Poor background can be a hurdle but cannot stop you from fulfilling your dreams if you are determined. The inspiring story of Satyam Kumar, the son of a farmer in the Bhojpur district of Bihar, clearly tells this.
Kumar, who is currently doing his Ph.D. in Brain-Machine Interfaces at the University of Texas in Austin, cracked the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology-Joint Entrance Examination (IIT-JEE) at the tender age of 13 in 2013. Kumar secured a seat at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and got admitted to the BTech-MTech dual course in Electrical Engineering after securing an all-India ranking of 679.
Kumar became the youngest prodigy to creak the IIT-JEE at the age of 13, earlier the record was with Sahal Kaushik from Delhi who achieved this feat at the age of 14.
Interestingly, 2013 was not Kumar’s first chance to clear this prestigious examination. In 2012, he first cleared the exam at the age of 12 with an all-India ranking of 8,137, but aiming for a higher ranking, he decided to retake the exam.
Kumar completed his combined BTech-MTech course in Electrical Engineering at IIT Kanpur in 2018 and then moved to the University of Texas at Austin to pursue his Ph.D.
Kumar worked on three projects while completing his education at IIT- Kanpur. “Electrooculogram based eye blink classification During EOG signal accuistion”, “Optimisation of electrode positions in Different Brain Computer Interfaces”, and “Imaginative Speech based Brain-Computer Interface”, reported India Today.
After finishing his higher education, he started working at Apple at the age of 24 as a machine learning intern, where he worked until August 2023. According to his LinkedIn profile, he is currently specialised in brain-computer interfaces and is working as a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin.
In an interview with India Today in 2013, Kumar expressed his desire to return to Bhojpur, his home district in Bihar, to teach children so that they can also fulfil their dreams.
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Omprakash Tiwary is a business writer who delves into the intricacies of the corporate world. With a focus on finance and economic landscape. He offers readers valuable insights into market trends, entrepreneurship, and economic developments.
