Pooja wants Wednesday-Talks back!

Fourth year PhD student Pooja Roy hails from the City of Joy, Kolkata, in East India. Pooja reckons that most people there are foodies. Apparently you’ll find sweet shops every 500 metres around the city and anyone visiting Kolkata must try ‘phuchhka’, a tiny hollow fried bun with hot potato filling, served with a sour tamarind dip. Pooja loves singing and once thought of making a career out of her love for music - she even learnt to play the piano to compose music. She has not given up on this wish yet.

Why are you doing a PhD?

In early days of school when we were asked to write an essay about our ambition in life, I always wrote that I would become an educator. The wish got stronger every passing year and thus here I am, pursuing PhD so that I can teach in an university in my country. Instead of working in a tier one institution which is overflowing with amazing talents, I really wish to work for universities that are not so famous. I feel that I can utilize my training received in a top university like NUS to provide and contribute to an institution that lacks good educators.

Describe your research and its significance.

I work in the area of compiler optimizations. Compiler is a piece of software that translates what a programmer writes, into binary codes that a machine can execute. A compiler can be visualized as a vertically oriented channel which starts from application layer that is the source code and ends in the hardware that run them. At every level of abstraction it needs information to optimize the program so that it works correctly as the programmer wants, runs faster, uses the memory devices very efficiently, does not interfere with other applications running at the same time etc. Lately, as power consumption is a big issue in computing, compilers also need to consider how much power the code will consume when it is run. This power consumption is due to all the hardware that will be needed to run the application. In any computer, memory devices are a main consumer of power. In my thesis, I am exploring how compilers can optimize programs so that it consumes lesser power while it runs. There is a new type of memory called Resistive memories. These memories have special power requirements and properties. As SRAM and DRAM, the most common memory technologies are failing to scale up for future computing devices, this class of Resistive memories are being explored to replace them. My thesis work, specially, considers these memories and tried to optimize programs so consume minimum energy while its execution.

I am working on the junction of software layer and hardware layer which makes my work very interesting. Each phenomenon that we observe in a particular problem can be explored or answered from two very different perspectives - one that is abstract and based on logic, the other is real hardware devices. This not only makes the work very interesting, also makes it a bit difficult at times. Personally, I like my area of research because I get opportunities to explore the very core of how computers work.

I remember reading from a famous professor's blog "it does not really matter which era you are born in, science always have uncharted spaces". Though my area of research is a very well-known and well-studied area for past many decades, still it is very active and has lot of opportunities for research. Every innovation in the field of electronic design or programming languages has impact on compilation techniques. With more and more complex and high performance systems and popularity of mobile devices, I think there will be a steady need for innovative compilation techniques in the coming years and further. 

Frankly speaking when I started as a PhD student I found research very daunting. Especially after clearing qualifiers I really felt the difference between reading for exams and research work where you are expected to create new knowledge. Fortunately I am working with an amazingly encouraging supervisor [A/P Wong Weng-Fai]. If not for his constant motivation and simple words of appreciation at every step, I would not have continued so far. As a PhD student we have to publish research manuscripts. Many students face a lot of difficulty in achieving good publications. I too faced this peril. However, I could stand up after every paper rejection mainly because of my supervisor's trust in me. I love research because I love asking "why”s. I am very curious by nature and that is why my favourite part of every project is the idea formation or the brainstorming where we explore all the "why"s that comes to our mind. For every "why", when I can find an answer, it is a joy that cannot be explained in words. It is somewhat like a treasure hunt game. :-)

Describe your SoC experience. What do you enjoy the most about studying at SoC?

I like the freedom given to all students that they can learn just by attending the lectures. This way, it is easier for students to learn what we really want to learn without worrying about GPAs. I love the facilities provided to research students. We all have our own comfortable desks to work. The exposure given to the PhD students, for example, regular workshops, research talks and seminar by eminent people, is also very encouraging.

I think many PhD students will agree with me - the most challenging aspect of my journey is SoC was my qualifier exams. Though for the new students it is differently designed now. I hope the new structure will prove to be more research friendly. 

How I am shaped as a researcher is mainly because of my supervisor’s constant encouragement. He inspired me the most. Apart from my supervisor, I am really inspired by Professor Mohan Kankanhalli and A/P Tulika Mitra. Prof Mohan's guidance has always helped me in taking decisions about my graduate studies. And Prof Tulika is always providing us with many opportunities to meet very eminent people from our area of research. She cares and includes not only her students but also the students of other professors in any event that can help PhD students gain more knowledge and awareness of our field.

[The one thing I would change about SoC is that the] Biz canteen must have new stalls! haha :P On a serious note, I think we should have more interactions between research labs. We used to have a Wednesday-talk series called "CS-Talks" where one person from any lab would present the basics of his/her research area and all other students from others labs could attend. I really hope that it could resume.

What is the funniest thing that you’ve done? 

In December 2013, I went on a trip to Vietnam. As I like to travel in the streets and markets in any new place, not only the typical tourist attractions, I discovered that almost no one speaks or understands English, the only language I know, in the street food or market places in Vietnam. Of course in the cities and tours organized for tourists every one speaks and understand English but not in the local streets. The only one thing that kept me from getting lost in translation was "Google Translate". I downloaded an offline language pack (Vietnamese - English and vice versa) in my phone and went around all over Vietnam typing to everyone and communicating happily about anything I wanted to! It was at times hilarious when many people gathered around me to see what exactly I am trying to do by showing my phone to the shop keeper and such like. But surely it was helpful and lifesaving at times. :P

Apparently you’re a movie-buff. Tell me about this. 

I like movies and especially war-time films or films with non-linear story lines! My favourite director is Quentin Tarantino, director of the famous movie "Kill Bill". My close friends are Film Studies graduates and film enthusiasts. I think it’s because of their company that I am also a film enthusiast. not only watching different genres of films, I love discussing them with my friends over a cup of coffee. I also read blogs and love to watch various documentaries on Nat Geo or BBC! One of my favourite show is Air Crash Investigations.

Quick-Fire: Best movie you’ve seen this year?

Highway 

Worst fashion trend?

"Moustache" lockets and prints!

Best hawker food in Singapore?

Jin De Lai Zhong Hua La Mian - a Chinese restaurant in Boat Quay (their speciality is chilli crab).

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

Wai Tsun the 'Copter-phile'

Fourth year Computational Biology student, Yim Wai Tsun, has been playing the traditional Chinese instrument 'Guzheng' for over a decade. Apparently he also loves singing - so much, that he takes every opportunity to sing whenever he's alone and has been serenading the walls of the clubroom, his shower head and the lamp posts that line the streets where he lives. Here, however, you will read about his other love...

Somewhere in New Zealand

Describe your SoC experience.

The most enjoyable thing about studying in SoC would be the people in SoC. Spending so much time with them has made SoC feel like another home, and these people, my family. No longer are professors just our teachers, but they can [also] be lunch/dinner ‘kakis’ who you ‘jio’ out with your friends. And of course, the willingness of people to help each other when you have difficulty in your studies, even if it means them missing the last bus/train, is something that I greatly appreciate.

Most of the useful things that I have learnt from SoC are not what was taught in lecture, but rather, when I combine knowledge from various fields. Programming taught me to abstract problems and solve them by searching for the factor that is causing the issue and focus on solving it. Other skills acquired while studying in SoC also made me a more informed consumer when buying electronic goods and effectively extending the lifespan of electronic device.

The most challenging thing in computing would be understanding all the "mathemagical" equations and algorithms. Often, I cannot wrap my mind around the maths. However, here is where the magic lies in problem solving. It is interesting to see how numerous complex problems can be simplified into a common generic problem, and just by solving it, the solution that will serve many people.

Some of the craziest things I’ve done here are:

• A number of us found out that it is possible to read our matriculation card content using handphone NFC. So some of us tried and successfully wrote content to our matriculation card empty sector.
• Deciding that sleep is more important than a grade.
• Using force, peer pressure, threats and blackmail on Andrew Koh to get him to see a doctor after he coughed up blood from lack of rest and malnutrition (his diet consist of ONLY instant noodle).
• Taking 6 final papers in two consecutive days when I was in year 2, effectively ending my exam 3 days into the exam period.

Currently other than school work, I'm interning at the Genome Institute of Singapore, doing research. At the same time, I'm also the Internal Finance Officer of the Alumni Relation Cell of the Computing Club. At the moment, we are in the midst of planning Grad Nite 2014 for this year’s graduating batch. Occasionally when NUS Wushu is invited for a performance, they will approach me to prepare their performance soundtrack for them. So this requires me to listen to numerous background music, movie soundtrack and mixing them together while taking into consideration the choreography of the performance.

Which faculty members made impressions on you?

Uncle Soo - He really doesn't feel like an academic staff when he teaches. More like a SoC senior who you approach for help when you are stuck with your coding. 

Henry Chia - Took his Introduction to Artificial Intelligence when I was in year 2. He is really passionate about his subject and his method of teaching is really informal. The most memorable class with him was the last AI tutorial of that semester. Even for a cohort of 120 students, only a friend and I attended it. 

Prof Leong Hon Wai - My supervisor when it comes to research, though I must say that I must have disappointed him a lot. However, it is thanks to him that my understanding of computational biology has broadened beyond what was taught in classroom. Through his weekly research meeting, I was able to meet with PHD students, final year students and UROPS students. We exchange ideas and opinions on each other’s projects.

Of course, the list goes on and on. SoC is filled with awesome staff.

What is the one thing you would change about NUS?

The bus routes of our internal shuttle busses have gotten from bad to worse over the past 4 years with the bus route going from barely servicing the student body during peak hour to nonsensical this year. Bus 95 has become my shuttle bus when I need to commute between Computing and Science. If there is at least one thing that needs to change about NUS, the bus route is definitely one of them.

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

I would have to say it's my Student Exchange Programme (SEP) experience. I always believe that one can learn more by spending one week staying overseas than spending one year in your home country. Thanks to the 4 months, my culinary skills, vacation planning skills, and driving skills certainly improved a lot. Apart from these, I was able to gain insights into New Zealand, a place which I will never have come to understand if not for my SEP. 

[I decided] to apply for it in year 2, seeing my friend getting her application for SEP in Canada approved. Hence, I decide to give it a try. I guess it fortunate that the country that I want to travel to wasn't a popular place so I do not get much competition for the placement. 

The wonderful group of friends I made on exchange really helped to hone my culinary and driving skills. Of course, my exchange wouldn't be possible if not for Ms. Quek Woon Woon’s efforts and the support of my family. 

What do you enjoy doing when you are not studying or working?

At home, I've built my raspberry pi into a file server. In the meantime, I am also building it into a bitcoin mining rig. Concurrently, I am also searching online for method to turn my raspberry pi into a home karaoke system. It is truly amazing what a small computer can do. 

Hobby wise, I love to fly remote control helicopters and quadcopters. However at the moment, I am pretty much grounded. My DJI Phantom's parameters require tuning and test flights which I have not had the time to do. My collective pitch helicopter is awaiting a motor replacement, while my fixed pitch helicopter is waiting for its flybar to be replaced. For some unknown reason, I am more interested in rotary flight than fixed wing flight.

In this hobby, crashing is common, so parts replacement is a common scenario. Replacing and fixing your own birds gives you an understanding of how thing works which in turn improves your piloting skills. Other than flying my birds, I enjoy watching air crash investigation. It nice to see how air travel has evolved because of these accidents and appreciate the safety protocols [that have been] implemented. 

I still remember how my passion for flying started. It all started when I watched a Japanese drama played by Kimura Takuya titled "Good Luck". It tells the story of an aspiring co-pilot, the situations and the various kind of flights that he encountered. It was in that show when I was exposed to the joy and beauty of flight. I can’t remember when I started remote control flying. It is considered an expensive hobby so I have to do a lot of repairing myself.

Over the years I have lost count the number of landing and crashes that I had. There was once when I was flying with my friends at Seletar reservoir when I crashed onto the roof of a pavilion. On quadcopters, there is no reverse thrust. So we had to build a human pyramid to retrieve my quadcopter. I have flown into trees, wall, ceiling, earth, but thankfully, I have never flown into any living being. 

I got my DJI Phantom when I was on exchange to better document my exchange experience, and also to see New Zealand from a different perspective. Every time I took off into the wild gust of New Zealand and over lakes, waterfalls, ocean, rapids, my heart always seems to jump up to my throat. Luckily, there were no major crashes on my exchange, so I guess I can consider them 'good' landing. 

One incident when I almost lost my DJI Phantom was while I was flying a low pass, filming a rapid in Huka Fall, Lake Taupo, New Zealand. I was about 100m up a rapid when my transmitter buzzed, notifying me that my transmitter was running  out of battery. Though the Phantom is equipped with a GPS module that will automatically return it to take off point if it loses signal from the transmitter, the rapid that I was filming was lined with steep rock wall on both side. The Auto pilot would fly the quadcopter into this wall if it attempted to make a beeline back. The rapid was creating turbulence between these walls and it was difficult to climb out of it. After much fighting, I was able to bring my Phantom back within reach, but the transmitter died before I could land it. A friend of mine had to catch it in mid-air for me.

Another incident where I almost lost my Phantom was when I flew too close to a radio tower and I lost control of my quadcopter completely. At that moment, I knew that a crash was imminent and mentally prepared myself to retrieve the wreckage. In a desperate attempt to avoid the crash, I pushed up the throttle and resulting in a rapid ascent, narrowly avoiding the face of a cliff. Thanks to the ascent, I was outside the range of the radio tower and manage to land my quadcopter in one piece. That was my last flight in New Zealand. It was in the middle of winter, and the gust was building up. Numerous commercial flights were denied landing at Wellington International Airport due to the strong crosswind. Almost every commercial jet liner had to crab in order to land and it is common to see a missed approach on the runway where the strong crosswinds prevented pilots from de-crabing and flaring. 

In NUS, there's not much room to fly my larger size bird. However, occasionally I still bring some smaller bird to fly in school, indoor. Especially during exam period, I will take breaks from my study by flying. Every battery last about 5-7 min, so it's perfect for a study break. Almost everyone who has studied in the Computing Clubroom has flown one of my birds and crashed miserably. Looking at their concern expressions when they wreck my bird (broken parts, main blade hanging off the hinge at odd angles, making weird noises), I often wonder whether I looked like them when I had my first few major crashes, while I reassure them that the bird can be easily repaired in a few minutes and every hobbyist or pilot learnt how to fly by crashing. 

After many years into flying, I come across a quote by Leonardo da Vinci, "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return". I am deeply addicted to this hobby now.

The Incident of the Phantom's Mid-Flight Transmitter Battery Death

Quick-fire! Worst movie you've seen this year?

Hunger Game: Catching Fire. I had to endure 2 hours of watching Katniss choosing Peeta, a burden who kept dragging the group down by attracting killer monkeys and running into barriers, over Gale who obviously was a better choice.

Most interesting development in technology this year?

Smart watches, with the best example pebble while the worst example Galaxy Gear first gen.

Best place you've been to?

Lake Tekapo of New Zealand. It's 400m above sea level so the air is refreshing. In the daytime, the colour of Lake Tekapo changes colour depending on the angle of sunlight. The lake is ringed by snow [capped mountains]. There is a spa which is open air, and you get to enjoy the view while you are soaking in the water.

The city of Tekapo is commissioned by United Nation as the International Dark Sky Reserve. No artificial lightings are installed in the area. A single car's headlight produces more light pollution than the whole town put together. It is the best place to stare gaze at night. In Tekapo, there exists a love hate relationship with the full moon. When it's full, the moon appears big and round, however, it is so bright that it block out all the stars in the skies.

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

Ben's Inspiration

If you've been following the blog, you would have noticed that Ben Leong's name comes up a bit. There is even a Ben Leong Fan Club on Facebook. So here’s a bit more: Ben was born in Singapore and, except for nine years studying at MIT, has spent most of his life in Singapore. He counts marrying his wife of nine years as his most significant achievement to date. Not many know this, but Ben used to be a pistol shooter in his youth. Also, Ben claims that he fears boredom more than death although this Editor suspects that his fear of having to listen to his daughters play Frozen’s ‘Let It Go’ over and over at home probably rivals that. 

Clearly, Mei-mei rules.

Describe your work and its significance.

I realized from a young age that I really liked computers and I liked to write programs. However, I thought that just writing programs that run on one machine was not sufficiently challenging. Instead, I became interested in learning about and exploring how we can write programs that will run on many computers, that then work together to do cool stuff. This is why my students and I work on Networking and Distributed Systems. We study and investigate how we can make networks run faster and more reliably and also develop new ways to use these networks to do interesting things. 

We are currently involved in two key projects. In one project, we are developing new algorithms that will allow cellular (3G/4G) data networks to run faster. In the other project, we are developing a new aerial wireless mesh network, where we will using flying quadrotors equipped with radios to rapidly set up a wireless network over places where there is no wired infrastructure. 

Mobile data is very important to modern life. We all want to upload our photos faster, and also have better experience surfing the web or checking email on our mobile devices. Our research on 3G/4G networks will improve performance. We will also be working on techniques that will allow us to build better, less buggy and more energy efficient mobile applications. We believe that our aerial wireless mesh network will have applications in disaster relief and civil defence operations. All in all, I think we believe that through our work, we will help make things better.

Describe your SoC experience.

I think the best thing about being a professor is the level of autonomy in deciding on what I want to work on. Literally, I get out of bed each day and ask myself, "So, what cool thing can I do today?"

The other really nice thing about working in SoC is really nice colleagues and students. Much of our happiness is derived from the people that we get to work with every day. I am grateful that it is a joy to go to work every day. 

My work is extremely challenging. Research is challenging because half the time we don't really know what we're doing exactly. We work in this space of uncertainty where we cannot really be sure that things will work and we will get results. Failure is common, though some will say that if we don’t fail often enough then we are not trying hard enough. But I guess the rewards on the rare occasions where we make a breakthrough somewhat make up for it. 

Teaching is also very challenging because students are all different. Even if we teach the same class across years, there are differences in the students and we need to accommodate those differences. Also, students have a variety of different problems and much of the work involves figuring out how to tackle them.  

Students ask questions all the time and most times, I am very fast and I always have answers for them. There was however one question that I got that "stunned" me for a while. One year, a student asked, "Prof, so what's the meaning of life?" I forget the exact circumstances under which that question was posed, but I remember being momentarily stumped. Even today, I really don't have an answer because I think each person needs to find his own meaning. What is meaningful to one person might not be meaningful to the next. But we all need to find meaning because if not, then we would be wandering aimlessly through life. 

If there's one thing that I have learnt in life though, it's that it is really difficult to say where we will be or what we will do in the future. I am not entirely sure that I will always be a professor at SoC. I don't really have plans for my life. Every day, I just ask myself "how can I create the most value today?", and I just do my best. My goal is to minimize regret and sleep well at night. So far, my algorithm seems to be working quite well.

What would you change at SoC?

I actually think that SoC is already a cool place with very cool people. We really don't want to break things that are already working well, so I'm not sure that we really need to change all that much. I do feel however that many of our students are very "lost". This could very well just be a function of age, since most students are young and still trying to figure out their place in the world. So, if there's anything that I think SoC or NUS should work towards, it is cultivating a culture of inspiration. I would like to see everyone come to work or school every day inspired. The students should be inspired. The professors should be inspired. Even the administrators should be inspired. I think the world at large needs more inspiration.

Which students have made impressions on you? 

I have had many students. It is probably too hard to list them all, so I guess I will just pick one.

I first taught Caleb Chao programming in his freshman year. Caleb is currently a software engineer at Google. He is quite memorable because among all my students over the years, he was the only one who submitted a blank file for his practical exam. Somehow he realized immediately after the exam and pleaded with me to accept a new file which he downloaded from the computer lab for me. He was clearly a good student and so I believed that it was an honest mistake and accepted his explanations. I did, however, take away all the bonus points that he would have gotten in the exam. Eventually, he did emerge as the top student for CS1101S that year, so it clearly didn’t hurt him.

The next year, Caleb became a tutor for the class. This time, instead of taking the practical exam, he served as an invigilator. However, he was bored along the way and decided that he would solve the exam and upload the answers. What he did not realized was that because he was a staff member, the solutions that he uploaded to IVLE during the exam could be read by all the students. Fortunately, this happened close to the end of the exam and I discovered it soon enough to delete the file before it caused a "leak". Nevertheless, Caleb gave me a heart attack that day.

My final impression of Caleb as a student was the speech he made as the SoC Valedictorian, where he extolled the importance of creating value and not just pursuing wealth and status. I guess that's a value that agrees with me.

Clearly, you are passionate about teaching and you care about your students. Tell me a bit about this.

I think the main thing about my teaching is that I believe in what I am doing and I believe that it makes a difference. The trouble with teaching, frankly, is that it is very hard to measure. We really cannot say for sure what we achieved, or not. However, I believe in inspiration. I believe that it is important for us to be inspired in our work -- and to be inspired, we need to believe that what we are doing actually makes a difference. I might be delusional, but if so, I think it's good delusion. It is not always easy for each of us to find our place in life. What I can share is that I believe I found my calling back in secondary school when we sang this song "If I can help somebody". The lyrics somehow spoke to me:

If I can do my duty, as a good man ought,
If I can bring back beauty, to a world up wrought,
If I can spread love's message, as the Master taught,
Then my living shall not be in vain. 

And I had this epiphany. I realized at the moment that I wanted to live my life by helping people -- but at the point in time, I didn't really know how exactly I would do it. I guess in my current job as a professor, I help students. It is not just about learning stuff and getting good grades. I believe that, more important than that, my duty is to see how I can help students live good lives when they grow up.

If there was only one piece of advice you could give a SoC student, what would it be?

I think it is important to come to terms with how small and insignificant we all are. I think people fear failure because they are worried about what others will think of them. The insight is that most people are typically too self-absorbed in their own lives and own problems to have the time and space to care about what really happens to others. This realization is very liberating because it makes failures so much less scary. The corollary is that it is actually okay to fail because when one succeeds just once, most people won't remember the failures. I would encourage SoC students to try new things, break new ground and to push themselves, and not be held back by the fear of failure. Many claim that there are no second chances. I believe that it is all in the head and that we never really fail, until we give up.

Quick-fire! Guilty pleasure?

I buy games off Steam whenever there are discounts and when I am not working I check out some of them. I can never actually find the time to finish a game, so what I am really trying to do is to try to find and appreciate new ideas. I think there is a lot of creativity in games and it is interesting to check out new game concepts and to try to appreciate the cleverness and concept. The other thing that I like to do is to get an appreciation for the state-of-art in computer graphics and animation.

Three ultimate dinner party guests

Lee Kuan Yew, Warren Buffett & Pope Francis.

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

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