Dr Rajeev Rastogi
With billions of people tapping away on their smartphones, posting to social networks, chatting, buying goods and with billions more expected to jump on the Internet in the coming months, data mining and machine learning are going to be two of the most important disciplines of the 21st century. And it is more important than ever at e-retailers like Amazon. Every time Amazon recommends a new book to you, it is machine learning at work as it learns from your purchases and your reading habits to see what you will like to read next. One of the Directors of Machine Learning at Amazon is Dr Rajeev Rastogi. He has a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay along with master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Texas. Over a long career at Bell Labs, Rastogi has held positions like ‘Distinguished Member of Technical Staff’ and the Director of Internet Management Research Department. Later, he has helped Yahoo! expand its Indian R&D operations by setting up and heading the Yahoo! Labs in Bangalore as its Vice President. Now at Amazon, Rastogi is charged with taming the tonnes of data that go through the company’s servers on a daily basis and teaching the huge machine to become more smart. Rastogi has over 200 peer-reviewed articles to his name.