To be an actor was Prem Singh’s childhood dream. However, some dreams require a lot of patience and perseverance. Also, the journey of getting into the film industry isn’t an easy one. One has to face rejections and also wait for longer than expected to get their first acting project.

However, Prem Singh was stubborn enough to not give up on his dream to become an actor even if it would take years to fulfill it. Prem is the owner of Aashapura marbles and also does a lot of donations. Along with all of this, he kept his passion and love for acting and films alive till he gets the right opportunity to shine.   

All his patience, honesty and hard work have finally paid off.

Prem Singh will soon be making his Bollywood debut and for the same, he has collaborated with one of the phenomenal directors. As the project is on the initial stage, Prem can’t reveal much but he is extremely happy that his first acting project in Bollywood is so promising.

In a statement, Prem said, “I’ve always loved movies. I used to watch almost every movie in the theatre and act like the actors when I would come home. That’s when I realized I also want to become an actor. I’ve taken part in local plays during my college days and it has helped me understand the craft more. Now that I am finally set to work in a film, I have no words to express my joy.”

Eesha Agarwal’s list of achievements is quite long the actress-model has more dreams to fulfill. So far, she has won titles like Miss India Exquisite 2015, Miss India International 2017, Miss Global International Princess 2017 and Miss Beauty Top of the World 2019.

When asked her thoughts on winning the beauty pageant, Eesha said, “It feels amazing to win a pageant where you put so much of hard work in shaping your personality and it gives an opportunity to do something for the society which gives me immense pleasure.”

Beauty is not just about how one looks and how they carry themselves, there’s more to it. For Eesha, true beauty means, “For me, beauty comes from within and radiates out into the world. without being comfortable in your own skin and sure of yourself you cant be beautiful.”

Eesha Agarwal has won a lot of beauty titles and she said that it was Bollywood actress Lara Dutta who inspired her. She loves how Lara achieved everything with hard-work and charming personality.

The Miss India Exquisite 2015 has worked in several Tamil and Telugu movies and she is really keen to work in Bollywood movies too.

When asked about her support system throughout her journey, the actress shared, “My parents and my sister has been always been there for me in my life. they have always supported me.”

The beautiful actress said that she would love to represent India at an international platform and make the country and people proud.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s opening remarks at the informal summit of ‘Russia-India-China’ (RIC) leaders on the margins of G-20 Summit 2019.

Here is the full abstract what he said.

As the world’s leading economies, exchange of views between us, on the economic, political and security situation of the world is important. Our trilateral meeting today is a useful medium for discussing and coordinating on major global issues.

We had an exchange of views on many issues in the meeting of our Foreign Ministers in China in February this year. It included the promotion of counter-terrorism, international hot-spot issues, reformed multilateralism, climate change, and cooperation under RIC.

With this kind of informal discussion, we get an opportunity to coordinate with each other on the main topics of G-20. Today I will focus on three major challenges. First, the recession and uncertainty in the world economy. One-sided decision and rivalry are dominating over rules based on multilateral international trade systems. On the other hand, the lack of resources is reflected in the fact that there is an estimated deficit of $ 1.3 trillion for investing in infrastructure development of emerging market economies.
The second major challenge is to make development and progress inclusive and sustainable. Rapidly changing technologies such as digitization and climate change are not just challenges for us, but for the future generations also. Development is truly development in the right direction when it reduces inequality and contributes to the empowerment. Terror is the biggest threat to all of humanity. It not only takes the lives of innocent people, but it has a huge adverse effect on economic progress and social stability. We have to stop all the means of support and help available to terrorism and racism.

Although the resolution of these problems is not easy, yet I would like to make 5 key recommendations in the limited time:i)-The synergy between BRICS countries can lead, to some extent, to the resolution of the side effects of unilateral decisions. We have to keep on emphasizing for reformed multilateralism in international financial and business institutions and organizations for the necessary reforms.
ii)-For sustained economic growth the required resources such as oil and gas are needed to be constantly available at low prices.
iii)-Physical and social infrastructure and renewable energy programs of the member countries should get more priority by the New Development Bank. India’s initiative for Coalition for Disaster-Resilient Infrastructure will help in the development of appropriate infrastructure to face natural calamities by the least developed and developing countries. I exhort all of you to join this coalition.
iv)-Movement of skilled workers around the world should be easy. This will also benefit the countries where a large part of the population has crossed the working age.
v)-I have recently called for a Global Conference on Terrorism. Lack of necessary consent to fight against terrorism cannot keep us deedless. I appreciate Brazil to give a place in the main priorities to the fight against terrorism.

Delhi University has announced its first cut-off list for admission to undergraduate courses. The second cut-off list will be announced on July 4, third on July 9, fourth on July 15 and fifth on July 20.

• Hindu College has the highest cut-off for science courses at 98.3 percent for Physics Honours
• DCAC has announced cut-off of 98.50 percent for BA (Honours) in Journalism
• Highest cut-off last year was 98.75 percent for BA Programme in LSR College

DU had earlier extended its registration date to June 22 after the Delhi High Court ordered it to follow the last year’s eligibility criteria for granting admission.

The first admission list will be put up on July 17 for postgraduate courses, second one July 22, third on July 27 and fourth on August 2.

It’s 60 years now since Tibetans inside and outside continue their struggle against the Communist regime of China for their legitimate rights over language, tradition, and culture.  On 10 March 1959 thousands of Tibetans came to the streets protesting against the Chinese occupation and their picturesque capital city of Lhasa became the epicenter of the anti-Chinese movement.

Tibetans barricaded the Potala Palace, the iconic center of Tibetan Buddhism, where their supreme leader the 14th Dalai Lama used to live and soon the uprising gained momentum. The protesters demanded the Hun Chinese to leave their land but they were responded with harsh and repressive measures from People’s Liberation Army of the Beijing administration.

Facing the situation that went increasingly unsafe for the Dalai Lama, the revered Buddhist monk with thousands of his followers left for India and finally crossed the eastern border through Arunachal Pradesh (formerly North-East Frontier Agency) in the middle of April 1959. The Chinese invasion over the Himalayan region was earlier completed in 1951 following the Communist party took over Beijing in 1949.

The then Indian Premier Jawaharlal Nehru welcomed the Dalai Lama along with over 90,000 Tibetan exiles offering political asylum and allowed

everyone to stay in Dharamshala township of Himachal Pradesh in northeast India with all dignity and supports. Now they run an exile administration in Dharamshala where lawmakers are being elected for the presidential form of government.

Indian people as a whole maintain high regards to the Dalai Lama, who lives in McLeodganj of Dharamshala and it began with an all India convention on Tibet held in Calcutta (now Kolkata) soon after the Tibetan leader’s arrival in the country. Under the leadership of legendary socialist Jayprakash Narayan the 30-31 May 1959 convention expressed unconditional support, solidarity, and friendship to the Tibetan people.

Today His Holiness is only the spiritual head for Tibetan people as he had relinquished political power in 2011. However, the Nobel laureate continues pursuing non-violent struggles for his people and hoping for a dignified return to his seat in Lhasa. His Holiness also carries the heartbreaking memory of Tibetan people’s anti-China uprising as Beijing captured their land in 1950 and wiping out of over 6,000 Buddhist monasteries, temples, shrines along with mass killings.

Now the octogenarian Buddhist monk, widely known for his preaching of love, compassion, and peace, no longer demands a free Tibet out of China. In a recent interaction with this author in  Dharamshala, the grand spiritual leader commented that he now does not mind seeing Tibet under the Chinese territory.

“But Tibetans must get the constitutional rights to safeguard and practice their language, tradition, and culture. Beijing administration should go for constitutional amendments for providing genuine autonomy to the Tibetan people,” commented the Dalai Lama with firmness in his face.

Need not to mention that the Beijing administration, which assumes the spiritual leader as a separatist agitator, had already rejected the demand for genuine autonomy for the Tibetan people as the Communist rulers perceived it another form of independent Tibet. They argued that Tibet cannot be allowed to have independent executive, legislative and judicial entities for the sack of high-level autonomy.

Dr. Lobsang Sangay, President of Central Tibetan Administration (formerly Tibetan-government-in-exile) strongly argues that Tibet was never a part of China, but they are now pursuing a middle way approach to resolve the issue of Tibet. The young and highly educated Tibetan head asserted that it is time to resolve China-Tibet issues so that the ongoing repression over Tibetans inside their own country can be minimized.

Sikyong, as he is popularly addressed, mentioned that the middle way approach conceived by Parampawan Dalai Lama was a brilliant strategy. CTA President went on narrating that it has the potentiality to bring stability and peaceful co-existence between the Tibetans and Hun Chinese based on equality, mutual respect, and co-operation.

A Hindi translation of Dr. Sangay’s book titled ‘Tibet Was Never A Part Of China But The Middle Way Approach Remains A Visible Solution’ was launched recently in front of an energized gathering of Indian well-wishers in Dharamshala. Organized by Core Group for Tibetan Cause (an apex coordinating body of Tibet support groups in India) and facilitated by India Tibet Coordination Office in New Delhi, the meeting went ahead with a Dharamshala declaration too.

The 6th All India Tibet Support Groups’ Conference held on 15 and 16 June in the CTA headquarter accomplished the Dalai Lama as a holy ambassador of Indian culture enriched with non-violence, compassion and religious harmony to the world.  And because of his immense contributions in creating goodwill for India in the last six decades, the Indian supporters proposed for the country’s highest civilian honor ‘Bharat Ratna’ to His Holiness.

“We would like to pursue with our Union government in New Delhi to confer Bharat Ratna on the Tibetan spiritual leader as he emerges as a

reliable messenger of Indian tradition and culture like an adorable son of Bharat,” said Rinchin Khandu Khrimey, national convener of Core

Group for Tibetan Cause adding that the tallest Tibetan spiritual leader has never shown his reluctance in expressing his heartfelt gratitude to Indian people in various public forums.

Khrimey, a former Parliamentarian from Arunachal Pradesh, argued that the Dalai Lama always considers India as the land of Guru (spiritual guide) as the country is enriched with Nalanda tradition of Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhists still follow Nalanda (university) values in their spiritual life and thus identify themselves as reliable Chelas (disciples) of India.

A diligent crusader for non-violence, peace, and harmony in today’s world, the Dalai Lama was born in 1935 at Taktser of China. Initially named as Lhamo Thondup, a peasant family son was proclaimed as the 14th Dalai Lama in his early ages. His name was changed to Tenzin Gyatso and soon spiritual education began for him. A firm believer in Gandhian philosophy of non-violence the Dalai Lama has authored over 50 books on different issues.

“We have honored non-Indian laureates like Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa (naturalized citizen) with Bharat Ratna.

So there would be no wrong if New Delhi listens to numerous voices of India and decides to recognize the Dalai Lama as a jewel (Ratna) of Bharat as he has already received over hundreds of international awards,” added Khrimey.

The Dharamshala declaration, read out in front of over 200 delegates from 21 provinces of India, also called upon New Delhi to prevail over the People’s Republic of China in Beijing for a constructive negotiation with the representatives of CTA for a sustainable solution to Tibet issues. It also appealed to the international community to support the CTA in its relentless quest for dignity, justice, and peace to millions of Tibetans (inside and outside Tibet).

The declaration strongly condemned the Chinese government for its systemic violations of human rights under illegal occupation over Tibet that results in an increasing number of self-immolations by freedom endorsing hapless Tibetans.  Additionally, it expressed concern over the militarization of the Tibetan region that threatens the peace across Indian sub-continent and insisted on complete freedom of language and culture pursued by the Tibetans.

Various speakers in the meeting also expressed grave concern over unrelenting exploitations of natural resources inside Tibet which are termed as the third pole (after north & south pole) having a huge source of fresh water outside Arctic and Antartic.  They apprehended that the disturbances over Tibetan plateau might cause severe ecological implications to various neighboring countries like India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia etc.

Dr Anand Kumar of India Tibet Friendship Society, Indresh Kumar  of Bharat Tibbat Sahyog Manch, Ajai Singh of India Tibet Friendship Association, Dr Abanti Bhattacharya from Delhi University, Prof Ramu Manivannam from Madras University etc were unanimous in their views discordant India’s border with China was once used to be a friendly boundary with Tibet. They also termed  Beijing’s political and military advances as a threat to India’s national security.

Delivering his keynote address, CTA President Dr Sangay reiterated his gratitude to India and its people for generous support to the Tibetan

authority saying that no other country has done (or could do) more than India and none could be more helpful for Tibet than the generous people of India. He proclaimed that the regenerate Tibetan language and culture would continue portraying the ancient Indian wisdom to the world for years to come. 

Tibetans are expected to get back their dues sooner or later, but popular urges surfaced among Indians that the Dalai Lama should get the opportunity to return to his seat in Potala with dignity and prides during his lifetime. Moreover, the northeastern people would prefer His Holiness to take return journey to Lhasa through the same route through the Arunachal border as he had chosen sixty years back.

(The author is a journalist and political commentator based in Northeast India. Views expressed are personal.)

The Trillionaire Life is an extravagant Instagram page, meant only for the affluent people of the world. Posting incredible photos of elite people going on unbelievable shopping sprees, flaunting exorbitant number plates, in unobtainable private jets and supercars, and doing some unimaginable things.

The Trillionaire Life is a luxury niche Instagram page which currently has more than 1 million followers.

Including more than 70 multi-millionaire and billionaire, members are known as ‘Trillion Circle Members’ 

This is what Trillionaire’s Bath Would Look Like

Did She rob a bank? No, she lives like Trillionaire

Beverly Hills Brat With Everything Black

They (Members) became a part of this astounding page to increase their social media goodwill, reach more audience and to connect with other wealthy people from around the planet. The members of this page are not just from one country, it has members from across the globe(United States of America, Canada, Europe, United Kingdom, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and many other countries.)

The Trillionaire Life’s Instagram account is inspiring the platform’s 400 million active users to dream big, stay focused, and work hard towards their dream. By posting daily luxury inspiration photos, lending business advices, and sharing business ideas with millions of followers, today’s top luxury niche Instagrammers are pushing social media users to reach their life goals and cultivating highly-engaged communities in the process.

The Trillionaire Life has succor a lot of businesses worldwide in boosting their sales by using their Instagram platform, and are now ready to help people to expand their business. Primarily, they focus on supporting the young people who are starting their business, by giving them tips and free consultancy about their Instagram page.

Aside from having a famous Instagram page, the founders of Instagram.com/TheTrillionaireLife are aspiring entrepreneurs and philanthropists. The 18 years old founders famously known as Hunny & Bunny are soon stepping into the Real Estate business in India. Hunny Bunny is often seen hanging out with their Bollywood & Pollywood celebrity friends. These young kids have achieved a lot at this early age, and there is plenty for them to learn and achieve in the future. 

Q) How did The Trillionaire Life reach 1 Million+ Followers on Instagram?

A) Well, it is never easy to achieve 1 Million followers not only on Instagram but on any social media platform.

However, it is neither impossible if you don’t fall in the trap of just increasing followers, you must keep posting consistently, the founders told us.

They were regular with the posts, and have even posted 12 times in a day but with the time and the change in Instagram’s algorithm the number of posts per day changed, they said. Moreover, the quantity of your content doesn’t get you to over 1 million followers but the quality does. So be consistent, and at the same time choose quality over quantity.

They always used 30 hashtags, geo locations and tags on the photo/video to reach out to more audience on Instagram.

Q) What was the inspiration behind The Trillionaire Life?

A) Our admiration for luxury prompted us to create this page. We wanted to make a community of people who admire the luxurious lifestyle and understand that it’s not just about the money but about the lifestyle.

Q) Can someone grow their followers from 0 to 1 Million in 2019?

A) Gaining 1 million followers is not an easy task but if you stay consistent with posting quality content you certainly can achieve the goal. 

Here are some tips and tricks they learned from their experience which helped The Trillionaire Life to grow on Instagram.

– Start with 3 posts daily: Morning, Afternoon, and evening.

– Use 30 hashtags related to the post.

– Use geo location according to the post.

– Choose Quality over Quantity when you post. Remember, posting more will help you grow faster but that doesn’t mean you should post ugly content.

– Post 3 Instagram stories each day.

– Use 10 hashtags in stories, and geo locations.

– Interact with your Audience.

– Use polls and ‘ask me a question’ to know the interest of your audience.

Q) What’s the one thing that still keeps you going?

A) The love and support that we keep getting from our Instagram family.

At least 400 million people worldwide lack access to the most essential health services. By 2035, there will be an estimated shortage of nearly 13 million healthcare workers. Around 1 in 5 of the world’s population will be living in settings that are experiencing humanitarian crises.

At the same time, new diagnostics, devices, drugs and digital innovations are transforming how people interact with the health sector.

In response to this, WHO launched its first guideline on self-care interventions for health, with a focus in this first volume on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Some of the interventions include self-sampling for HPV and sexually transmitted infections, self-injectable contraceptives, home-based ovulation predictor kits, HIV self-testing and self-management of medical abortion.

These guidelines look at the scientific evidence for health benefits of certain interventions that can be done outside the conventional health sector, although sometimes with the support of a health-care provider.  They do not replace high-quality health services nor are they a shortcut to achieving universal health coverage.

What is self-care?

Self-care is “the ability of individuals, families, and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health-care provider”.

Self-care interventions represent a significant push towards new and greater self-efficacy, autonomy and engagement in health for self-carers and caregivers. In launching this guideline, WHO recognizes how self-care interventions could expand access to health services, including for vulnerable populations. People are increasingly active participants in their own health care and have a right to a greater choice of interventions that meets their needs across their lifetime, but also should be able to access, control, and have affordable options to manage their health and well-being.

Access for the most vulnerable

Self-care interventions are a complementary approach to health care that forms an important part of the health system. Self-care is also a means for people who are negatively affected by gender, political, cultural and power dynamics including those who are forcibly displaced, to have access to sexual and reproductive health services, as many people are unable to make decisions around sexuality and reproduction.

Promoting a safe and supportive enabling environment in which they can access and use health interventions when and where they choose to, improves autonomy and helps improve the health and well-being of these vulnerable and marginalized people.

The importance of self-care interventions for health policy, financing and systems has thus far been undervalued and its potential not fully acknowledged, despite the fact that people have been practicing self-care for millennia.

WHO’s first consolidated guideline on self-care interventions for health – starting with the importance of sexual and reproductive health and rights – is a step in placing people at the center of health care, bringing quality interventions to them, while maintaining the accountability of the health system.

WHO is assessing the role of health providers and the competencies they need to support self-care interventions. To date, the evidence suggests 

that self-care allows health providers to serve greater numbers of people and use their skills where the greatest need exists.

The guidelines will be expanded to include other self-care interventions, including for prevention and treatment of noncommunicable diseases. WHO is establishing a community of practice for self-care, and will be promoting research and dialogue in this area during self-care month (24 June to 24 July).

Magic never turns the dream into reality, rather it takes sweat, determination, and hard work to achieve that dream. This quotation completely gets along with the inspiring reality of Vikas Singh Bisht who, by profession, is a teacher and a cyber-security expert as well. He is dedicated, hardworking, and smart and these traits helped him in achieving something big. While surfing on the Google Search Engine, he detected a mistake in the system of an intricate website. After he submitted a request for the correction of the mistake, the team rectified it and on the Hall of Fame under the Vulnerability Reward Program he was placed on 322^nd rank. Bisht has also been given $100 as a reward. With this achievement, the cybersecurity expert, Vikas Singh Bisht, became the first and the youngest person in Uttarakhand to have found a glitch in 

Google.

Bisht works at a cyber-defense alliance company in Dehradun which provides cybersecurity to many bigger companies in the world.

According to the Uttarakhand’s youngest cybersecurity expert, while he was searching for something on the internet, he witnessed an anomaly. It was on November 14, when he was acknowledged by Google after he reported the bug earlier that month. Filled with delight and wonder, Vikas expresses his feelings of joy with the greatest ever recognition and compliment he received. Bisht is a Computer Application graduate who detected the mistake of cracking scripting in Google’s kaggel.com website which was corrected by Google’s security team. Bisht explained the technical aspect of the problem where the bug would affect the search pattern making the database of the website more vulnerable. 

Technical errors like alteration in search and functioning would take place instead of the website being affected in a big way. He has taken the initiative of conducting free cybersecurity courses for the people who have low income. This initiative is helping the nation towards a digital world. The goal behind this initiative according to Bisht is to limit the cyber-attacks which are happening on the internet these days in order to make internet surfing more secure. 

Under this course, the students will be taught CH version 9 and version 10. According to the Uttarakhand’s Youngest Cyber Security Expert, Vikas Singh Bisht, the cyber-security trap is unimaginable and the people in our nation should be digitally smart in order to tackle such problem. Being digital just for the sake of money is not what our country needs. It needs people who can make the cyber world secure. As per his research, people are interested in cyber-security courses, however, they are unable to take up the courses because of fee issues. Keeping this in mind, Bisht wants to provide free courses to the poor who have the determination to learn new things.

The young generation of our country is talented enough to make our country proud. Not only the people living in cities but the people living in villages are also becoming digitally smart day by day. Apart from finding a glitch in Google’s website, Bisht detected a hijacking bug in the domain of Microsoft for which he was awarded a prize and 2.21 lac Rs. The Cybersecurity expert, Vikas Singh Bisht, has made India proud and inspired the young generation to follow their dreams and do something big. Everyone should keep on trying until they achieve something big. Success is not luck; it is hard work. Bisht has become a living example of hard work leading to success. The young generation should keep faith in themselves and give their best. Just like Bisht, people should give their best in the field they are working in.

Here is sneak peek to the life of a DJ turning into a singer; Guru started his beautiful DJ journey when he was only 16 years old! Yes, he was this young when he decided that he is made for the music world.

We’re glad to inform that soon he’ll be coming up with his new track which has his voice. He has told sources that he was at a college farewell party with one of his friends when he first saw what DJing actually is, since then he started admiring being a DJ and soon started working as one and established his name, not forgetting to mention that since that time he loved music, he wanted to be a music producer and create his own mesmerizing music. 

In 2017, Guru felt the urge to stand out from other DJs in the industry, he wanted to establish a brand for himself, and he was motivated, focussed and talented up to the brim. Now was the time when he started remixing songs to give them a revamp, people actually liked his work and he was called upon for concerts and shows. Till now he has become magnanimously popular among the audience.

He made his début in Bollywood music with the song “As Toh Sahi” from Judwa 2 in collaboration with Meet Bros, he gave a small contribution to the song and do I need to mention that it was a super-duper hit!

So far Guru has done more than 300 shows, 70 music projects and has worked with some renowned personalities of the music world which consists of legendary singers, composers, artists, lyricists, and producers.

Guru has achieved so much at a young age and now he is planning to step in the field of singing, since the day one Guru was attracted towards singing, his father also wanted him to become a singer because it was his dream which he wasn’t able to fulfil but he felt that Guru really had a very captivating voice and he can make his dream come true.

His family has always supported him towards doing big things in life, his friends who always stand by his side believes that Guru is an inspired individual and an amazing Singer, he could give an awesome contribution to the singing industry. 

In the Iron Man movies, Tony Stark uses a holographic computer to project 3-D data into thin air, manipulate them with his hands, and find fixes to his superhero troubles. In the same vein, researchers from MIT and Brown University have now developed a system for interactive data analytics that runs on touchscreens and lets everyone — not just billionaire tech geniuses —?tackle real-world issues.  

For years, the researchers have been developing an interactive data-science system called Northstar, which runs in the cloud but has an interface that supports any touchscreen device, including smartphones and large interactive whiteboards. Users feed the system datasets, and manipulate, combine, and extract features on a user-friendly interface, using their fingers or a digital pen, to uncover trends and patterns.  

In a paper being presented at the ACM SIGMOD conference, the researchers detail a new component of Northstar, called VDS for “virtual data scientist,” that instantly generates machine-learning models to run prediction tasks on their datasets. Doctors, for instance, can use the system to help predict which patients are more likely to have certain diseases, while business owners might want to forecast sales. If using an interactive whiteboard, everyone can also collaborate in real-time.   

The aim is to democratize data science by making it easy to do complex analytics, quickly and accurately.  

“Even a coffee shop owner who doesn’t know data science should be able to predict their sales over the next few weeks to figure out how much coffee to buy,” says co-author and long-time Northstar project lead Tim Kraska, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science in at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and founding co-director of the new Data System and AI Lab (DSAIL). “In companies that have data scientists, there’s a lot of back and forth between data scientists and nonexperts, so we can also bring them into one room to do analytics together.”

VDS is based on an increasingly popular technique in artificial intelligence called automated machine-learning (AutoML), which lets people with limited data-science know-how train AI models to make predictions based on their datasets. Currently, the tool leads the DARPA D3M Automatic Machine Learning competition, which every six months decide on the best-performing AutoML tool.     

Joining Kraska on the paper are: first author Zeyuan Shang, a graduate student, and Emanuel Zgraggen, a postdoc and main contributor of Northstar, both of EECS, CSAIL, and DSAIL; Benedetto Buratti, Yeounoh Chung, Philipp Eichmann, and Eli Upfal, all of Brown; and Carsten Binnig who recently moved from Brown to the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany.    

An Â“unbounded canvas” for analytics 

The new work builds on years of collaboration on Northstar between researchers at MIT and Brown. Over four years, the researchers have published numerous papers detailing components of Northstar, including the interactive interface, operations on multiple platforms, accelerating results, and studies on user behavior. 

Northstar starts as a blank, white interface. Users upload datasets into the system, which appear in a Â“datasets” box on the left. Any data labels will automatically populate a separate Â“attributes” box below. There’s also an Â“operators” box that contains various algorithms, as well as the new AutoML tool. All data are stored and analyzed in the cloud. 

The researchers like to demonstrate the system on a public dataset that contains information on intensive care unit patients. Consider medical researchers who want to examine co-occurrences of certain diseases in certain age groups. They drag and drop into the middle of the interface a pattern-checking algorithm, which at first appears as a blank box. As input, they move into the box disease features labeled, say, “blood,” “infectious,” and “metabolic.” Percentages of those diseases in the dataset appear in the box. Then, they drag the Â“age” feature into the interface, which displays a bar chart of the patient’s age distribution. Drawing a line between the two boxes links them together. By circling age ranges, the algorithm immediately computes the co-occurrence of the three diseases among the age range.   

“It’s like a big, unbounded canvas where you can lay out how you want everything,” says Zgraggen, who is the key inventor of Northstar’s interactive interface. “Then, you can link things together to create more complex questions about your data.” 

Approximating AutoML 

With VDS, users can now also run predictive analytics on that data by getting models custom-fit to their tasks, such as data prediction, image classification, or analyzing complex graph structures.  

Using the above example, say the medical researchers want to predict which patients may have blood disease based on all features in the dataset. They drag and drop“AutoML” from the list of algorithms. It’ll first produce a blank box, but with a “target” tab, under which they’d drop the Â“blood” feature. The system will automatically find best-performing machine-learning pipelines, presented as tabs with constantly updated accuracy percentages. Users can stop the process at any time, refine the search, and examine each model’s errors rates, structure, computations, and other things.  

According to the researchers, VDS is the fastest interactive AutoML tool to date, thanks, in part, to their custom “estimation engine.” The engine sits between the interface and the cloud storage. The engine leverages automatically creates several representative samples of a dataset that can be progressively processed to produce high-quality results in seconds.  

“Together with my co-authors, I spent two years designing VDS to mimic how a data scientist thinks,” Shang says, meaning it instantly identifies which models and preprocessing steps it should or shouldn’t run on certain tasks, based on various encoding rules. It first chooses from a large list of those possible machine-learning pipelines and runs simulations on the sample set. In doing so, it remembers results and refines its selection. After delivering fast approximated results, the system refines the results in the back end. But the final numbers are usually very close to the first approximation. 

“For using a predictor, you don’t want to wait four hours to get your first results back. You want to already see what’s going on and, if you detect a mistake, you can immediately correct it. That’s normally not possible in any other system,” Kraska says. The researchers’ previous user study, in fact, Â“show that the moment you delay giving users results, they start to lose engagement with the system.” 

The researchers evaluated the tool on 300 real-world datasets. Compared to other state-of-the-art AutoML systems, VDS’ approximations were as accurate but were generated within seconds, which is much faster than other tools, which operate in minutes to hours.  

Next, the researchers are looking to add a feature that alerts users to potential data bias or errors. For instance, to protect patient privacy, sometimes researchers will label medical datasets with patients aged 0 (if they do not know the age) and 200 (if a patient is over 95 years old). But novices may not recognize such errors, which could completely throw off their analytics.   

“If you’re a new user, you may get results and think they’re great,” Kraska says. Â“But we can warn people that there, in fact, maybe some outliers in the dataset that may indicate a problem.”