The (2) Million Dollar Legacy

When I was leaving my job as a professor at UT-Dallas, I was pretty happy that I gave my best in research and teaching. The usual question asked in interviews is about the legacy you left behind in your last job. Well, I was not asked about that in my recent conversations, but two recent instances greatly excited me to share with the readers. Particularly, as the events unfolded with my contributions playing a significant role even almost an year after I left the job, made me feel even more proud.

In Spring 2005, the initial years I was trying to build my contacts in the industry, I gave a talk at Texas Instruments on my research in special purpose architectures for multimedia computing. At the end of the talk, a gentleman from the audience walked up to me and asked, "so, what do you want to do with your research now?" As I was thoughtful for a moment in search of an answer, he continued, "would you like to work with us on developing technologies for our application in video surveillance?" He was the co-founder and CTO of AgileMesh, a startup company in the Dallas area, and wanted me to take a look at what they were doing.

In subsequent years, as the collaboration built up, I worked hard, involved my research students in some discussions, and eventually put together a proposal in Fall 2008 and Spring 2009 for raising funds for the company and the university from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF). In late Spring 2009 (I had a glimpse then of possibility of my leaving, but was not sure) we submitted the final proposal and I  brought two other professors on board as the project expanded and required the expertise in other related areas. But then, I left the job in July as the proposal was still in review.

Recently in May 2010, I was greatly elated when I heard from my ex-colleague that the proposal was funded to the tune of $2 Million (pheww!!!!!) to be shared by the company and the university to conduct research in relevant areas. I am glad that my hard work and immense efforts paid-off, and that the significantly large grant will fund the other researchers in their work to add to the scientific knowledge.

In response to my students' who felt bad that I am not there at the university to celebrate the success, here is what I wrote to them, "I have no regrets. Given a choice to stay back at UT-Dallas and celebrate that AgileMesh-TETF success or be at Kellogg to enjoy the current successes as well as look forward for bigger successes in future, I will choose the current status any given day."

The other incident that made me feel proud about my contributions in teaching is when a past student wrote to me recently, "Dear Professor, I got an internship at Intel. I wanted to thank you having been a wonderful teacher. The interview with Intel was over 1.5 to 2 hrs and was mostly on Computer Architecture and system programming. I had gone through a lot of cache stuff but forgot to study cache coherence... I was questioned quite a bit on cache coherence and I was just recollecting what you had done in class (Fall 2008) and I was able to answer most of it... Thank you sir. If I am able to remember a concept for 1.5 years that means I might never forget it and kudos to you for imbibing it into us."

Well, I am glad I did my part to the best of my abilities and helped others in whatever small way I can in achieving success. I moved on from the past in search of brighter horizons, and hope to eventually leave behind a greater legacy of clock-building, not just time-telling (from "Built to Last").