This year has been challenging, in so many different ways - the pandemic, protests/justice movements, conflicts, wars, health challenges that have directly impacted me or loved ones. With all the bad, also came some good - the opportunity to spend more time with family and watch my little boy grow! It's hard to reflect on the year without mentioning these things. I have written year-in-review posts previously (see 2019, 2018); but this year feels different. Given how precarious the year has been, overall, I feel grateful to have made it in one piece.

What Got Done this Year?

Many of the things I'd hoped would get done didn't pan out. Some of the ones that worked out:

• Helped organize the Practical ML for Developing Countries workshop at ICLR 2020, serving as publications chair and building the workshop website.
• Built NeuralQA - a library + visual interface for neural question answering.
• Wrote a paper on NeuralQA which was published at the EMNLP conference demo track.
• Complete rewrite of ConvNet Playground (using React Hooks, better modularization of components, optimization for size/speed). Also split a portion of ConvNet Playground into a separate project - Neural Dreams.
• Wrote a couple of posts on the Cloudera Fast Forward Labs Blog.
• Gave 3 talks - two meetups, a short talk at the IEEEVis Conference VisxAI workshop and a demo poster presentation at EMNLP.

Cheers to a Better New Year Ahead!

Cheers to everyone who made it to the end of the year. You did great, you are awesome, you are appreciated, you rock! Happy New Year!

For me, there are no grand set of goals or aspirations for 2021. I'll strive to love, to live, stay healthy and do my best.

P.S: Enjoy this short clip of the song Im still standing by Elton John - (version by Taron Egerton from the Universal Picture animated movie - Sing). And its lyrics.

You could never know what it's like
Your blood like winter freezes just like ice
And there's a cold lonely light that shines from you
You'll wind up like the wreck you hide behind that mask you use
And did you think this fool could never win?
Well look at me, I'm coming back again
I got a taste of love in a simple way
And if you need to know while I'm still standing, you just fade away
Don't you know I'm still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
I'm still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Once I never could have hoped to win
You're starting down the road leaving me again
The threats you made were meant to cut me down
And if our love was just a circus, you'd be a clown by now
You know I'm still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
I'm still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
Don't you know that I'm still standing better than I ever did
Looking like a true survivor, feeling like a little kid
I'm still standing after all this time
Picking up the pieces of my life without you on my mind
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
I'm still standing (Yeah, yeah, yeah)