Nabin K. Malakar, Ph.D.

NASA JPL
I am a computational physicist working on societal applications of machine-learning techniques.

Research Links

My research interests span multi-disciplinary fields involving Societal applications of Machine Learning, Decision-theoretic approach to automated Experimental Design, Bayesian statistical data analysis and signal processing.

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Interested about the picture? Autonomous experimental design allows us to answer the question of where to take the measurements. More about it is here...

Hobbies

I addition to the research, I also like to hike, bike, read and play with water color.

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Showing posts with label nepal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nepal. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Crowdfunding Science: Experience from a Developing Country

In 2014, we raised $3772.10 + NRs 61797 from a fundraising campaign in my coordination. Majority of this amount was collected via a crowdfunding platform, the Fundrazr.com and was used to buy UV-Vis spectrophotometer (a scientific instrument) and accessories for Department of Chemistry, Mahendra Morang Adarsha Multiple Campus (MMAMC), Biratnagar, Nepal.
Educational institutions in Nepal like other developing countries lack basic infrastructure (instruments, equipment) for teaching and research in science, as unfortunately, support from the government is not enough. However, despite the lack of basic facilities, few enthusiastic researchers are trying their best to carry out research and train their students in science.
Among various other campuses around the country, MMAMC, Biratnagar desperately needed an UV-Vis spectrophotometer, one of the basic instruments in many disciplines of science including chemistry. Unfortunately, neither MMAMC nor the Tribhuvan University could support the purchase of this instrument, making external funding crucial. Unlike others, Dr. Ajaya Bhattarai, assistant professor of chemistry from MMAMC came forward and discussed the possibilities of obtaining funds with me.
Crowdfunding
We then decided to ask our friends around the globe to donate. Rather than asking privately, we decided to use a public forum in order to let more people know about our campaign for a good cause.
In recent years, crowdfunding has become very popular to generate funds for variety of purposes including support for scientific research. The crowdfunding is an idea of raising fund for a common cause from a large number of people primarily via internet. Even though crowdfunding had initially found successful in developed countries like US, Europe, and Australia, the rapid rise of mobile technology and social media utilization has made crowdfunding more viable opportunity to finance innovation in developing countries.
Ready to face harsh comments and questions

When you ask for money, there are people who think the donation is important and are happy with it; however, you also face some people who have an aversion to the idea. We also obtained similar responses. Most of the comments we received during the fundraising period were very encouraging. But there were some negative ones. Some people tried to connect my relationship to Biratnagar and if it was for my personal benefit. One person, I know personally, argued really hard with me and said he would donate if it were for his village or school. There were some social media arguments started at the same time referring to the idea of “giving” to developing country is really bad.
Important factors for successful crowdfunding
Not all projects seeking crowdfunding are successful. More than half of such projects fail to reach their goal.  I have following suggestions for successful fundraising campaign.
  1. A clear idea: Our fundraising campaign had a clear goal of buying scientific instrument for MMAMC and a good explanation of why the fund was needed.
  2. Networking: We networked to our prospective donors primarily through Facebook. We have a group of Nepali chemists on Facebook; that helped a lot. We reached out to all of them in addition to contacting people from Biratnagar and those who studied in MMAMC residing in developed countries. We also sent personal email to many donors.
  3. Know your target donors: People who are either affiliated to the MMAMC or had studied chemistry residing abroad were our target donors. However, we raised a considerable amount of money from people residing in Nepal offline. As online payment system is not widely used in developing countries, it was difficult to raise funds inside country via online platform.
  4. Authenticity: It is important to understand the fact that potential donors are very cautious about the authenticity of the fundraising and the proper use of money after collection. Our donors were familiar to the fact that the instruments donated to Tribhuvan University and other governmental research centers mostly sit idle dust covered. Therefore, in our case, we had to convince our donors that the instrument would definitely be used regularly. Dr. Ajaya Bhattarai and his background played crucial role in this case.
A successful example.
Potential funders want to see the people behind the fundraising event. We asked ourselves: do people really believe on what we are asking for? We tried our best to be as transparent as possible telling who are behind the fund raise, how the money will be utilized and who will be responsible for purchase, use, and care of instrument. We requested our friends to share the event using social media.
Before this fundraise event, my friends (mostly chemists) and I had also raised fund to buy a projector and laptop for Central Department of Chemistry, Tribhuvan University. This previous experience increased our confidence and people’s belief on us.
  1. Share and publish the details: We kept updating the progress of fundraising on regular basis. We wrote our aim and objectives clearly on the crowdfunding website.
Did we get all money raised?
The answer is a big NO. In our case, the crowdfunding company deducted 8.7% of the total money raised via crowdfunding platform (online) including the PayPal fee. Plus a fee to transfer money from US to Nepal.

Finally, I am happy to share with you that the instrument we donated is being regularly used and has generated some data. Dr. Ajaya Bhattarai recently presented the findings of his research on the interaction of dyes with surfactants using UV-Vis spectrophotometer in the 16th international symposium on eco-materials processing and design (ISEPD 2015) in Kathmandu, Nepal. This is important to mention here because many people think [which unfortunately could be true in some cases] that donated equipment are not being used rather they are stored with dust covered. Well, we assure to let the work speak for itself. Thank you!


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Monday, August 19, 2013

जब सम्म #यूवा को चेत खुल्दैन, तब सम्म देश को चान्सै छैन!

नेपालको मूल समस्या के हो भनि धेरै जना घोत्लिए,
देशी-बिदेशी अजासु (अति-जान्ने-सुन्ने) ले प्रयास गरे 
पैसाको खोलो बगाए, तर पत्ता लागेन  रे !

कहिले राजालाई दोष दिइयो, कहिले कांग्रेस, त कहिले कम्म्युनिस्ट 
जो सत्ता मा छ दोष  उसैको हुनेनै भो!
सबै प्रयोग गरियो, नेपालमा 
कहिँ नभएको प्रयोग पनि गरियो 

तर मेरो विचार मा यो चित्र ले सहि समस्या को जड केहो भन्ने प्रस्ट देखाउछ 
pic via @puruad (ask him for source)

झण्डा बोकेको भर मा आजको टर्ने भए पछि के को टेन्सन?
अझ त्यति गरेर मज्जा नलागे काम गरिखाने को बाटो छेकेर साईकल को हावा फुस्काउन पाइन्छ
मारकाट र कुटपिट को रोमान्स त् झन छदैछ!  

जब सम्म #यूवा को चेत खुल्दैन, तब सम्म देश को चान्सै छैन!
जंगबहादुरले रोलक्रम राखेका थिए, राणाजीहरु त् गए, तर प्रथा अझै छ 
झर्ला र खाउला भनेर कुरुन्जेल समय बितिसक्ने छ
जाग नेपालका युवाहरु, 
नत्र भो कुरै नगरौ!


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Thursday, December 24, 2009

Nepali Bloggers and Unification

bloggers.com.np:
Are you ready?

Yes, I am talking about saving efforts and energy+time for integration of Nepali Bloggers under one umbrella (Hey we are done with discussion of reviving BLOGAN, right?). In addition, I would like to suggest that there should be some kind of mechanism which penalizes copy and paste things. There are people who love to do copy and paste to produce "blog".


The importance of being organized comes here. One way of realizing it is to have an universal feed from Nepali Bloggers.  
Is bloggers.com.np ready for it?
There is no doubt that it has a great collection of blog by Nepali people around the globe. As I indicated previously, many has gone for hibernation. It would be frustrating to find many links wasted to not find active Nepali Bloggers.

Based upon personal connections, we have nice hamro-circle[link] list of active nepali bloggers. Currently, we have a widget, and Email subscription to updated blogs through it.

Instead of having to go for different server, my question would be whether current blogger.com.np team would be interested in having such aggregation of rss and an universal feed (not hosted in personal server/not any other dot com / dot org or dot net server). I am talking about the Authenticity, Brand and Unification.
Note that experiment with hamro-circle proves that such aggregation is possible.
You can see an example here:
http://knuthlab.rit.albany.edu/people/malakar/planet/dcs/output/
(this is a temporary place for experiment)

What we need next is a server with python support. The software can be scheduled with cron job; this will enable gathering of all the feed as desired. We can also go ahead and work on having some nice gadget from the rss generated thereby ( I had created one... see here).

The beauty lies in the fact that it will be an open source project (more eyes on it), the in-active bloggers (enlisted) are pushed into the bottom. There would be no such thing as new and old blogger "discrimination", all get equal chance to get their post visible. Plus ability to deliver updated blog summary by Email (this help increases the visit to active blog). This may also be the motivational factor for many quality posts. Moreover, since this would be supplemented by the unified forum (Google group), we can bring justice to copy pasted items.

The idea is simple and easy. What we need is connection and commitment.

This is all possible with bloggers.com.np
bloggers.com.np: Are you ready?

PS: based upon communications with Aakar, Nepalean G, Dilip G et. al. Views presented here may not be representative view of all quoted above. I will take any responsibility of any such discrepancy in interpretation.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Congratulations to Recent Physics Ph. D. s (TU Physics Almuni)

It is quite amazing that this month we witnessed a burst of Physics PhD holders. (Recent Nepali PhD Physicists or Tribhuvan University almuni.)

Dr. Bed Nidhi Pantha from Kansas State University. (Announced Nov. 20, 2009)
Dr. Pantha: working as Post Doc. fellow in: Texas Tech University.
URL: http://www.phys.ksu.edu/personal/bpantha/

Dr. Rajendra Dahal from Kansas State University. (Announced Nov. 20, 2009)
Dr. Dahal: working as Post Doc. fellow in: Texas Tech University.
URL: http://www.phys.ksu.edu/people/graduate/dahal_r.html

Dr. Himal Khatri from University of Toledo, OH. (Announced Nov. 20, 2009)
Dr. Khatri working as Post Doc. fellow in: University of Toledo.
URL: http://www.utoledo.edu/as/physast/facstaff/_People/_Gradpages/gsHimalKhatri.html

Dr. Laxman Mainali from State University of NewYork @ Albany. (Announced Nov. 20, 2009)
Dr. Mainali working as Post Doc. fellow in: Medical College of Wisconsin.
URL: http://www.albany.edu/~lm923395/

Dr. Indra Dev Sahu from State University of NewYork, Albany, USA.(Announced Nov. 2, 2009)
Dr. Sahu: working as Post Doc. fellow in Ohio Advanced EPR Lab at Miami University, Oxford, OH
URL: http://www.albany.edu/~is195712/

I would like to congratulate the recent Nepali Physics Drs and wish all the success in their academic endeavors.

Source(s):
http://groups.google.com/group/nps_nepal

Acknowledgements:
Rudra dai and Bhoj R. Gautam.

PS: There are a lot of list collectors out there. I would appreciate if the list collectors acknowledge the source.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Active Nepali Bloggers, Nepali Bloggers Group and BLOGAN part I



Scenario One:
When I started blogging back in 2004, it was meant to be personal rambling. I started with a lot of  energy and the old blogger; invited few friends and asked for comments on it. No one really cared.
I then stopped it, eventually that got deleted in 2007 when I saw that the level of writing was not upto it. Anyway, that was a crude start back then. In conversation with one of the friend, on the use of blogging as ways to communicate, he indicated me that he had seen another blog by a Nepali lady aboard writing on the ease of transportation. As he said, she was writing on the possible abuse by the passengers on the crowded bus in Nepal and was comparing the scenario aboard. My impression of blog since has not changed.

Scenario Two:
I started back to blog. The promoting energy was the power of bloggers that was witnessed while I was searching for the reliability of Dell computer that I was thinking of buying. I found that the Blogs were much more informative than the news site as it clearly indicated the defects and the hassle in dealing with the customer care center. The same energy got my blogger part awaken and started doing so. It was fun. The same friend, commented: A good way to kill time while alone/aboard.
After rambling for some time, I got interested in searching for Nepali Bloggers. By this time bloggers.com.np was there. At least 75/80 blogs were already listed. I browsed them one by one. To my great surprise, most of them had already decided to hibernate.
I wanted to see the active Nepali Bloggers.

Scenario Three:
In the quest of seeking active Nepali Bloggers, Nepalean et al was able to gather about x number of bloggers into the same place in shout box (in Dautari Blog Chautari). I really enjoyed it! Personally, it gave me a chance to say hello to bloggers who were adorable and passionate in their writings. Before that event, I really had not much chance to chat to fellow bloggers except with Aakar, Naya Laure etc. Everyone appreciated the effort by the team.
However, one striking feature was there...
A quest to seek active Nepali Bloggers versus revive the BLOGAN.
One said some people (of BLOGAN) had already started blogging even before other Nepali knew what blog meant. Really?

Well, what does a blog mean?

  1. Collection of News/Reporting
  2. Collection of Personal thoughts/Biases
  3. Collection of Personal Literatures
  4. Place to dump copy and paste materials
  5. All of the above
  6. None of the above
More on the second part...


PS:



Thank You Dilip jee(@ comment) for indicating the omission, the fulltext of Dautari Bhela can be found here...
http://chatroll.com/blogdautari/archive/2009/08/page1