IT research in the most international city in the world
Ivan Samborsky, Second-year Master’s student, follows an internship program at National University of Singapore.
I received a Bachelor’s degree at the Computer Technology Chair. My supervisor offered me to submit an application for National University of Singapore. The lab in which I work now is the largest one in Asia focusing on social media. This area correlates with my Bachelor’s and Master’s theses.
My graduation paper is devoted to studying of individual and group characteristics of social networks’ users. For instance, analyzing photos from Instagram and Twitter’s texts one can determine demographic characteristics such as gender, age, marital status and so forth. This kind of research works helps companies fasten and automate various processes: client searching, for example. In my research I use different methods such as genetic algorithms for model setup or top-of-the-line natural language processing ways applied for texts.
I have never researched this issue before joining the internship program. Moreover, this field is new one that is why one only starts to present such papers at conferences.
I discuss this field only with my supervisor and the lab’s professor. However required knowledge for providing this research I have received at ITMO.
I feel like having a full-time job when do my research as an intern. It doesn’t look like studying. I am staying in Singapore till the end of summer. After that I plan to receive Master’s degree at ITMO U and then start working as assistant research fellow at National University of Singapore. The professors who train me here support this idea.
I like working in Singapore. Representatives of various cultures come here from different countries to live and work. Everybody here is very kind and sociable. I had some problems with communication when came because of lack of English speaking practice. But now I don’t meet any difficulties. Furthermore thanks to skype and telegram I easily communicate with my family and friends.
A university gives everything that a specialist needs
Dmitry Bobrov received Bachelor’s degree at the Computer Technology Chair, was hired by Machine Learning Works.
Last summer one of fellow students told me that Machine Learning Works looked for developers and offered to try. Back then I already worked in a large international company and before that in a small startup company. Machine Learning Works’ offer was very attractive and after clarifying several details I moved. All skills that I had were enough solve all tasks at a job interview. Then when I started working I needed some extra knowledge connected with SRE such as secure system operating and expertizes of database internals.
The company deals with machine learning and data analyses. We also use neural networks. I am not involved in research activities but assist colleagues who do that by choosing techniques that are used as a base for server infrastructure – from a system software to program frameworks.
Most of my colleagues are winners of ACM ICPC, skilled mathematicians. Fortunately I’ve never met problems with communication. We discuss not only work process - sometimes spend free time together. All my friends live in other cities but I often leave Sochi to visit them or to take part in conferences.
