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My Journey as a Researcher to Entrepreneur

Being an enthusiastic and passionate researcher and developer in the field of Mechatronics and Robotics field, I had participated on different Robotics competitions including TECHFEST International Robotics Challenge arranged by IIT Mumbai in 2013 and placed 4th among 25 teams. On that competition , I was the team leader and developed a manual and an autonomous robot that worked synchronously to complete different objectives including solving a 5x5 grid to locate, pick and drop objects on the shortest path. The autonomous and manual robots had to work in synergy to maximize points while avoiding dead zones. I had written the whole embedded software code as the team leader which included small scale BFS algorithms for path planning. The code has been sourced at github (https://github.com/xhuvom/Grid_Solving_Robot)

During my final year undergraduate courses, I had done a research as the lead author on improving automotive engine efficiency using machine learning methods. The research paper entitled “Development and Analysis of Adaptive Neural Network Control for a Cybernetic Intelligent ‘iGDI’ Engine” has been published on the SAE 2015 World Congress and Exhibition which is the most prestigious automotive conference around the world. I had participated on the conference as an Author Participant in Detroit, Michigan, USA. (https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2015-01-0157/)

I had extended the research with my final year thesis work and for my thesis paper, I had been recognized as a ‘Highly Commended Entrant’ on Engineering and Built Environment category in 2015 by the Undergraduate Awards which is also dubbed as sort of ‘Junior Noble Prize’. That year I was the only entrant from South Asia on that program and got the opportunity to represent Bangladesh and my institute BUET at an International level on the UA Summit 2015 held on Dublin, Ireland. (http://www.undergraduateawards.com/winners/highly-commended/2015-highly-commended-entrants/)

On the following year, I was an Engineering Panel Judge on the Undergraduate Awards 2016 program to evaluate top performing undergraduate papers and the junior scholars around the world. (http://www.undergraduateawards.com/get-involved/judges/2016-judges-2/)

On February 2016, I had founded the very first Artificial Intelligence research group and engineering solution provider in Bangladesh named ‘SIGMIND’. The startup has been recognized as one of the TOP 50 startups on the very first Govt. initiative ‘Connecting Startups Bangladesh’ platform with the idea ‘Advanced Driver Assistance and Monitoring System” which works as a safety device for vehicles to eliminate road accidents. The innovative A.I powered product has been launched in beta stage in December 2016 with the presence of the State Minister of ICT Division, Bangladesh. (http://www.undergraduateawards.com/now-wednesday-abu-anas-ibn-samad/)

Aside, my startup SIGMIND has been received the only membership from Bangladesh on NVIDIA Inception Program which recognizes top performing A.I startups around the world and providing virtual incubation support since January 2017.

The project initiatives by SIGMIND has been extended to an active safety device with improved technologies and has been awarded as one of the TOP 20 startups on the Startup Bangladesh Platform initiated by the Government on July 2017.

Recently on October 2017, my startup SIGMIND has been awarded as the 2nd runner-up on National ICT Awards 2017 and currently getting support from the governments Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Academy (iDEA) project.
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>>This undergrad research was focused on applying machine learning methods for transient control of automotive IC engine providing improved efficiency and power output while reducing fuel consumption. “Development and Analysis of Adaptive Neural Network Control for a Cybernetic Intelligent ‘iGDI’ Engine” - Technical Papers Session, SAE 2015 World Congress and Exhibition, Detroit, Michigan, USA
[http://papers.sae.org/2015-01-0157/]
& [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/274959452_Development_and_Analysis_of_Adaptive_Neural_Network_Control_for_a_Cybernetic_Intelligent_%27iGDI%27_Engine]

>> The complete undergraduate thesis paper published on the Undergraduate Awards Library with more feature enhancements and robust control strategies like turbocharger control without turbo-lag and dynamic skip firing. [ http://undergraduatelibrary.org/system/files/sae_final_manuscript_deploy_ua.pdf ]


>> YOLO algorithm based facial detection and recognition application using Deep Neural Network. Provides automatic data capture, annotation and data training without any explicit feature coding.
[ https://github.com/xhuvom/darknetFaceID ]



>> Learning to servo visually – a deep learning implementation on accelerated GPU
Development of versatile visual servoing scheme with Deep Reinforcement learning

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We are in the era of neuro-cognitive machine intelligence where robotics and AI come together to revolutionize the way we are living in the future. To make it more accelerated and public friendly, I have been always enthusiastic on putting research hours to bring the holy grail of Artificial General Intelligence for practical engineering applications to ease human life. Being an enthusiastic and passionate researcher and developer in the field of Mechatronics and Robotics since my first year as Undergrad student, I have developed numerous projects for and outside academic purposes and attended different robotics competitions both locally and internally. Aside academic studies for the courses of Mechanical Engineering, I was always a passionate learner thus extended my knowledge and understanding beyond my field of study. Thus I had attended 4 different Online Courses and gained honour code certificates from reputed USA Universities, including Honor Code Certificates from University of Texas at Austin (6.02x) in 2015 and University of California At Berkeley (EECS149.1x) in 2014 through edX.
Later on I was passionately focused on performing some original research works as I had extended my enthusiasm to Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence field. Thus I had reached on a milestone with my first publication on SAE 2015 World Congress and Exhibition depicting the application of Machine Learning to solve some complex problems in automotive engine control systems. The research was extended to my final year thesis which was recognized internationally by the prestigious Undergraduate Awards.
After those achievements, I was keenly interested on the field of Machine Learning, specially Deep Learning and Artificial Intelligence. Observing the breakthroughs on Image recognition challenge with GPU trained Deep Neural Network since 2012 and reading the paper on Nature by DeepMind to learn playing 49 different Atari games, my mind was blown with the new technological marvel. Then I decided to join the race of A.I. for developing practical engineering applications of narrow and deep A.I. that solves some of the greatest challenges for humanity.
Towards pursuing the goal, I had founded the very first Artificial Intelligence research group and engineering solution provider in Bangladesh on February 2016 addressing the problem of road accident as well as security issues in the local region. My company has been successfully developed Computer Vision algorithms powered by Deep Neural Network towards providing driver assistance and monitoring system as a safety device for ground vehicles. The device is successfully tested and being marketed in Bangladesh.
My company has also been developed "WATCHCAM", an Intelligent Video Surveillance solution to provide improved security to the citizens which has been tested and adopted by the local government. The DNN based computer vision algorithm can detect objects, recognize faces and vehicle license plates as well as provide real-time notifications. My company has also gained membership on NVIDIA Inception program and receiving tremendous support towards our endeavors.
As the founder and lead developer of those technological solutions by the company, my passion and enthusiasm gradually grows to develop more robust A.I. systems that could learn from minimum supervised data and learns by itself. Thus I want to join OpenAI towards developing further skills and growing my passionate efforts in this field. I am pretty sure we are very close to a technological singularity by developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) which might be the last thing human ever needed to develop. As soon as AGI is developed, the AGI would quickly turns into Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) that would surpass all the collective intelligence humanity posses. All we need to do is to ensure the application of the technological marvels for the greater good of humanity.
By joining the OpenAI fellowship program, I could boost my skills and enrich my understanding in the field more collaboratively which might be a complete paradigm shift for me. I always try to tinker with different latest open-source deep learning algorithms and implementations as well as using different frameworks and toolkits to try new things. OpenAI gym is one of my favorite to play with, specially for developing and testing Reinforcement Learning algorithms. I had also tried the OpenAI universe to play GTA V but later the repo might have an issue before I made a complete progress.
I think my passion, ambition and enthusiasm for A.I. will drive a lifelong career in this field on the upcoming A.I. first economy. It would be accelerated if I get the opportunity to be mentored by top deep learning experts on some leading A.I. research institutes like OpenAI. Thus I am Looking forward towards devoting my lifelong passion standing on the verge of this paradigm shift.


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