Intro's and wiki

[Rajesh Kasturirangan]

Thanks for the intro's Kalyan and Janani. Everyone else, can you:

1. Introduce yourself. 
2. Register and access the wiki. The access link is here.

Believe me, I know this group is the best thing since sliced bread already but it will be even more fun if we get to know each other and start collecting our thoughts in a common space. 

Rajesh 

[Hema Nawani]

Dear All,

I am Hema Nawani, I did my bachelors and masters in biochemistry, After that worked in few projects on understanding somatosensory system (using electrphysiology, stereology), music cognition and presently working on ERP and fMRI correlates of decision making in NIMHANS, Bangalore. I want to understand computational modeling, thinking behind model designing(statistical part, mathematical) and how I can probably model data from decision making experiments to understand them better.
Thanks
hema

[Chithra Dhara]

Hi,

This is Chithra Dhara. I am doing my Masters in linguistics at EFLU. I would like to see how I can apply whatever I learn from here to my field of research which is currently computational linguistics. Looking forward to having an interesting time.

Best,

Chithra

[naresh shah]

Hi,

This is Naresh R Shah. I am doing my B.E at BITS-Hyderabad. I am here, just to learn and be more intelligent in general about the world.

Cheers,

Naresh

[Sony R K]

Hi All,

I am Sony R K, a post graduate in Zoology. I have been working on different wildlife related projects after my pg. Currently working with FERAL an NGO based at Pondicheri, on the restoration of large mammal corridors. Interested in all aspects of cognition (though primary interest goes to animal cognition and consciousness). keen to know and learn about the modeling aspects, particularly emotional modeling (i don't know whether it is possible!!!!!!!!)

sony

[Neeraj Pradhan]

Hi all,
I have been following the discussions for quite some time now, and it feels great to be in the midst of this hotbed of intellectual activity. Three cheers to that, and to everyone on the forum for stoking great ideas and conversations!

A brief background about myself - I am a physicist and electrical engineer by training. I worked in the data analytics field for over a year at Citigroup, before jumping into the startup sector, focused on retailing in upcountry locations. I have been researching on complex systems from my college days, probing into a number of questions, specially those that have to do with networks.

Just to add to the discussion on the education sector, I feel that there is a very strong feedback loop from the market forces on to the choices that we make towards our chosen subjects in college. This is self-evident but sometimes it may be a self-reinforcing cycle - bright brains going on the well-tread beaten path create further opportunities for others. On the other hand, opportunities in other fields may remain unexplored, and the resulting low growth further deters good talent from entering these fields. Growth in any field feeds off itself. This, in my view, is inevitable in a truly market-driven economy, and this is where an external agency (namely, the government ) has a role to play. This loop also has a strong hysteresis effect, particularly in India, where students and parents may still feel that being a software engineer or an MBA is the only surefire path to success, despite numerous other fields opening up and creating great opportunities with lesser competition.

I am also intrigued with the question of how the university system is going to adapt itself to the Information Age, as they continue to function almost identically to the way they functioned 100-200 years back. This is especially interesting in the light of a number of online learning initiatives coming out of Stanford, namely coursera.org and udacity.com, which opens up a new paradigm in teaching and learning. Our group here is also a part of this revolution that I hope will shape the future of education.

Cheers,
Neeraj

[Rajesh Kasturirangan]

Thanks Neeraj for your intro. As a data analyst, I hope you can contribute some ideas to how we can model some of the issues we are discussing. The interesting thing about education is that we often invest in it many years before it pays off, so to speak and humans are very bad at predicting the future. So if the past says that CS graduates will get jobs and Design students won't but 12 years down the road it reverses, we are very poorly prepared to change course mid-stream. Which is why I think an education that allows us to quickly change course, almost in real time, is a much better bet for the current global labour market. 

Rajesh

--
Rajesh Kasturirangan
www.regularities.org

www.rajeshkasturirangan.com

[Sowmyan Tirumurti]

Rajesh,

Going by the extent to which we use computers, I expect a future where there will be no programmer for most purposes, and every person will develop his own mix of modular apps to solve their specific problems. Programmers will perhaps develop the modular apps. 

I am imagining this to be more like using excel to solve ones own computational problems. There are standard functions available from microsoft. People build their variant with these. 

Specialist programmers will continue to do core work. At the application end, end users will adopt and concoct a solution  to their needfrom a myriad modular solutions available to them. At the end user level the variety will always be very high and it is best left to the user. 

General level of computational skills will have to grow and simple programming at application usage level has to get into schools. Reading wRiting, aRithmatic, and ComputeRs have to be school level routine techniques. 

--
T Sowmyan
+91 80 25242236
http://sites.google.com/site/tsowmyan

[MG Subramanian]

Bang on on the 4 Rs, Sowmyan! Some of us on this board like me and you who have had the opportunity to see massive changes in our own life times should protest the fact that the world has not yet invented a fluent,easy-on-the-tounge acronym for computer literacy. Any concept that uses so many syllables to denote it runs the dire risk of not catching on ! I happen to believe that the name rose somehow has everything to do with why the flower smells so sweet, contrary to what Shakespeare believed.It wasn't an accident that rose was not named chrysanthemum. Watergate was as much a piece of political history as it was of future of nomenclature for scandals.

Rajesh has had some flair for and signal success in naming the naming of concepts. Remember Borganisms?  

What shall we call computer literacy, Rajesh? Compacy isn't elegant and compuracy sound too much like conspiracy :-((

-ganu

[Rajesh Kasturirangan]

The most obvious would be biteracy seeing as it all about bits. 

[Sowmyan Tirumurti]

digiterate

On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 8:10 PM, MG Subramanian <mgs...@gmail.com> wrote:

[MG Subramanian]

Rajesh wins! Less syllables, as I pre-announced the essential qualification for the winner!

-ganu