Pankaj Baranwal

I am good at developing professional Android apps and am quite passionate about employing Deep Learning and Computer Vision to solve real world problems. I have worked on and successfully completed several projects in these domains during my undergraduation. I have also interned at several places including Defence Research & Development Organization (Ministry of Defence) as well as IIT-Bombay working to solve some compelling problems related to Machine Learning.

After not being able to get into an IIT, I was heart-broken. But life had some really great opportunities for me in store. I was fortunate to have been selected as one of just 40 students who are admitted each year to Cluster Innovation Centre, University of Delhi to study in a unique course (B.Tech. in Information Technology and Mathematical Innovations). Here, I got to meet some really great people and explore various exciting domains through hands-on, project-based curriculum. This was very much aligned with my way of thinking which has always been to look for ways to utilize my skills to solve real-world problems. I have, since then, been committed to making the most of my time and this is what drives me to learn more about the world, how it works and what I can do to make it a better place.

I have also co-founded a startup - Precisely, with the aim to help the youth discover the right opportunities without having to visit hundreds of websites and scroll through thousands of listings. I have worked on several projects and internships before but nothing had prepared me to handle or even expect the situations entrepreneurs (especially developers) have to face on a daily basis when working on a startup idea. Up until I started working on the startup, I had developed a nice and cozy development environment where all bugs, errors and resolutions would occur and be handled sitting right in front of a computer screen. But in the startup environment, you are never just a developer. I have to continuously figure out what the customers like and dislike, how to grow as a business instead of just working on cool hacks and projects, and most of all, I learnt how difficult it is to move from a college project, to a production environment where every line of code can have unpredictable consequences! The excitement and the chaos is almost beautiful and intoxicating!

These experiences have enabled me to grow, not just as a developer, but as a solution seeker. No matter how hard the problems may seem; no matter how little time remains - finding innovative ways to handle these situations and still be able to develop an idea into a functioning product that people would want to use, is something that gets me excited to keep working everyday. And hackathons like In-Out are the perfect places to meet like-minded people and start hacking!