My experience with ‘Virtual Research Internship’ at SPARK Program, IIT Roorkee
First Things First:
About SPARK Program
IIT Roorkee conducts this project-funded research internship program every year intending to provide research exposure to interested undergraduate students in summers. Yes, a perfect chance for undergraduates to learn to think like a scientist!
Quick Details
Eligibility- Students who are currently enrolled and have completed at least two semesters of the undergraduate degree (B.Arch./B.E./B.Tech./M.Sc) in a relevant discipline from any institute in India satisfying the minimum CGPA criterion.
Duration and Stipend- Minimum 6 weeks; Maximum 10 weeks. ₹2500/week.
Application process- Login to application portal ( spark.iitr.ac.in). Fill Application Form with required documents. Select the projects you find interesting. Submit and Stay Positive!
Selected students attend summer training during the scheduled summer vacation at IITR. There they also enjoy facilities of accessing libraries, sports, computer centres and other institute and departmental research and recreation facilities. BUT. The year 2020 has offered a complete ‘virtual’ experience to the program, besides COVID-19 and country lockdowns…
My Life
I am Ankita Jaiswal, currently pursuing Integrated Master of Technology in Applied Geophysics at Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad. My interests include reading and playing basketball. Other than that, I am an ML enthusiast and wished to explore more the domain of geophysics with the help of ML and DL tools. SPARK made my wish come true!
Amidst the pandemic, when many intern-job offers were getting cancelled, I received a mail from SPARK Committee in the April end stating my selection. The interns were informed that this time the SPARK program will be operated online. I was excited about the research part and nervous for the online mode. It is more difficult to communicate from a remote research internship since there are no frequent face-to-face conversations and research on any field requires a good grasp on the topic. This, in turn, needs lots of readings whose resources were again a question at that time.
It is very rightly said that “The key to success is to focus on goals not obstacles”.
Shortly after the commencement of the internship, my supervisor shared some good resources to begin the reading part with. When I started working, I realized the need for High-Performance Computing machine to carry out the simulations. I drafted an application specifying the same and soon I was availed a VPN account to access the IITR network. Yeah! Likewise, it was inspiring to watch other interns giving their final presentations virtually on the WebEx platform. The SPARK team with Prof Prateek Jha ensured that the interns are availed every external resource required for the internship. The supervisors made sure that there wasn’t a communication gap between the interns and them. These things made my virtual research internship experience amazing.
This year was the 3rd SPARK edition. Total 58 SPARK interns and 5 DIC interns have completed their summer internship successfully under this program this year.
About My Project
My research project was titled “Application of Machine Learning and Deep Learning Methods for 3D Reservoir Property Prediction”, under the supervision of Prof Ravi Sharma.
Objective: Development of new statistical tools based on ML algorithms and ANNs for reservoir property propagation in 3-dimensions as an alternative to the traditional Geostatistical methods which make use of Variogram Models for spatial analysis.
Industrial Impact: They can lead to better reservoir exploration and target developments. At the same time, saving from human efforts, time and cost involved in digging a well!
My Learnings
I utilized the opportunity to explore, learn and experiment with numerous tools related to Machine Learning, and Deep Learning in the domain of Spatial Analysis. Most importantly, the experience taught me how to approach a research problem statement and implement the solutions at stages.
Final Presentations
The program wrapped up with the final presentations of interns conducted ‘virtually’ on the WebEx platform. All the interns gave final presentations on their respective project and its social impact, which reflected their joint hard work with supervisors involved behind the accomplishments, and was quite inspiring to watch. These final presentations, followed by Q&A session, were evaluated by a judging panel of respected Professors at IIT Roorkee. The judging panel is worth a special mention. They encouraged all of us before our presentations and organized the event well making it quite interactive. To promote healthy competition, a few of the presentation were selected as best and I was lucky to find a mention amount these best presentations. :)
Here is one of my slides while presenting:
My Supervisor
A complete virtual research internship was challenging to me at the beginner’s stage. But I was fortunate to have Prof. Sharma as my supervisor. He patiently planned the entire course of action for the project, guided me to get started with project and tried his level best to reach out for help and clarified all my doubts. Stepping stones were numerous research papers related to the project along with the WebEx meets for discussions. Without Prof. Sharma’s co-operation and valuable assets, this internship would not have been this much interactive and encouraging.
To Future SPARK Aspirants
Work hard on your CV and essay while filling the application. Be passionate above research into subjects of your interest…
Thanks!!