2020 Highlights

What makes year end special, most probably, is that it is a representative day for what we were last year and the changes we want to see in the upcoming year. For some, it is a reason to party, for some an opportunity to resolute and start afresh with new beginnings, and some-some so on for the remaining rest. It’s a birthday of ‘hope’ and gives all the reasons to celebrate. I guess it won’t be wrong to say 2020 was the most unexpected year of all. Since March, we all have been hoping that things would be back to normal next month, but then, its’ December already, and the hope continues to January of 2021. We have been living amidst uncertainties.

Resolutions have been working great with me. They keep me on track and remind me of the things I have on plate. Here is a quick evaluation of 2020. I am sure that it is going to be a long post and for the year that passed by, I think it is well justified. I want to start with worthy mentions from the year first. If you want to read my resolutions that I made for 2020, you can read the post here: Going Through 2020.

The Glows and Glitters

My new year started with travels. I was at IIM Bangalore for a conference and then from there to Hyderabad for another. In February I was at Punjab for another conference. In December to Kerala for a wedding. This is what Google maps have to say. I think I did good for a Corona year.

2020 Travel Summary

The workshops I conducted, one on poetry writing and another on computational thinking, both being from diverse domains, gave me a pathway to lead and follow. Also, to build a community. I was extremely delighted to see a banner of the workshop with my photograph in the university campus and the audience that turned out for the workshop were enthralling.

poeTRY-101 Workshop

Computational Thinking workshop was part of a conference at Chitkara University, Punjab. I as well won the best paper award (IEEE) for one of the papers. I am not sure why, I was more happy with the workshop than the award.

Computational Thinking Workshop

I released out my much awaited NaNoWriMo 2016 Novel ‘i 4 you’ as a free ebook through smashwords. The ebook is available here for download i 4 you and has gathered pretty good reviews so far. Here is one:

i 4 you – review on Goodreads

My year had THE best project teams. We did a research school together. We published two papers in a conference and two in journal (the processing of journal is in progress). I could not have asked for a better one.

In the pic: Vibha, Sourabh, Tejaswini, Usman, Srushti, Vijeth, Nikhil, Rajaram and Me (left to right).

Coursera offering free courses was the best thing that happened this pandemic. Yes, I did manage to complete 103 courses and as an individual, I have grown with learning from around the world. I cannot thank enough for this.

Thank you Note

Here are the books I managed to read this year:

Year on Goodreads

This year’s NaNoWriMo was warming and soothing. I did win for the 5th time with 50K words and the ML experience this year will stay for long. It was the most satisfying season ever. There were many such appreciation comments like the one below.

Feedback from WRIMO India Group

Highlights

• Delivered 3 guest talks at colleges from Pune(2) and Chennai(1), online
• Attended 4 Faculty Development Programs
• Attended 23 Webinars (with certificates)
• Attended 1 Winter School from IIIT-Bangalore
• I did do a 31 Days 31 Movies Challenge in August and the detailed post can be found here: 31 Days 31 Movies.
• Successfully completed Camp NaNoWriMo
• Successfully completed A to Z Challenge in April
• A Family Wedding in Last week of December 2020

Summary and Stats

Following up next is the summary of the year as against the set goals.

Task Set 01: Writing

1.1. Write at least 100 blog posts on itsphblog : This is my 42^nd post. I could have done better.
1.2. Post 50 technical blog posts on itsphbytes : I did end up writing 11. I Seriously need to work on technical posts 2021.
1.3. Take up A to Z Challenge in April : Done. Did two. One on blog and another on Instagram (you can reach me on Instagram at prakash.hegade).
1.4. Participate in NaNo-Camps in April and July : completed both the camps successfully.
1.5. Continue working as ML for NaNoWriMo 2020 : It was an amazing year and had the best wrimo’s ever.
1.6. Post 30 short poems on Instagram : I did make 46 posts, and I am happy about that.

Task Set 02: Publishing

2.1. Give final edits and get NaNoWriMo 2016 novel titled i 4 you published : published. Link shared above. 2.2. Revise, edit, revise, edit and NaNoWriMo 2019 novel titled – The Art of Ageing Gracefully published : I still need to work on this.
2.3. Publish at least five ebooks through Smashwords : did 4. You have to check out: I Fell in Love with an Asshole and I Fell in Love with a Geek.

Task Set 03: Reading

3.1. Take up Goodreads challenge and read 20 novels : I could complete 9.
3.2. Read and explore two new domains in-depth (Life Sciences and Digital Society) – Attended winter school and nothing much on life science.

Task Set 04: Research

4.1. Read 50 or more research papers : read only 12.
4.2. Publish 5 research papers (academic, research, management) : yes. 6.  
4.3. Build four new models related to research area : the same were published as papers.
4.4. Implement 5 workable components for Knit Algorithm : not one was in releasable format.

Task Set 05: Profession (Academics)

5.1. Design and deliver two new courses (Semantic Web and Functional Programming) : Semantic web was successfully delivered and Functional Programming was proposed and was not delivered because of pandemic situation.
5.2. Improve Coding profile (complete Basic CodeChef DSA certification) : could not reattempt the certification. But did manage to complete basic problem solving certification on HackerRank.
5.3. Take up and complete 5 courses online (MOOC) : this is where a significant difference happened. University got free access to coursera and I managed to complete 103 courses. 
5.4. Design and deliver courses in unique environment (DSA, MT, APS) : with corona, this did happen in unexpected way.

Task Set 06: Profession (Industry)

6.1. Provide 30 meaningful internships from Knit Arena : we did have 32 interns
6.2. Host Knit School 2020 : this did get cancelled because of we all know why.
6.3. Host 2 events from the company : we did host one competition.
6.4. Grow as Technical Lead at Transil (Internships, design, research, consultant, technology etc. ) – I credit the fall here to corona.

Task Set 07: New

7.1. Conduct 3 workshops on various topics : did 2.
7.2. Travel to two new places : Punjab and Kasargod (Kerala).
7.3. Cook 5 new dishes : done and dusted.
7.4. Work on building meaningful components for kids growth and development (dedicating to my kids) : started home schooling.
7.5. Start and complete at least 3 new series/soaps – Dark (All 3 Seasons), Mirzapur (2 Seasons) and Money Heist (Season 01).

Well, running off to set goals for 2021.