Virtual conferences

With technical conferences going virtual during the current COVID-19 situation, it would bring many benefits and would pave the way for wider participation. I registered for a top conference which is conducted in virtual mode this year and liked the experience. Just penning some of my thoughts on its advantages and possible challenges.

Advantages of virtual conferences:

1. One can watch videos of all papers and need not be limited to attending only one track at a time.

2. No hassles of visa/travel which saves a lot of time and money. It should significantly benefit institutions that do not have generous funding. Even in many reputed MNCs, employees have to literally beg their managers to approve conference travel. All such hassles would go off and it would encourage more people to submit papers.

3. It reduces the cost significantly - conferences charge an exorbitant registration fee ranging from $500-$1000, primarily because of the cost of the premium hotels used as the venue. Virtual conferences should bring down the cost.

4. Saving the overhead of organizers - Organizing a physical conference is a significant burden on the organizing team. There are always unexpected logistic issues that arrive. With virtual conferences, such a burden would be lessened. Even the organizers would get an opportunity to participate in the sessions.

5. No disruption to a regular routine - a professor can take classes, a researcher can continue his research while engaging in the conference. No jetlags.

6. It will improve inclusivity: specially-abled people who are not able to travel or people who have to attend other commitments like child-care or elderly-care or those who fell ill close to the travel dates could also participate from the comfort of their homes.
7. In some emerging fields, registrations reach a very high number and participation has to be limited due to the capacity of the venue. Such restrictions would go away and a larger audience could be accommodated. 
8. If you miss out some important concept during the presentation, then you can go back and watch it again to understand better.

However, in my opinion, some of the experiences of a physical conference like networking could not be replicated as it is. Many-times such networking translates to job offers or collaboration. It would be challenging to support such networking in virtual mode. The exhibitor booths are interesting and provide information about the latest developments in the industry. Though there are attempts to support them in virtual mode, it would be difficult to match the physical booth experience. Contrary to the advantage that I mentioned earlier, some of the interesting travel experiences would be missed.

Overall, it would be interesting to see how conferences evolve as the pandemic subsides.

Transitioning from Corporate to Academia

During my recent visit (on 15-Feb-2020) to MNIT Jaipur (my alma mater) for ECE department research conclave, I was approached by many young students who wanted to listen about my transition from an industry job at TI to a Ph.D. student at IIT Delhi. Unfortunately, due to lack of time, I could not talk to them much and promised them to share details through a blog. This blog is a response to them.

First of all, what motivated me to do a Ph.D.? Frankly speaking, even after joining the Ph.D. programme, I was not aware of what a Ph.D. exactly entails. My primary motivation for doing a Ph.D. was it being a mandatory requirement for a faculty position in an IIT, where I could live my passion for teaching and sharing knowledge and learn from others.

Why so late in career and not early? My interest and passion for teaching developed during my undergraduate studies from various technical discussions with my classmates. Since then, I had decided to do Ph.D. at some point in time. However, once I joined corporate life, I was learning a lot about the practical aspects of designing chips which kept me motivated to continue. Still, the inner self would regularly remind me of Ph.D. With more time spent in the company, it became difficult to join IITs as I did not have a Masters degree and they wanted a high GATE score. Getting a high GATE score was becoming difficult with increasing experience as I lost touch with many topics and this delayed my joining of Ph.D.

How did I prepare for Ph.D. admission? I was able to convince my wife to support me on this journey. With her support, I started preparing for the GATE exam. After lots of deliberation between CS and ECE, I decided to prepare for GATE in CS. Fortunately, there was a lean workload at the office during those days as we had just finished a three-year-long project. I would spend 2 hours every day in my office and 2 hours at home watching course videos from NPTEL/reading lecture notes. While some of the subjects were familiar to me, some were completely new and required more time. I chose to skip some subjects which required too much preparation. With regular preparation, I was able to get a decent score in GATE 2014, though not very high. Fortunately, the government announced a GATE waiver for high CGPA holders from IITs/NITs/etc. for Ph.D. admission. This brought another ray of hope for me. I interacted with various faculty members of IIT Delhi and they suggested the topics to prepare, as well as guided me about the application procedure. I have captured the interview details in another blog (link).

Who all helped make the decision? The first and foremost help was the determination and will to do it. BTW, I have a long list to acknowledge in my thesis :) There were friends who were doing Ph.D., colleagues who wanted to study, family members, professors from IIT Delhi, and some senior colleagues at TI -- all have played an important role in this decision making. 

What about finances? With a handsome salary, wasn't it difficult to make such a decision? Absolutely NOT. Since I always knew that I would eventually pursue Ph.D., I never created any liabilities for myself. No EMI commitments, for housing or car, was a significant support in making this decision. I had built savings with our simple lifestyle that could support my regular expenses for quite some time during Ph.D. Fortunately, there was a revision to stipend by the government just after I started Ph.D. and we were able to manage with the stipend itself.

How smooth was the transition? I would call it difficult. Relocating with a 6-month-old kid during Delhi winters is not easy. Searching for a house in the vicinity of the campus while still getting accustomed to the IIT culture and attending the classes was challenging. For the first month, it had been a stressful time with a lot of running around. Support from near and dear ones as well as maintaining patience proved to be very helpful.

Should I have joined Ph.D. earlier? This is one aspect that I regret at times. Being late at the start of Ph.D. has hurt me in some aspects. Many of our fellowship schemes (INSPIRE, post-doc, TCS fellowship, etc.) have certain upper age limits (30-32 years) and I could not avail them. Recently, IITs are insisting on an upper age limit of 35 years for a fresh faculty position, which might make it difficult for me to join as a faculty member. However, a long stint in the industry has helped me grow as a mature, ethical, and responsible engineer, as well as helped me realize the importance of automation which has been significantly useful during the research. As someone rightly said, better late than never!

Looking back, did I make the right decision? Undoubtedly, YES! Ph.D. journey has taught me that top institutions have much more to offer than just teaching experience. The entire culture of academia with open thoughts and discussions, a holistic experience of learning from reputed faculty, research, seminars, teaching duties, etc. have been very influential in my growth as an individual as well as an engineer/researcher. I significantly improved my writing skills and analytical ability during this time. I could also get a bird's eye view of how government institutions function and lifestyle/culture inside a top institution like IIT. I have shared detailed experiences and views here.

Two key things in life that I learned from this journey are:
1. Strong determination, with the right support from near ones, can help fulfill any dream.
2. There is no end to learning. The more you learn, the desire to learn increases further.

I would be happy to help/respond to anyone who wants to join the Ph.D./research programme in India and needs the advice to make the decision.

Corporate versus academic life

I am writing this blog in the capacity of having spent a significant portion of my life experiencing corporate life and subsequently spent considerable time in understanding and experiencing the academic life. I refer to product based technical corporate, life at other corporates could be better or worse.

Being in a company, the environment always insists on confidentiality. Everything should be confidential - the work you do cannot be discussed outside, the salary and promotions you get cannot be discussed within the company, you cannot be over happy in front of your colleagues if you got a bonus, because someone may get a hint of it and complain to manager if he didn't get the bonus, etc. In some sense, this enforced confidentiality leads you to behave artificially which tends to become your habit at work and home as well. Having lived this culture for years, I had assumed this to be the norm until I experienced a life at academics (as a Ph.D. student). Confidentiality exists to its bare minimum. The stipend that people receive is known to all and no one hesitates to share the same. While the performance evaluation in a corporate always used to be a deep secret, it is fairly open and people are judged based on their accomplishments. You can proudly announce your academic achievements to anyone and this helps you gain the right visibility. In a company. while you may have an interest in some other field of work and you are occasionally allowed to explore the same, it is primarily from your own personal time. You still need to meet the deliverables of your group and collaboration is permitted only if it makes business sense. Collaboration for individual's benefits is rarely seen. However, this is another aspect which I went through just a few months after I joined the Ph.D. program. Everyone encourages discussion and collaboration - even most of the supervisors are fine if you are working on a project with a different person and if it is helping you learn or you enjoy it. Such a thing is absolutely unimaginable in a corporate life where people are just chasing deadlines. Individual learning and development are the key focus of an institution while for a company, the bottom line is profits and revenue. Hence you are always referred as resources in a company. With seniority and aging, you tend to become an overhead for a company while you actually become an asset for an institution with your teaching and research experience. You are expected to exponentially increase your output with salary hikes in a corporate which never happens practically and you end up being in a vicious circle of chasing deadlines and then deadlines chasing you. In an academic institution, if you are planning to join some other institution, there is no need to keep it secret and you can take the advice of others. In a corporate, unless you have secured your next job, it is safe to not reveal your intentions of change.

Does it mean that everything is bad in a corporate life - absolutely NO. Corporates are the key driver for the development that we see around us. They are the reason we have been able to meet employment needs of a nation and the world. Not everyone is suited for an academic life. People have different priorities and accordingly, they decide what suits them best. If something doesn't work in a company, there are enough reason to blame and you are not directly impacted by a failure (in fact a failure generates work for some people and help in employment). Your failure in academics (a rejected paper or rejected grant) is your own failure and no one else can be held responsible for it. Getting a product to be working in real life and used by masses is something more commonly seen with corporate projects than academic institutions and this gives the pinnacle of satisfaction. In a corporate, there are dedicated teams to get the projects for the employees, while in an academic setup, the onus to arrange funds/projects lies with the researcher/faculty.

Coming to learning, what exactly you learn in a company which helps your development? Because necessity is the mother of inventions, you learn to be efficient since deadlines are tight and you need to meet them. You learn how to handle exigencies. You learn about practical methods of doing something, and the intricacies involved in the same. Solving the last mile problem in getting a successful project teaches you much more than the whole project.

So, why people choose one versus the other? One obvious reason for corporate is that salaries tend to be higher than academic salaries. Moreover, the threshold to enter good quality academic institutions is to have a Ph.D. which is much higher than graduates who are hired by the corporate. A hefty pay during graduation distracts many genuine candidates from pursuing their academic dreams. But now-a-days the salaries in academic institutions are growing and along with other benefits that are provided, they are comparable to corporate. The independence in academic life is what most of the academicians enjoy. In premier government institutions in India, you also enjoy a lovely campus housing with other amenities for your yourself and family. Whichever path you choose, in my opinion getting a flavor of the other one is very necessary to keep yourself motivated during hard times and get a holistic experience of career.

Disclaimer: My views above are based on living academic life as a Ph.D. student and some of the aspects may be different in the context of faculty members. However, I have tried to capture as generic points as possible.