Objectives of the Uplink Initiative

Many undergraduate and master's students have a strong desire to pursue research in AI/ML/Data Science and publish papers in top ranked conferences. Unfortunately they often do not have access to a research ecosystem and enthusiastic and world-class mentors.

The objectives of this program are

• To provide an internship opportunity to such students under the mentorship of faculty members at top tier Indian institutes for a period of 3 months
• To reward excellence in outcome by recognizing top quality publications arising from this internship

Eligibility

• The student should be enrolled full-time in a bachelors or master's program in a degree granting institute in India. A bachelors student must have completed 3 years in the program and a master's student must have completed 1 year in the program as of May 31, 2022. There are no restrictions on the department or specialization area of the student as long as they meet other eligibility criteria.
• The student must get a no-objection letter from the institute for enrolling in this internship. While the letter will be sought only if a student gets selected for the internship, we strongly recommend checking feasibility of the same prior to application.
• The student must ideally have a strong background in fundamental subjects such as probability, statistics, linear algebra, excellent coding skills, and completed courses in machine learning / deep learning. Prior experience of executing projects related to data science is ideal.

Notable features of the Internship

• The internship is expected to be remote and virtual. The student can work from his or her location of preference.
• IKDD will provide a stipend of 50000 INR in total for the 3 month period on successful completion of the internship.
• The student will be recognized with an ‘ACM IKDD Uplink Intern’ badge on successful completion of the internship.
• If the internship works results in a paper acceptance at a relevant CORE-A* conference, IKDD will support the conference registration and travel for one of the authors of the paper (a representative list of relevant CORE-A* conferences can be found here). We also encourage submission of papers based on the work done in the internship to the CODS COMAD 2023 conference.
• We plan to support about 10 students in the 2022 edition.

Student Responsibilities

• Selected students will be notified by email by IKDD with a copy to the faculty mentor. They must indicate their acceptance by email within a week along with a no-objection letter for conducting the internship full time from a designated authority (e.g. Head/Chair of the department where the student is enrolled). Otherwise, the internship offer will be withdrawn.
• The student must get in touch with their mentors and start working full time on their internship from May 1, 2022.
• The student must have access to required computing infrastructure (e.g. a laptop, access to internet, coding IDE etc.) at his/her location of work.
• The student must continue to be available full time (at least 40 hours per week) for the 3 month duration of the internship.
• The student must complete an internship report and submit it to their faculty mentor by the last day of the internship.
• The student must make an end-of-internship presentation to a group of experts which will be facilitated by IKDD.

Faculty Mentor Responsibilities

• The faculty mentor will provide an internship completion certificate to the student at the end of the internship.
• The faculty member will inform IKDD about successful completion of the internship.
• The faculty member will provide to the student a well-defined research problem and also relevant datasets for performing experiments at the start of the internship.
• The faculty member will meet with the student virtually on a regular basis through the duration of the internship and provide guidance on executing the research project.
• If the project execution requires additional computing infra-structure, the faculty member will provide access to such infra-structure to the student.
• Upon acceptance of an A* paper based on the internship work, the faculty member will inform IKDD.

IKDD Responsibilities and Other Guidelines

• IKDD will pay full stipend amount directly to the student on successful completion of the internship.
• If a paper gets accepted in a Core-A* conference based on the internship work within 18-months of the commencement of the internship (i.e. the notification of paper acceptance must be received by 30th October, 2023 AoE), IKDD will provide a grant to the faculty member towards supporting registration and travel expenses for attending the conference. The faculty member will be free to decide who among the authors will register and attend the conference.
• IKDD will have no stake in the produced IP through this collaboration/visit of the mentee to the host institution and beyond.
• It is acknowledged by both parties that mentee pursuing research is purely voluntary and will not result in any obligation or liability on IKDD with regard to quality and/or standard of the research plan. IKDD will also not be responsible in any manner for any kind of misbehaviour or disobedience on the part of the mentee or for any misuse of facilities provided by the host institute. IKDD India will not be liable to the host institute on any account except for the grant provided for the research project.

Timeline for Uplink 2022 Edition

Feb 15, 2022	Application opens
Mar 15, 2022	Application deadline
Apr 5-15, 2022	Candidate notification
Apr 15, 2022	Announcement of selected candidates on Uplink website
May 1, 2022	Commencement of Internship
Jul 31, 2022	End of Internship
Aug 1-15, 2022	Presentations

Contact Us

For any query please send an email to IKDDOffice@gmail.com with subject "[Uplink]: email subject"