Siddhant’s Experience - CVPR Conference

Details: By Sony Thomas; 27.Sep

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For Siddhant Bansal, an MS student at CVIT of IIIT-H, travelling to New Orleans to attend the CVPR Conference came as an exciting opportunity after the ordeal of attending online classes and virtual conferences due to the Covid-19 restrictions. Being the first person to travel abroad from his family,

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the chance to attend the conference in person brought pride and exhilaration. Siddhant travelled with Prof. C.V. Jawahar, Prof. Makarand Tapaswi, Prof. Ravi Kiran of CVIT, and another student from IIIT-H.

After working together on the Ego4D project for over two years, the team from different parts of the world finally met at the CVPR Conference. Siddhant had the privilege of doing a five-minute poster presentation on the outcome of the Ego4D’s OSCC challenge hosted by him and congratulating the winners.

Furthermore, he participated in the panel discussion, where he shared his experience around collecting egocentric videos for Ego4D. Attending workshops at the conference was also a delightful experience for him. The much-anticipated gathering of the Ego4D team brought surprises yet warmth to the team. They spent a lot of time together exploring places using public transportation and dining together while sharing many experiences and aspirations.

Although everyone is from different parts of the world and speaks with various accents, the multiple online meetings held in the past two years helped them recognize each other. “It was an amazing experience when the majority of the authors of the paper came together,” Siddhant said with a big smile.

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Fortunate to have met many professors from other Universities around the world, and even having the opportunity to have lunch with a few faculties helped him obtain a deeper understanding and new perception of various aspects of research. He learned more about the divergences in work culture after acquainting IIIT alumni who are currently either PhD students or work for Amazon, Google, Facebook, and so on. Siddhant met over 100 new people and is grateful for the experiences of each moment.

Nine days of attending the conference and four days of exploring new places after the conference gave Siddhant new insights and helped him develop friendships. “I was amused by the culture and the people in New Orleans; they are particularly patient and helpful. I feel very proud, and it’s great to know that we can go to many places from where we are. I got a larger picture of how things can turn out. It was such a motivating and elating experience, and I’m looking forward to attending more conferences in person!” Siddhant concluded.