Raskar PhD and MS Thesis Guidance

Preparing for a
Masters and PhD Thesis
Ramesh Raskar
Camera Culture Group
MIT Media Lab

Hospitals Schools
Food Transactions

Inside
Tissue Imaging
Data Markets
ObjectsData
Auto-
ML
CAT-scanEye Selfie
FogBook
Split Learning
See around corners
Camera Culture Group: Making Invisible Visible

Thesis Plans: Takeaways
Waze for life: Global view, not just passion or perseverance
Scale: Think person to population scale (3 ways to do it)
Hot Money: Soc Impactful work has no funding .. find adjacent oppr
How:
1. SpotProbing
2. Maximize chances/ Streetlight Effect
3. Choose: People, Idea Hexagon, Timing
4. Find a hub

Waze for life: Global view, not just passion or perseverance

Kadambi, Gupta, Raskar 2016; Kim, Lanman, Mukaigawa, Raskar 2010;
CT-Scan in a Rickshaw

Research ..
• http://raskar.info or CameraCulture Wiki Page
– How to come up w ideas: Idea Hexagon
– How to write a paper
– How to give a talk
– Open research problems
– How to decide merit of a project
– How to attend a conference, brainstorm
• Tips
– Get on Seminar/Talks mailing lists worldwide
– http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
– Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are
forgotten in the long run?
– Highly recommended Hamming talk at Bell Labs
Ramesh Raskar, http://raskar.info

Ramesh Raskar, MIT Media Lab
After X, what is neXt
How to Invent?

Xd
X++
X X+Y
X
X
neXt
http://www.slideshare.net/cameraculture/raskar-ideahexagonapr2010

Simple Exercise ..
• Flickr
– Share Photos
What is neXt

Simple Exercise ..
• Flickr
– Share Photos
.. YouTube ..
– Share Videos
http://www.slideshare.net/cameraculture/raskar-ideahexagonapr2010

• Before 5 teams
– Be early, let others do details
• Beyond 5 years
– What no one is thinking about
• Within 5 steps of Human Impact
– Relevance
• Beyond 5 mins of instruction
– Deep, iterative, participatory
• Fusing 5+ Expertise
– Fun, barrier for others
Strive for Five

Time
Impact
Org
Momentum
R&D
Dev
?
Impact Limit Over Time
Research
Development / R&D / Research

Grand Opportunity Topics
Opportunity Investigation
Solution Presentation
Reflection + Implementation
Resource Map
Problem Canvas
Solution Canvas
Findings Plot
SpotProbing in Four Step
0. Create the Opportunity Statement
1. Resource Map
A. People and Organizations
B. Users and Beneficiaries
C. Breakthroughs and Risks
2. Problem Canvas
3. Solution Canvas
4. Findings Plot
SpotProbing | REDX.io | Raskar

Step 0. Opportunity Statement
“What if .. ” or “How can .. ”
Start Big.
Based on your Grand Opportunity, create “Actionable Statements”.
Do NOT use aspirations or annoyances.
Good examples:
How can we can use emerging AI technologies to improve farrmers lives?
What if high resolution radar is available beyond self driving cars?
Bad Examples:
How can we eliminate world hunger?
What if health screening is low cost and ubiquitos?

Option 1 Option 8,9
Option 2,3 Option 4
Option 5 Option 10
Option 7 Option 6
Sensors Computer Vision Crowdsourcing . . .
Greenhouses
Crop Prediction
Farmer Finances
Weather Stations
Problems
Techniques
An example Problem Canvas:
What if we can use emerging digital technologies to improve lives of farmers and create a new
AgTech opportunity? SpotProbing | REDX.io | Raskar

4 1 Rural farmers, elderly
3 6 School children, Rural farmers, parents
6 10
Police force, Policy makers, Rural farmers, school
children
1 2 Elderly
8 9 University students, young professionals
10 5 Rural farmers, young professionals, parents
2 7 School children, Doctors
5 4 Teachers, University professors, Rural farmers
9 8 Cab drivers, delivery workers, Delivery management
7 3 Entrepreneurs, Rural farmers, young professionals
Scenarios
Constraints
Option 1
Option 2
Option 3
Option 4
Option 5
Option 6
Option 7
Option 8
Option 9
Option 10
Cost Time Impact
An example Solution Canvas
Regul
ation
Compet
ition …

Cost
Time
rural farmers
elderlyOption 1
Option 2
Option 3
Option 4
Option 10
Option 5
Option 9
Option 8
Option 7
Option 6
rural farmers
school children
parents
rural farmers
police force
policy makers
school children
elderly
university students
young professionals
young professionals
rural farmers
parents
school children
doctors
4. Findings
Plot
Time-Cost-Impact
A way to visually interpret
the results from the
Solution Canvas
teachers
university professors
rural farmers
cab drivers
delivery workersdelivery
management
rural farmers
entrepreneurs
young professionals
Create a word cloud of the
different directions of reach
in order to visually
represent the breadth of
impact that each solution
has.
Impact = Circle Size

Solution
Presentation
(Heilmeier's)
Some questions to answer
as you put together your
presentation
• WHY – Big idea
• How is it done today? What are the limits of current practice?
• WHO – Who cares?
If you’re successful, what difference will it make?
• WHAT – What’s new? What difference will it make?
• What are you trying to do? Articulate objectives without using jargon.
Why do you think it will be successful?
• HOW – Map of Users, Resource Requirements, Risks
and Workarounds, Milestones
What are the risks and payoffs?
How much will it cost?
How long will it take?
What are the midterm and final “exams” to check for success?
Create a separate slide with your solution map

Is project worthwhile? Heilmeier's Questions
• What
– What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.
• Related work
– How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
• Contribution
– What's new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
• Motivation
– Who cares?
– If you're successful, what difference will it make?
• Challenges
– What are the risks and the payoffs?
– How much will it cost?
– How long will it take?
• Evaluation
– What are the midterm and final "exams" to check for success?
• Why now? (why not before, what’s new that makes possible)
• Why us? (wrong answers: I am smart, passionate, perseverance ..)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Heilmeier#Heilmeier.27s_Catechism

Pick atleast 2 out of 3
Fun
Cool
Media Coverage
Impact
Money
Social implications
Research
Novelty
Generality
Science

External
Internal
Nervous Aware Driven
Accept
Analyze
Resist Rebel
Trouble
maker
Maverick
PathfinderQuestionerSteerer
Creative Solver Doer
Stripes of Innovators in Your Team

Context
Progress
People SPOT:
Problem
PROBE:
Solution
Relation
Pattern
Singleton Founder Self-
Observations
Isolated
Intuition
Hypothesis
Driven
Long Term
Insights
Serial Entrp/
Team
Innovator
Network
Stakeholder
Network
Idea in the
context of
ecosystem

Product
Solution
Market Need
Known Unknown
Unknown
Known
Simple
Service Biz
(Non-tech startup)
Find a Worthy
Market Problem
Deploy & Scale
(Tech-startup)
Discover
(Industry/ R&D)
Invent
(Univ / labs)
Choices for Innovators
.io

What distinguishes Media Lab projects ..
– Synthesize not just analyze
– Use power of human intelligence
• Intelligence Amplification
• Human in loop,
• Social Impact and empowerment
– Democratize, Power to the People
– Be paranoid .. Are we relevant and what is next?
Topics for discussion (create your own study group)
• How to pursue 'ideas in the spirit of the media lab'? What is not in the spirit of ML?
• How to make the best of ML resources?
• What are the common problems in picking/initiating/pursuing/finishing great projects?
• Case studies of successful transitions of efforts into research/demos/products and more
• Some procedural topics: juggling classes vs research, Apprenticeship vs independent
research, group dynamics, media coverage

Technologies
Individual Organization Population
PhysicalDigitalGlobal
Ubiquity
AI + Data
Global
Individual  Population Scale, 3 Routes

Be proactive not reactive
Generalize today’s concepts
Avoid basing all on today’s hot tech (facebook/twitter/Kinect/VR/etc)
But we are still slaves to available tech
“Let’s do smart things with stupid technology today, rather than wait and do stupid things with smart
technology tomorrow” - Bill Buxton. You can ofcourse do even smarter things with smart tech.
Be prepared but careful on what you do
Be in optimist but be paranoid (vs pessimist + laidback)
Defer judgment (don’t dismiss, believe or start instantly on any idea)
Overnight success after months of work
Have a list of 10-20 problems .. Don’t work on first one you think or that comes your way
Talk to a lot of people (you trust) to see if worth pursuing as most ideas will be useless anyway
Don’t be religious, listen to others
Don’t fall in love with your own incremental idea
Find adjacent opportunity which is easier but is still important
Don’t work on the same project for 2+ years
Fail fast
If u want to win .. Be willing change rules of the game, sometimes the game itself
Remember the 4Ps and their SEQUENCE
– Projects > Papers > Polished Demo/Prototype > Press
– (Note ‘polished demo’ comes AFTER a paper or some external validation)
– Don’t chase press before you have a serious project that is peer-reviewed or validated (novelty and
impact should be already understood) Ramesh Raskar, http://raskar.info

• Questions before you start the project
• How to come up with ideas
• How to write a paper
• How to decide if the idea is worth pursuing
• What makes a great ML thesis
• Happy to meet
– Help you towards a fantastic + manageable thesis

What Makes a Good ML Thesis?
• An original piece of work
A good thesis puts forth an original
hypothesis/method/design/art piece with appropriate
testing/verification/critique
• Written well
 Grammar, appropriate style, organization
• Comprehensive
A good thesis has sufficient information to allow a person of
ordinary skill in the art to replicate the results
A good thesis has a complete set of references
• Accurate
Do not blow hot air!! Every sentence in the thesis must be
correct!!! Do not exaggerate!!!
Slide by Hugh Herr

Thesis Organization
• Abstract
• Acknowledgements
• List of Tables and Figures
• Introduction
• Background
• Mechanism/Process Design
• Experimental Methods
• Results
• Discussion and Conclusions
• References
• Appendix A, B, etc. Ramesh Raskar, http://raskar.info

http://www.cs.indiana.edu/mit.research.how.to/section3.11.html
http://www.cad.auckland.ac.nz/index.php?p=a_good_thesis
http://www.sce.carleton.ca/faculty/chinneck/thesis.html

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