People / Students / Class of 2024
Vedant Paithane graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Ropar with a Major in Mechanical Engineering and a Minor in Computer Science. During his undergraduate years, Vedant focused on utilizing his classroom knowledge to gain real world technical knowledge through projects and internships. Further, through his minor, he has undertaken relevant coursework in programming, data science, artificial intelligence, and more, giving him a sound foundation in the field. Working as a Data Science Intern at 21North EuropAssistance, he contributed to the development of a driver-to-user allocation model, resulting in a shift to a more efficient allocation algorithm using a reward-based Reinforcement Learning algorithm, which extracted user and driver distance data from their MongoDB database and predicted the nearest driver. He also gained research experience as a Research Assistant during internships at both IIT Kanpur and IIT Bombay, working on projects involving automated robot cars, CNN-based facial recognition, chatbots, and sales prediction models. In his professional experience, Vedant worked at Larsen & Toubro as a Product Analysis and Design Engineer, utilizing design software for 2D and 3D equipment design, along with data analysis and project status monitoring using softwares such as Excel, EIP(an in-house data storage system), and Python. It was in his role in Larsen & Toubro that he began to fully comprehend the power of data, be it in driving business decisions or in enabling structured troubleshooting. As part of the Engineering team, he led numerous initiatives with re-application in the developing world. He worked on brainstorming advanced versions of equipment based on customer feedback, and also he monitored the health of project equipment as well as the critical time-periods such as Lead Time, delivery time of projects using the EIP visualization and tracking database system. He also monitored the procurement of materials and coordinated with the respective teams to brainstorm the optimal ways to utilize the procurement time data so as to minimize the idle time and culminate projects in the most efficient ways possible. It was through these endeavors that he realized the power of data-driven decision-making, and further motivated him to improve his grasp on the field of data science. Vedant's academic projects showcase his proficiency in various AI and ML models, including deflection prediction, leaf disease detection, exam timetable problem solving, turbine fault detection, and age and gender detection from photographs. Beyond academics, Vedant actively participated in extracurricular activities, holding leadership positions in the techfest of IIT Ropar and successfully managing sponsorship and content writing efforts. He also demonstrated a commitment to social causes through involvement in organizations like BloodConnect and NSS, contributing to community development and cleanliness drives. Vedant is very excited to join Northwestern University’s highly esteemed MS in ML and DS program, and plans to further sharpen his knowledge of the ever-growing field of Data Science, and utilize it in fields including but not limited to healthcare, supply chain and stock market analysis. Outside of school, Vedant enjoys watching and playing a variety of sports such as cricket, football and tennis.
