Goals and a New Phase of the Blog

Although almost no one reads my blog, I want to explain my absence from posting. I started working at Nexum IoT, an IoT company, and this is my first experience as a junior software developer. Because of that, I had to reorganize my entire schedule.

Shortly after joining the company, I also started my master’s degree at UFPR, where I have been studying topics such as machine learning, computer architecture, research, and other related subjects. I want to use this blog as a summary of my research and personal progress, turning it into a place to share and discuss deeper topics in computer science.

Something I have never made clear here is my goals. Before talking about my master’s degree, I want to share them because they are directly connected to it. I will list both my personal and professional goals.

I believe that everything in life has a purpose, just as everything in nature does. For my friend Socrates (through Plato’s writings), the purpose of life was to pursue virtue and wisdom through self-knowledge and constant reflection, since “the unexamined life is not worth living.” This idea is directly connected to my first goal: to continuously learn about nature and the world around me.

My second goal, which is more professional, is to contribute to projects that help me grow and to create projects that can also help other people. In computer science, this can be achieved through research and open-source software development.

I want to create libraries and APIs that are useful to everyone. Even small projects can leave a mark on the world. I hope to see these ideas grow into large communities, like the Apache projects. I want to build something similar with the BianchTech project, and for that I need to gain more knowledge in this field. With research and dedication, I believe I can build something meaningful and make it available to everyone as the result of my work.

The future of computing is uncertain, but I believe that by staying at the forefront of research, I will be prepared for the changes ahead.

All of this connects to my third goal: to contribute to society and leave my mark, even if it is a small one. I am not seeking fame or awards; I simply want to help the people around me.

With these goals in mind, I see my master’s degree as the perfect opportunity. I am conducting research in data science and big data, with an emphasis on machine learning and deep learning. My main focus is on classifiers, especially in concept drift problems. Even with the current AI boom, I believe there is still plenty of room for advances in these areas. My professor, Alceu, often compares mathematics and AI by saying that mathematics is an elderly lady, while AI is a young woman full of energy.

My research topic already has a publication on this blog (see this post), where I have made the paper available. It was never formally published, only archived in my university’s library, but I still like to share it even though I do not yet have definitive results regarding the new methodology being used.

In the next posts, I will describe my research areas in more detail and share what I have been studying and discovering.

Keep learning, Pedro ;)