@Inditalk
Matters that matter to the average Indian
Bhomik Mathur
@Bmat · 1:20
Data visualization in India: in Conversation with Ashris Choudhury, Founder, India in Pixels
First, you went to IIT Karate to study architecture and currently you're employed as a software engineer. So tell us about this journey. How did you get interested in doing data analysis and visualization
Ashris Choudhury
@ashris · 3:20
But eventually and I stuck with it, it took a shape of its own to what it is right now, which is a bunch of infographics about India and data, stories about different concepts like linguistics, pop culture and so on and so forth. Parallel. I am a software engineer, currently at Heads Up. I do full stack engineering over there. Indentives is a culmination of all my interests. My background in design and architecture combined with my current skills, which in computer programming
Bhomik Mathur
@Bmat · 0:44
Wow. That's a very interesting and I think very active journey at a young age. So very interesting. So one thing I've noticed about your post is that they are very diverse, from serious off about economy or politics or religion to some funny things like visualizing Bollywood songs and all. So I find this makes it really interesting that I find it hard to believe that a single person can be behind such a wide variety of posts. So can you lead us through your content creation process?
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Ashris Choudhury
@ashris · 2:05
That's really a difficult question because I don't have a good answer ready for it, mostly because I don't think it's true and it's not a very ordered, structured manner in which I approach it. It's me living through life and these random ideas that I get. I try to create a story out of it. So it's very much like if I strongly feel an idea in my head, then I work on it, I Act on it
amit bhatt
@techstories · 0:28
Okay, so everybody is looking for some solutions on the data analytics, data visualization, because data is New Orleans and it's a very good vacuum for people like us. Maybe if you are doing some work as a data analyst, maybe data scientist, business analyst, you have good opportunities in the industry. So you're right, data is a very major thing. And nowadays everybody's talking about this, good to know
Bhomik Mathur
@Bmat · 1:00
That's cool, especially. I mean, when you talked about providing context to the news, I think that's something very important in today's times when there's so much political polarization and people to have too many opinions and they focus less on facts and more on opinions. So I think in that sense, you are doing a great work to provide some data, provide some context to the recent happenings
Ashris Choudhury
@ashris · 3:26
So Bhatt was extremely nerdy, but I think all the people really loved it. They really liked that in just one post you could have all the followers pictures and you could see yourself in it. So I think I one really loved that project. Second, I don't think it is possible for me to replicate it right now because Instagram has stopped this API sharing to get your profile picture. But now it would also be lot more difficult to scrape one lakh people pictures
Bhomik Mathur
@Bmat · 0:55
Hearing about the kind of projects that you have done. I mean, I definitely don't think you're a lazy person because it requires a lot of hard work and dedication to be able to finish such projects in a matter of days. Think it has a message for all of us to respect the work which content creators do. And it's not definitely easy. It's not what I've seen. The final product seems much easier, but the remains hard work behind that final small product
Ashris Choudhury
@ashris · 3:57
One more mental model that I go back to is this Venn diagram which is like probably you might have seen this. It is like do what is at the intersection of three things, what you're good at, what helps the world and what pays you well. So if it can meet these three checklists then I think it's a good thing that you can do forever your career for me also one more additional thing is can you talk about it for like six to 7 hours non stop?
Bhomik Mathur
@Bmat · 0:33
Wow. I think that will help a lot of students here who are listening to this and who are maybe making their career choices or who are under a bit of a pressure of facing some uncertainty. So thank you so much, Ashris. Thank you so much much for taking a valuable time for this conversation. I really enjoyed a lot hosting you, but the audience the conversation is not ending yet. You can ask your questions, whatever you need to ask
Ashris Choudhury
@ashris · 0:18
Thank you so much. It was really nice answering your questions. And I hope this inspires someone in a small way to pursue data visualization as a hobby, as a carrier. And I look forward to Moree questions and really enjoyed using this up
Gaurav Chauhan
@Gaurav1106 · 0:39
Hi Ashris. And great conversation, guys. I really, really enjoyed it. I was driving, just plugged it in and I was listening to it. Could not ask a question earlier. I was actually just waiting for Mr. Choudhury to finish. And I really loved the entire our conversation was great. I do have a question for Ashris. I hope I'm pronouncing your name right. But B, I do have another question
Nimisha Dhami
@NimishaDhami · 0:11
Hello. Good afternoon. My question for you is that now that you have a sizable social media presence, what are your future plans for India in pixels
Ashris Choudhury
@ashris · 2:09
And even if you do not want to, let's say learn these software, I think you can still do quite a lot just with pen and paper and taking a photograph and editing it and coloring it in Photoshop. If you just have something like iPad, you can use appropriate to create these custom visualizations on their own. There's an artist I would recommend called Mona Chala Bee. She makes lovely visualizations without any programming
Ashris Choudhury
@ashris · 1:29
So maybe you can expect more of those in the short term. In the long term, I want pixels to be like a sort of melting pot for all the nerds out there of this country who really are interested in this country, but approach it not from a nationalistic emotion but from this nerdy curiosity. Probably like have a Netflix show where we analyze a bunch of stuff and drink big. So I have all these fuzzy ideas, but only time will tell, I guess how they roll out
Gaurav Chauhan
@Gaurav1106 · 1:03
Ashraes, thank you for sharing that information. It was really helpful. I checked out the Instagram profile of the person you recommended, Mona. And to be honest with the last one, I've actually been just spending time looking at your page and it's fantastic. I have to say, I'm going to be following you and every step of what you go ahead with. Really delighted to have this conversation. I'm so glad to have got you here
Bhomik Mathur
@Bmat · 0:32
Hey Ashris, thanks again for answering all those questions. And guys, by chance, if any of you is not following Ashesh on social media, you're missing out something very big. So follow US page India in Pixels on all social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram as well as YouTube. And Ashris, I would request you to continue using Swell. Maybe the insights Bhatt you get from your work you can share it with as well