Mobile computing has always fascinated me.

I was seeing that each person was sta

rting to carry a phone with him. I realized this phenomenon could have such a hu
ge impact. No matter what the status of the individual might be, we can reach hi
m. Having a mobile would enable us to contact him, advise him, help him, educate
him. I believe we have still not yet figured out the real potential of a smart
phone. Right now we are in an era of chatbots, Artificial intelligence based hel
p assistants that help in booking, payments, etc. Here the data is pulled or que
ried but when the user has a smartphone and digital footprint why can't we use t
his information to give him what he might want. Using the right mix of algorithm
, machine learning, Information retrieval and natural language processing we hav
e the potential to create a product that can provide personalized info using dat
a from what others have done. And this is how my enthusiasm towards product deve
lopment that could solve real life problems started. I started inclining towards
creating solutions personalized and making them fun.
I can still remember the joy on the faces of my friends when they were playing t
he game BINGO I had created as a mobile game using Bluetooth in my college. Inst
antly I was a hit; my game was a hit. Classmates who never used to talk to me we
re appreciating my idea and the game and were taking advice from me how they can
get started on mobile development. It took me a year to create that game becaus
e when I had got that idea I had no knowledge of computer science. I had to lear
n java, j2me programming from Venkat Sir. Soon I was making apps and projects fo
r my friends of the computer science branch.
While my classmates very busy preparing for the GRE exams, getting good grades f
or the courses, I was busy making products for them for example, timetable sched
uler, that was that used to send time table directly to their Nokia phones or a
bus application in which the user could enter a bus number and which showed you
the exact route of the bus. But there were some problems that I couldn't fix. F
irst, the data was constantly changing that even though I had a knowledge of cre
ating the backend I could not figure a way how a to get the data from their serv
er to the smartphone. The other was I didn't know how to release this app to the
public.
I knew I had to get a job as a mobile developer and learn how to get an app out
in the market. And this is why I focused more on improving my portfolio by makin
g sure I pass my college. This is why my college grades suffered. I think being
in electronics was a good thing. It allowed me to learn stuff practically. In fa
ct, my friend from the company where I did my internship suggested to me that I
join a startup because she thought I would learn a lot by working there.
I joined United mobile apps private limited where I worked on a sync application
that synced contacts, files, music files across various devices. I worked there
for 1.5 years because I didn't find the reason for working there very compellin
g. They hardly had any clients; the funding was draining day by day. They were f
ocused on two products at the same time where they could have focused on one mor
e product first, got funding from it and then used that to pay for other product
. After this job, I went on to work for HCl Singapore for a mobility lab. I want
ed to see if mobility could play any role in B2B products and see how the cultur
e was in Singapore. While I was there, we built a lot of prototypes, and among w
hich the banks accepted 10 percent of them. These apps were just used a compleme
ntary feature instead of a defining characteristic for the banks. I saw that the
problems that were in India could have been solved in Singapore too. I joined H
CL Singapore in the hope that learning what was happening about mobile in an adv
anced nation. Worked for 1.5 years before realizing that I wanted to be a part o
f backend development where the real meat of the product development remained. A
fter three years as an iOS developer, I decided to come back to India. Here I sh
ifted to working on the backend because I wanted to learn database, algorithms,
deployment, designing, development in stages. I joined a startup with founders
from Indian Institute of Management with over 20 years of experience. I wanted t
o see if MBA guys could drive a startup and introduce a product in the market. B
ut sadly even they decided to shut down after six months after the development o
f the prototype. They thought they were very early in the market and there were
no takers for the product. This event made me realize that they should have firs
t made a prototype without much investing into office space and branding. Regard
less, after this, I joined a service based technology startup as a backend devel
oper because I wanted to increase my breadth of knowledge of backend development
by working on as many projects as possible. After a year I joined Idexcel becau
se they already had a project called "Cync" who wanted someone who could be in c
harge of their new module called factoring. After working there for one year for
factoring, we had three major clients from the USA. I handled a team of 6 peopl
e along with a team of testers.
All this time I kept working on an app called Idlecampus. It was my first projec
t that I wanted to get it out in the market. Idlecampus targetted college studen
ts. I made it as a chat application along with a timetable notifier. I made the
ios, android, and the backend part but could not make it interesting enough or b
e engaging enough. I realized to get students to use my app I have to get the co
ntent personalized by giving them advice. I studied recommender systems. Natural
language processing etc. from coursera and books. But I could not learn enough
that could help me make the app so well. I wanted tech knowledge, but there was
not much I could do. Many startups were facing the same problems of scaling, pro
totypes, etc. and this setting down prematurely and I didn't want to join an MNC
here in India.
For the last six years, I have worked in 6 startups across product based ones an
d service based ones. I have been an IOS developer, a backend developer, and tec
h lead. All these experiences have taught me the various parts of product develo
pment. I have interacted with clients, helped them refine their apps. Having so
many years of experience have taught me a lot about leadership, the market, impr
oved my ability to take decisions, persistence, etc. But not having a formal col
lege education has created of a void in my tech skills. I feel if I had CS knowl
edge especially algorithms and database management systems this would help me in
making my products run faster and cheaper just creating value for the users and
the company. And I believe now is the right time to study after having seen a l
ot of startups. I know what can differentiate a startup from being successfully
launched to not even getting a single user. These are the topics which distingui
sh the kind of real life problems I would like to solve. For example, being able
to help students, professionals taking their life to the next level and being a
mentor to them.
After having so many products with the knowledge of product development and exc
ellent leadership skills, I feel now is the right time for me to strengthen my t
ech skills and get into machine learning and relevant tech. I know what can dif
ferentiate a startup from being successfully launched to not even getting a sing
le user. These are the topics which distinguish the kind of real life problems I
would like to solve. These experiences can help me to create a product for the
people that is an intersection of machine learning, algorithms, product developm
ent and data mining.
I feel I can be fit for the University of Rutgers where I will be able to use a
ll my professional experience and my ambitions to learn something new and get in
to research and be a part of creating world class products. I especially like th
e works of Andrew Ng related to the field of Machine Learning. I admire the pape
rs he has written on Neural Networks and Natural Language Processing.