The Beginning of a Venture into A.I.
My experience of how I got into the AIDevNepal Community.
Saturday — 24 February, 2018
I have to start with the truth, mathematics scared the living bejesus out of me, always. No, relax, I am not going to say how i overcame such a struggle of high school and blah blah blah and bore you to death.
I am still awful at it, but did suddenly realize, hey I understood something! Amazed even myself, logistic regression? pfft… old hats for Rasik now, and No, I am not going to get into the nitty-gritty of mathematical concepts either.
Today, I am going to talk about how a small group of like minded individuals, influenced a mathematical dunce like me, to overcome hurdles placed in my mind(by myself probably) and achieve a level of understanding I would have never thought possible.
Artificial Intelligence, A.I. The buzzword for Silicon valley to get funding of a serious amount of money. I have to be honest, my first thought was, “Wow that is cool”, followed by, “I’ll leave that to the geniuses”.
Guess what world? I AM NOW THAT GENIUS!!! I kid, I kid. Let me tell start with this story, one day while browsing the internet at work (don't tell the boss, thanks) and hit upon a page on Reddit(google it, great community for ML over there as well) and saw a tutorial that used Tensorflow(don’t worry about it, if you don’t know it) with python to teach your machine to recognize the difference between a mop and a dog. Yup, a MOP and a DOG, check this dog out.
I got started with setting up my python and importing things i didn’t understand and just following instructions, and eventually after doing everything the instructions suggested, I WAS SO EXCITED… aaaannnd NOPE, nothing. So, i tried and tried and failed every damn time.
I realized i needed to learn the root cause and then the very next day one of my co-worker posts this link saying, “Hey, is anyone interested in learning about AI?, we have a workshop going for it”. I knew it then, that is it.. that is a sign from the universe.
I signed up, it said AI Developers Nepal. What a brilliant decision, Its been just 5 weeks, and i see myself progressing, I see myself understanding mathematics that had eluded me for ever, I see like minded individuals striving for a greater cause, I see students ranging from +2 phases of high school to students doing their Masters, I see a future where WE as a community can bring forth change and growth, not just to ourselves but to our Country and hopefully the World.
So any developers or hopeful computer engineers and enthusiasts in Nepal, I HIGHLY suggest you give it a good thought of growing yourself, challenging yourself, A.I., buzzword or not, is the future. Learn, or get phased out, stay in the forefront. Join us in making a great community, greater!
PEACE!
