Q&A with Entrepreneurship Ambassador Aman Kumar

Below is a Q&A with our first-ever master’s level entrepreneurship ambassador, Aman Kumar. Aman is a second-year master’s student in Industrial Engineering at the College of Engineering. His research is focused on developing natural language processing capabilities for the manufacturing/product development domain.

Tell us a little about yourself?

I am a graduate student in industrial engineering, with a concentration in data science/AI. I was born in Sarnath, a place where Buddha preached his first sermon. I was brought up in New Delhi, the capital of India. I did my undergrad in Mechanical Engineering from the state university of Uttar Pradesh in India. I came to NC State in August 2019 as a master’s student, and I plan to continue my graduate degree as a PhD student in Industrial Engineering. I hope to finish my degree by 2023. 

Why did you choose to be an entrepreneurship ambassador? Why does this program matter to you?

I joined the Entrepreneurship Student Ambassador Program (ESAP) in the Fall of 2020 and became the first master’s student to join this program. I was not aware how this program will go amidst the heavy-loaded coursework, research work and being a Social Innovation Fellow. I am happy to report that so far, the ESAP has been an amazing journey.

I’ve met different people of various backgrounds with a common interest in entrepreneurship. Some already have a startup, some are seeking to have one, and some are just interested in being part of the ecosystem. I believe I lie in the latter two. I joined the ambassador program to push myself to engage in some entrepreneurship-related events. 

What do you enjoy most about being an ambassador? 

There are various entrepreneurship-related events that are available to graduate students, such as Entrepreneurship Mentorship Meetup, the Started at State speaker series, eGames and Entrepalooza. With ESAP, I had the opportunity to serve as a host for Raleigh Founded during Entrepalooza in the fall and organize TEXTravaganza – a speaker event focussed on entrepreneurship in textile engineering. 

ESAP does come with some additional perks exclusively for ambassadors such as the premium version of Clifton Strengthsfinder and much more. I also had the opportunity to attend the virtual Silicon valley eTrip this spring and got to hear some great success stories with some well-established companies and startups.

What is your research work about?

My research work is about the conversion of textual knowledge in a meaningful form that is applied to the manufacturing domain. This research work can help in extracting key information about manufacturing that is crucial for understanding the context of unseen text especially for people who are not from this domain. The ultimate goal is to enable a system to answer questions intelligently.

What are your plans after graduate school? 

Upon graduation, I would like to gain some industry experience by working in a research-related position in AI application. At some point later in my career, I would like to have my own startup integrating mechanical engineering and AI in developing cost-effective solutions to common existing problems in developing countries.