The Spotlight is On: Ankit Tewari

At Cien, we’re lucky to have a diverse, talented and passionate team! In this series, we meet a Cien team member to ask them what it’s like to work at an AI-first start up.

This week we meet Data Science Intern Ankit Tewari.

Where are you from and what do you enjoy doing outside of work?

I am from a city called Allahabad in India. I came to Barcelona for the hot pursuit of academic excellence in the area of Artificial Intelligence.

Why did you join Cien?

I must say, I was looking for an opportunity that provided me hands on experience of the tools and techniques that I was learning and developing in the area of Artificial Intelligence while working on research and development projects of the academia. Today, I must say that my decision was absolutely right and I am not only going through a phase of continuous learning but also getting the guidance and support of my learned and experienced colleagues whenever and wherever I am stuck.

Describe your role in three words.

Formulate. Develop. Innovate.

What’s the best thing about your job?

I’d have to say that there are best thing(s) about my job. I have freedom in the workplace which most workplaces may find difficult to ensure. Individual freedom can be realized when I can work in flexible hours, remotely or onsite, in the office space or some personal space etc.  Also, I like the great work-leisure balance in the office environment which keeps us focused when we are under extreme stress of delivering on deadline without compromising with the software quality.

What have you learned since you’ve joined Cien?

I have undergone a dynamic learning phase as I previously mentioned while working on the Cien’s data science platform. I have improved my skills significantly in the areas of creating machine learning models based on custom requirements and worked on applications of natural language processing. I have gained some quality experience on improving the machine learning model performances (both in terms of runtime and prediction accuracy) using various methods which now form a part of our standard operating procedure. Furthermore, I’ve gained experience on creating, curating, cleaning, validating and auditing data sets based on specific requirements and a lot of technical things on the data engineering side which are crucial before actual machine learning comes into play.

In your opinion, are the developments in AI going to take our jobs?

In my opinion, I firmly believe that AI is supposed to reinforce the existing conventional way of doing things and act as a force multiplier instead of taking over the command. So, there are a lot of debates in this domain talking about if AI based systems are going to assume command and act as self propelled systems. Humans may even lose their jobs. However, I feel it will make humans more competitive as they will be working on top of a smart platform which is less error prone and the surplus human resource created can be utilized for operations that are still way beyond the abilities of an AI based system.

How do you apply the Cien core values in your day to day work?

I believe that daily targets if approached in a disciplined manner will lead to a perfect balance in personal and professional life. This is something that forms part of our core values here at Cien. We make attempts at setting and achieving daily targets and this allows us to execute projects in a timely and disciplined manner without compromising on quality.

What is the best advice you have ever received?

The best advice I have ever received is about creating a perfect balance between hard work and smart work. This not only allows us to successfully chase targets in a timely and disciplined manner but also creates an efficient workforce, capable of acting as self propelled systems in the absence of commands.

You’re welcome to get in touch with Ankit or connect on LinkedIn.