Suriyanarayanan Venkatesan

Data Science · Machine Learning · Deep Learning · vsuriya93@gmail.com

Hello! I am Suriya - Nice to meet you

I am currenly working on Data Science, and ML problems pertaining to Maps @Grab - such as Travel Time Estimation, Real-time traffic, Network Smoothening. The models which I have built are currenlty handling requests in order of Millions each day!

Prior to this, I was working in Banglore as a Software Engineer in Deep Learning where I built and deployed a small robo car with abilities to self drive, detect obstabls and signals - using Raspberry Pi, ROS, Flask and Pi-Camera

Some Topics which I am currenlty excited about

  • Explainable and interpretable AI
  • Generative adversarial networks
  • Graph Algorithms - Spectral and Spaital
  • As always - Building and breaking stuffs! - Model Deployment, Flask Serving, k8s, Loadtesting


Experience

Lead Data Scientist

GrabTaxi (Singapore)

Working with Large Scale datasets pertaining to Maps, real-time traffic, travel time estimation, Speed prediction and network related smoothening. Also exploring building tools for explainable predicitons, monitoring model performance, feature drifts and automation pipeline using Kubeflow/ML-Flow

April 2020 - Present

Senior Data Scientist

GrabTaxi (Singapore)

Built models for When-will-you-arrive ETA predictions for Cabs, deployed regionally over 100+ cities in South-East-Asia. Incorporated driver behaviour patterns, historic traffic conditions and built scalable data pipelines to ensure high quality data for model training and production deployment.

November 2017 - March 2020

Software Engineer (Machine Learning)

Mobiliya (Bangalore)

Built prototype for Self-Drive robot racing car (hotweels) and deployed using Flask, Raspberry Pi and Tensorflow. This uses Learnable activations, combined with NVIDIA proposed architecture for self-drive vehicles - Integration with ROS (Robot Operating System) to enable communications with other devices.

July 2017 - October 2017

Intern (Data Analytics)

SCIO Analytics (Chennai)

Built and locally served (flask) in-house tools for automation of business process which now intergrated with SCIO code base for business utility. Supported with Documentation, Database authentication, Customizable output templates and reduces human effort from ~2hrs to less than 5-sec.

April 2016 - May 2016

Education & Projects

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning

Master of Technology Computer Science
Relevant Courses

Machine Learning, Digital Image Processing, Mining of Massive Datasets, Distributed Computing and Operating Systems

(Project) Deep Learning for Graph Representation

Using variants for Shallow/deep Neural Networks for learning latent semantic representaions for Graphs - with focus on obtaining Low-Dimensional Embeddings for trajectory clustering, Youtube users Graph and Protein-Interaction. Thesis provided upon request

Teaching Assistant - Machine Learning and Data Science

Handled Lab courses for M.Tech and M.Sc on Machine Learning and Data Science. Built a course lab management system for assignment submission and grading for the couses I was handling.

GPA: 8.7 / 10.00
June 2015 - April 2017

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning

Master of Science Mathematics (Computer Science Specilization)
Relevant Courses

Numerical Linear Algebra, Statistics, Functional Analysis and Measure Theory

(Project) Active Shape and Appearance Models

Using Traditional ML and Image processing techniques to detect landmark points, construct various facical expression from EigenFace and its principle components. This method can generate expressions such as smiling, frowning for a given face which are not initally part of the training corpus. Thesis provided upon request

GPA: 8.7 / 10.00
June 2013 - April 2015

Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning

Bachelor of Science (Hons.) Mathematics
Relevant Courses

Calculus, Linear Algebra, Numerical Analysis, Graph Theory, Discreet Mathematics and Optimization Theory,

(Project) Recursive File & Directory Transfer over LAN

Implemented a simple file and directory transfer over LAN (server/client architecture) using socker programming in C (Unix Systems)

GPA: 4.74 / 5.00
June 2010 - April 2013

Sri Sathya Sai Higher Secondary School

High School
Score: 93.6%
June 2008 - March 2010

Skills & Workshops & Courses

Skills
  • Programming - Python, C++, golang
  • ML Tools - Sklearn, xgboost, tensorflow, keras and pytorch
  • Frameworks - Spark, presto SQL, Airflow, Kubeflow
Talks & Workshops
  • Grab 2020: (AI Workshop) Introduction to Neural Networks and Deep Learning
  • Grab 2019: (AI Workshop) Hyperparameter Tuning and Optimization for ML Algorithms
  • Grab 2018: (Tech Talk) Traffic and Travel Time Estimation
  • SSSIHL 2017: (AI Workshop) Recurrent Neural Networks (with Hands-on Lab)

Courses & Certifications
  • Coursera - Machine Learning (Stanford)
  • Coursera - Advanced Machine Learning (In-Progress)

Interests

Apart from being a Data Science enthusiast, I enjoy most of my time being outdoors. I like trekking, reading harry potter, traveling - especially to beaches and sea.

When forced indoors, I try cooking (95th percentile says edible), photography and playing Asphalt 8