About
I coach technological entrepreneurship, research
large-scale distributed systems on the Internet, and teach grad/undergrad courses on programming/Internet-system-design.
My efforts are channelled towards building successful high-value start-up companies that are envisioned to exit via a public offering. My research and teaching places a strong emphasis on generating innovatively disruptive ideas that can become the nucleus for creating products of value; paving the way for technological entrepreneurship.
My students and I file patents, deploy working prototypes, develop customers and eventually build-and-scale real companies. I work with an awesome bunch of students!
I graduated in 2011 with a Ph.D in Computer Science from the University of Central Florida, where I was awarded the Presidential Doctoral Fellowship for pusuing my studies. My Ph.D. thesis focussed on measuring and improving the quality of experience of live streaming services on the Internet.
Prior to joining Stevens as a full time Faculty in Fall 2012, I was fortunate to have been approached by Google, Facebook,
and Cisco with potential job opportunities.
Entrepreneurship
Since December 2017, I am a co-founder and COO of BlinkCDN , which is on a mission to deliver high-quality video streaming at ultra low latency. In the past, I co-founded iubble, which was acquired in March 2016. Press release here.
Students I have worked closely and mentored with have gone on to found successful companies in the domains of healthcare (Noteworth), database systems (DexterityDB), and AI platforms for financial trading (Fintech Studios). These companies are collectively worth over $30 million as of 2017.
Occasionally, I also engage in consultancy services though I am extremely picky given my time commitments. My last such gig was with Kiswe Inc in Winter 2014.
Courses Offered [*] Fall 2015: CPE360: Algorithms & Data Structures | E115: Intro to Programming | 810Tech Entrepreneurship-I (by invitation only!) [-] Spring 2015: EE810P: Tech entrepreneurship part II | CPE360: Algorithms & Data Structures | EE810: Python Network Programming
Students
I work very closely with the following stellar students on breaktrough ventures:
Research Interests
I am broadly interested in computer networks and distributed systems, with a particular emphasis on the Internet.
Within this space, my focus areas are multimedia streaming, information-retrieval/data-mining, and data visualization. Here's a high level overview of what my goals are:
Improving Multimedia Streaming: Today, more than 70% of all Internet traffic carries multimedia content. The Internet, however, is traditionally optimized for elastic applications such as FTP, email and web-transfers.
Multimedia applications on the Internet such as live streaming, IPTV, VoD, 3D, online education and online gaming suffer because of Internet's routing and packet forwarding policies.
My goal is to create architectures and protocols that make streaming services the primary citizens.
Information-retrieval/Data-mining: The Internet and the physical plane are no longer separate: events on the ground have a direct correlation on generation and consumption of information online.
Opinions and activities of cyber-users account for a vast repository of human knowledge and facts. In addition to this, probing various Internet elements such as routers, CDNs, web-servers, DNS-servers etc., offers a rich view of human activity on the cyberspace.
My goal is to reverse the phenomenon: can we use Internet measurements to infer activities on the ground? In fact, can we do better and predict what tomorrow will bring?
Large-scale Data Visualization: More than 5 billion people log-on to the Internet everyday. In just one day, they account for 3 million tweets/reviews, 6000+ hours worth of video uploads on YouTube alone, and 500+ million photo uploads.
Visualizing such an overwhelming volume of information in a most intuitive fashion on a computer screen or a device as small as a smart-phone is a pressing problem. My goal is to create the means that will allow people to engage with such large volumes of content in an intuitive and interactive way.
Prospective Students
I am perpetually in need of high calibre students to collaborate with. It's hardly surprising that the most successful companies in the computer science domain were started on a university campus.
Do you want to start the next Facebook or Google? Do you have the passion to solve hard problems that plague the society? Is it your life's quest to come up with breakthrough innovations and create products of value?
If this is you, feel free to send me an email and let's get started!
Tech Investors
Are you looking to invest in potential game changers of the future? My students and I regularly engage in high-risk/high-reward inventions and start-up companies which promise a manifold return on investment.
If you want to explore more about the things we do, feel free to get in touch.
Hobbies
When I am not working, I have a penchant for a variety of workout routines, including running, swimming, hiking, and spinning. I am also an avid student of calligraphy and copper-plate writing. For many years, I was also a professional photographer, though my current commitments keep me from pursuing this full time. A lot of my artwork has featured on the UCF homepage, brochures and travel-magazines. Time permitting, I also do event-photography/portfolio building (Trade-For-Print, or TF* photoshoots).
Feel free to browse some travel/landscape shots here.