Coming on to the last day of Summer School, I can safely say it was quite an enlightening and enriching experience for me. The last 5 days have been quite a remarkable experience for me and one that will be embedded in my memories for the rest of my life. Being an undergrad student, I was quite apprehensive at first regarding the feasibility of the course for me.Even then, I decided to give this School a try - partly coz i had nothing better to do and had never came to Banagalore before and partly coz the fooding and lodging was being provided by the Institute free of cost!!! I thought this of nothing more than an excuse to break away from my day-to-day life and didn't have any expectations from the whole course. How wrong i was!!
The moment I stepped into the IIITB campus, I was quite taken aback by the greenery all around. The sight was quite in contrast to the concrete jungle of huge IT buildinigs surrounding the campus. I was also quite impressed by the hospitality provided by the Institute for the whole duration of my stay. Special kudos to the Institute's mess food!!
Having a background in algorithms, I was looking forward to the Talks by Prof V N Muralidhara on Approx. Algorithms more than any of the other talks. The whole series of lectures given by him was quite an experience in itself. I was simply enamoured by his ability of giving and teaching highly complex proofs of Approximation algorithms in such a structured and simplistic manner. Within 3 lectures, he covered almost all of traditional introductory approximation algortihms without feeling anything to be rushed. He surely has rejuvenated my interest in the field of NP-hard problems and their approximated solutions.
Prof. Srinivas Vivek talked about Cryptography and its applications and implications in the IT world. The most interesting and unique aspect of his talks was his spin on the traiditional way of teaching this topic. It was to his credit that he made such a topic which has its roots delved deep into traditional mathematics and could have easily be seen as boring for a student like me who has little-to-no cryptographic or mathematical background, into something which was quite appealing and engaging. The way he explained these theoretical concepts with an array of interesting examples and animations helped me grasp the core of Cryptography and now i am greatly motivated and interested to know more about it.
Prof. Meenakshi D'Souza's talks on Formal Verification simply gave me a new found respect and understanding for the topic in general. The way she structured her lectures starting with the history and importance of this particular field, continuing with some introductory simple models and then culminating with some real world practical models and examples, really helped me understand the relevance and need of such verification algorithms and models in modern day computing.
Prof. Pradeesha Ashok talked about Parameterised Algorithms. This opened a whole new world for me and introduced me to a whole new different perspective when talking about algorithmic complexities which is quite different from the classical notion and yet quite practical. Her lectures have now motivated me to look at algorithmic solutions to problems in a whole new way.
The series of lectures given by Prof. Srinivas Vivek was truly an experiecne in itself. He adopted quite an unorthodox approach for teaching. For the first 2 of his 3 lectures most of us were pretty clueless regarding what is the direction which he is taking. In spite of that, his style of teaching, which included some really cool quotes, anecdotes and real-life examples kept us engaged throughout the first 2 lectures. We were learning something new with each day, but the overall picture eluded my naive mind. Then, on the 3rd day ,he masterfully wove the teachings of the first 2 days into a whole coherent structured narrative and we all saw the bigger picture. This goes on to show his great expertise in this field. Before going into his lectures, I didn't had any clue regarding "Open-World Computing", but now I am genuienly excited to know more about this. We truly "don't know what we don;t know"!!
Lastly, I had the great privilege of attending lectures by some of the "Theroretical Computer Science Gurus" who were invited by the Institute. Dr. Venkatesan Chakravarthy from IBM Research spoke about approximation in Decision trees which had some real cool applications in the filed of High Performance Computing and Artifical Intelligence. Prof. K.V Raghavan from IISc Bangalore continued from where Prof. Meenakshi had left on Formal Verification and beautifuly illustrated the concept of Abstract Interpretation. Lastly, Dr. Satyalokam from Microsoft Research, Bangalore gave a talk on Cryptography and BlockChains which helped us to understand this new-edge technology much better in a more comprehensive way but in a simplistic manner.
This learning experinece has truly been a privilege. More than anything, it opened my mind to a realm of possibilities which was not inhibited by the limitations of an undergrad curriculum. Also, it helped all of us to see things with differnt perspectives.The school helped us motivate towards the very basis of Computer Science i.e its foundations and the theories driving it - which we, as naive IT-job seekers - tend to overlook. Personally, it helped me mature as a would-be Engineer and made me realise that the real fun of computer science not only in the applications but also in the theories behind it. This was truly an enlightening experience for me.
Abhivandit
(3rd year, C.S.E, IIITG)
The moment I stepped into the IIITB campus, I was quite taken aback by the greenery all around. The sight was quite in contrast to the concrete jungle of huge IT buildinigs surrounding the campus. I was also quite impressed by the hospitality provided by the Institute for the whole duration of my stay. Special kudos to the Institute's mess food!!
Having a background in algorithms, I was looking forward to the Talks by Prof V N Muralidhara on Approx. Algorithms more than any of the other talks. The whole series of lectures given by him was quite an experience in itself. I was simply enamoured by his ability of giving and teaching highly complex proofs of Approximation algorithms in such a structured and simplistic manner. Within 3 lectures, he covered almost all of traditional introductory approximation algortihms without feeling anything to be rushed. He surely has rejuvenated my interest in the field of NP-hard problems and their approximated solutions.
Prof. Srinivas Vivek talked about Cryptography and its applications and implications in the IT world. The most interesting and unique aspect of his talks was his spin on the traiditional way of teaching this topic. It was to his credit that he made such a topic which has its roots delved deep into traditional mathematics and could have easily be seen as boring for a student like me who has little-to-no cryptographic or mathematical background, into something which was quite appealing and engaging. The way he explained these theoretical concepts with an array of interesting examples and animations helped me grasp the core of Cryptography and now i am greatly motivated and interested to know more about it.
Prof. Meenakshi D'Souza's talks on Formal Verification simply gave me a new found respect and understanding for the topic in general. The way she structured her lectures starting with the history and importance of this particular field, continuing with some introductory simple models and then culminating with some real world practical models and examples, really helped me understand the relevance and need of such verification algorithms and models in modern day computing.
Prof. Pradeesha Ashok talked about Parameterised Algorithms. This opened a whole new world for me and introduced me to a whole new different perspective when talking about algorithmic complexities which is quite different from the classical notion and yet quite practical. Her lectures have now motivated me to look at algorithmic solutions to problems in a whole new way.
The series of lectures given by Prof. Srinivas Vivek was truly an experiecne in itself. He adopted quite an unorthodox approach for teaching. For the first 2 of his 3 lectures most of us were pretty clueless regarding what is the direction which he is taking. In spite of that, his style of teaching, which included some really cool quotes, anecdotes and real-life examples kept us engaged throughout the first 2 lectures. We were learning something new with each day, but the overall picture eluded my naive mind. Then, on the 3rd day ,he masterfully wove the teachings of the first 2 days into a whole coherent structured narrative and we all saw the bigger picture. This goes on to show his great expertise in this field. Before going into his lectures, I didn't had any clue regarding "Open-World Computing", but now I am genuienly excited to know more about this. We truly "don't know what we don;t know"!!
Lastly, I had the great privilege of attending lectures by some of the "Theroretical Computer Science Gurus" who were invited by the Institute. Dr. Venkatesan Chakravarthy from IBM Research spoke about approximation in Decision trees which had some real cool applications in the filed of High Performance Computing and Artifical Intelligence. Prof. K.V Raghavan from IISc Bangalore continued from where Prof. Meenakshi had left on Formal Verification and beautifuly illustrated the concept of Abstract Interpretation. Lastly, Dr. Satyalokam from Microsoft Research, Bangalore gave a talk on Cryptography and BlockChains which helped us to understand this new-edge technology much better in a more comprehensive way but in a simplistic manner.
This learning experinece has truly been a privilege. More than anything, it opened my mind to a realm of possibilities which was not inhibited by the limitations of an undergrad curriculum. Also, it helped all of us to see things with differnt perspectives.The school helped us motivate towards the very basis of Computer Science i.e its foundations and the theories driving it - which we, as naive IT-job seekers - tend to overlook. Personally, it helped me mature as a would-be Engineer and made me realise that the real fun of computer science not only in the applications but also in the theories behind it. This was truly an enlightening experience for me.
Abhivandit
(3rd year, C.S.E, IIITG)
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