IPN Spotlight: Nabeel Gillani (Former Rhode Scholar and Graduate Student & Researcher for Social Machines, MIT Media Lab)
Nabeel is a graduate student and researcher in the Lab for Social Machines at the MIT Media Lab. His research combines data science, machine learning, and psychology to build tools that promote the positive use of artificial intelligence and social platforms for society. Previously, Nabeel was a Product Analyst and Product Manager at Khan Academy, where he helped design and implement online technologies for students and educators around the world. He was also co-founder of Coursolve.org, a digital experiential learning platform that helped lifelong learners from over 100 countries revamp their workplace-relevant skills by working with companies to solve real-world problems.
Nabeel graduated with an ScB in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science from Brown University, and Master’s degrees in Education and Machine Learning from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
What skills have helped you in your career?
• Contextualizing learning in terms of a goal and problem area (e.g. “learning how to program in Javascript in order to build an education technology website”)
•Believing there are many possible paths to a given outcome, and everyone on a team has something uniquely valuable to contribute
• Trying to ask “why”
What do you wish you had known or done differently throughout your career?
Rumi has said “patience is the key to joy”. Hazrat Ali (AS) has said “no power is like forbearance”. I wish I had been more patient early on in my life, and hope to be more (hungrily) patient moving forward.
What is next for you in your career?
I hope to Inshallah continue research at the Media Lab, diving deeper into understanding and computationally modeling human networks and cognition applied to problems in education and media & journalism.
What do you do for continuing education and improvement?
I try to read books and academic papers. I also try to listen to podcasts. Alhamdulillah, I’m fortunate to have an opportunity to attend classes taught by professors who are world experts in their fields.
What advice would you offer to others?
Read, re-read, re-read, re-read, and reflect on Hazar Imam’s speeches and Farmans. As you already know, there’s an eternity of wisdom and inspiration in them, with layers to continuously be unpacked and explored as we move through our careers and lives.
Areas where you can help other Ismailis:
• College / university applications (undergrad and grad)
• General advice on data science / machine learning / computer programming, particularly as they’re applied to social networks
• Advice on building / scaling education technology platforms
• Rudimentary support with growth marketing tips / techniques (in particular, online A/B testing)
• Sometimes I like to act like I know about statistics, so can try to provide support there too
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