutta. After living in Calcutta for about 3 years we moved south for a brief stint in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam (nick‐named, Vizag). My next home after Vizag was up in the north, the hilly and then laid back small town of Dehradun. My school was next door to my house and we could see the Garhwal Himalayas from our back yard. While still in primary school my father's job took us back to our home town Calcutta where I finished my primary school. I finished high school and college in the capital of India, New Delhi.

Describe your experience as an SoC student:

Working with my academic supervisor (Associate Professor Michael Brown) is the best thing about doing a PhD in SoC. I thing he is the best supervisor I have ever had. Apart from being very supportive academically, he has always been there for his students. He is very understanding and there has never been any communication gap with him, which I think is the most important part of a student-supervisor relationship. I don't think my research would have been as enjoyable had I been working with someone else. 

I have done a number of internships during my PhD and hence I have been exposed to a lot of new problems and new people in my field. Also, my supervisor has always been keen on sending his students to conferences and summer schools so that we are aware of what is happening in our field and what other people are working on. This gives us a chance to network with like-minded people. I think not all students in SoC and in NUS in general get this opportunity. I feel special to have had so many opportunities to interact with experts in my field. 

I think the biggest challenge I face is to convince people that simple practical problems are important and deserve equal and sometimes more time and effort as complex technical problems that may or may not end up being used in practice. Research is not always about solving technically involved problems using complex algorithms. If we can find solutions to simple day to day problems that can be used in daily practice, research can be more fruitful.

I am working on developing next generation reporting and diagnostic tools for healthcare and biomedical applications. The problems that I work on are faced by radiologists, doctors and biomedical experts in their day to day work life. My goal is to design computational assistants to make their life easier and more efficient. As an example, the aim of one of my project is to address the limitations in the current radiological imaging and reporting workflow, in particular the out-dated reliance of physicians on text-only radiological reports. To this end, we have designed a reporting framework that enables radiologists to augment their text reports with an autogenerated visual summary of the clinical findings. The visual summary is computed as an animated 3D volume where the radiologists’ annotations are clearly highlighted as the volume spins to provide a comprehensive summary of the important clinical content. We have proved that our 3D visual summaries enhance communication between radiologists, physicians and their patients as opposed to the text-based reports currently used in radiology via a user satisfaction study with physicians in Singapore.  

We have exhibited our visual summary framework, called VITA, to senior radiologists in Cornell University and also at the Annual meetings of the Radiological Society of North America. VITA has been appreciated by senior members of the radiology community and has even been predicted as the system that may completely replace radiological text reporting. We believe that our VITA system can have immediate impact on clinical reporting practices and will empower patients with a deeper understanding of their report results

Which faculty members made impressions on you?

Dr. Michael S. Brown and Dr. Mohan Kankanhalli have been very supportive throughout my PhD. Though Dr. Mohan is not my supervisor but he has always lent a patient ear to my concerns and guided me throughout my stay in SoC.

What is the craziest thing that you did here? 

The craziest thing that I can think of is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with the Mountaineering Club of NUS last year. We, a group of 20 people led by members of the NUS Mountaineering club successfully reached the summit of the highest peak of Africa, Kilimanjaro, after a long and tedious climb of 7 days through the tropical forests, moorland, desert and snow. It will remain as one of the most exciting experiences of my life.

If there is one thing you would change about SoC, what would it be?

I feel that social interaction between SoC students is very limited. Probably because we all are always under pressure to perform better. We hardly know what students in other labs are working on. I think I would have preferred more informal activities being organized in SoC for a socially healthier work environment.

Best song on air now?

I love Bollywood music (and dancing!) - current favourites are songs from the movie "Ramleela"

Pet peeve?

Cupboards with doors left open

Guilty pleasure?

Creme Brulee Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream

Got ideas about questions we should be asking or people we should be chatting with? Email tien@nus.edu.sg