I worked with Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya of the Computer Science Department in the area of Natural Language Processing for my M.Tech Thesis (read more).
A Curriculum Vitae is available here (Mar 2011 vintage). You could also see an experimental visual CV here or on Flickr (or at the end of this page).
Email: ramanand==at==gmail.com, ramanand==at==it.iitb.ac.in
Jump to: Work Experience, Academics, Research, Personal
Along with a small team, I built a sentiment analyzer engine (read my article on it here) that was demonstrated to, piloted, and used by various groups within and outside Cognizant. One of its applications has been to power a new Social CRM offering by Cognizant. During this effort, I also investigated the possibility of detecting user intention as a complement to pure sentiment detection. This led to the building of algorithms for identifying suggestions and product buying intentions.
During my time with the group, I also became involved in several other projects. Most notably, I studied “Design Thinking” and “Human-Centered Design” as espoused by the leading innovation firm IDEO. We applied this framework to solving problems where technological solutions had to be crafted with both an understanding of human behaviour as well as business viability.
I also became interested in the area of information visualization and its use in decision-making. Most recently, we built an application that used both sentiment analysis and visualization to enable better customer service on Twitter.
Apart from these, I've worked on small projects related to NLP, data visualization and ideation. Examples include anonymization (i.e. removing confidential information - such as names) of sensitive documents, analysing service reviews for narratives, searching powerpoint files, improving the way knowledge transfers are done between people, and extracting biographic information from the web.
For fun, I also wrote a small ideation application called the "Concept Smasher".
Work at Persistent
Earlier, I worked at Persistent Systems Ltd. from July 2001-July 2005 as a software engineer. I designed and wrote code for a web-based configuration and provisioning tool for a Chicago startup, helped support a identity management product for a European vendor, maintained parts of a data-warehousing tool for a telecom systems vendor, and finally, developed a .NET based telecom QoS monitor for the same vendor.
Here are some notes on on my M.Tech courses and my M.Tech thesis.
Academic Honours:
Publications: (My Erdös number seems to be 5 :-))
Quizzing
I am a keen quizzer, enjoying both quizzing as well as setting quizzes. I also like talking about quizzing! I am the youngest person to win BBC's Mastermind India (in 2002-03), and have won several other quizzes. I also conduct quizzes, in a personal capacity and along with my friends in the Boat Club Quiz Club, which is the leading quizzing group in Pune.
I also run a daily quiz blog on current affairs.
Writing
I also enjoy writing, both fiction and non-fiction. I won a science fiction contest held by The Scientific Indian in 2007, and have published short stories in Caferati's anthology Stories at the Coffee Table, and The Scientific Indian Science Fiction Anthology. Some more samples of my writing can be seen at my blog here.
I am an active blogger. My personal blog is at Clipboard Conversations. I also co-blog on quizzing, books, writing exercises, and Vishal Bhardwaj, one of my favourite filmmakers.
Teaching
I also like to teach. Along with a friend of mine, I went back to our college to teach some computer science subjects. We taught Systems Programming - Jan 2002 & Jan 2003, Principles of Programming Languages - July 2002, and Compiler Construction - July 2003 & (partly) July 2004
And the rest
My other interests involve reading (particularly detective fiction, humour, history, and a little bit of tech and economics), music (classical, and film), movies, TV (particularly British detective and comedy features), sports, languages, and creative/lateral thinking. I 'twitter' here.