Varun Aggarwal

Varun Aggarwal is a researcher and an entrepreneur. He earned his Bachelor of Engineering degree at the University of Delhi and later dropped out of a PhD program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, after having obtained his maste’s degree. He cofounded Aspiring Minds, an employability assessment company, in 2008 to drive meritocracy in labor markets. He heads research at Aspiring Minds. His work has led to the world’s first machine-learning-based assessment of coding skills and the world’s first automated motor skills assessment. He has published more than 30 research papers and takes pride in the fact that the fruits of his research have improved millions of lives.

Varun is also a promoter and an advocate of data science. In conjunction with colleagues, he runs ML India to build India’s data science ecosystem, and has also organized world’s first data science camp for schoolchildren. Varun’s work has been covered in The Economist, MIT Technology Review, The Wall Street Journal, HT Mint, The Economic Times, and IEEE Spectrum. He has a passion for writing about science. His earliest works include an evaluation of Jagadish Chandra Bose’s contribution to the invention of radio, which won him the Antique Wireless Association (AWA) award. He also writes poems and stories.