Ali Gowani Discovers Human Side of Technology
Ali Gowani, MSDS ‘20, is the type of person who doesn’t coast when he’s interested in something—he investigates further.
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Ali received his bachelor's degree from Southern Methodist University after relocating to the United States. He opted to pursue a career as a systems integrator and joined a technology management consulting firm working for a global auto manufacturer client. “I was working with various executives from chief HR officer to chief information officer and had a team of 20 consultants in robotic process automation, data center migration, and marketing strategy. At that point, I decided to get deeper into the sciences.” He decided to pursue his master's in data science.
Choosing the MSDS at Northwestern University
He chose Northwestern’s data science program after consulting with some MSDS alumni. “I was drawn to the technical rigor of the program.” He decided to enroll in the program full-time – six months later, the pandemic struck. Northwestern classes pivoted to a virtual format, and the world grounded to a halt.
Even still, the encouragement and support from his professors were a transformative experience, like Anil Chaturvedi’s machine learning class. “There was a different model to learn every week, whether it was focused on supervised learning, unsupervised learning, or reinforcement learning." The work was daunting, but Professor Chaturvedi’s support carried him through. “I remember being down on myself a little bit during the pandemic and Professor Chaturvedi being very inspirational. He said, ‘You're worth a lot more than you're giving yourself credit for.’ I appreciate that even when the course was very difficult, he made it feel like ‘You can easily do this.’”
Ali says he benefited from extensive input in Bill Mickelson’s supervised learning course. “Many professors would provide a couple of lines, but he took a lot of time in providing feedback.” And he credits Noah Gift’s computer vision course with holistically preparing him for his next career steps.
“When students ask him how to prepare themselves for interviews or how to pivot into a new industry, he gives them a three-prong approach,” Ali says. “You need to get a degree from a prestigious university like Northwestern University…check. You need to be able to show the world that you actually can do what you learn, so get a certification…check. Third, you need to be able to showcase your work. So put it on GitHub or other places where you can demonstrate what you learned and how it can be applied…check.”
Ali’s capstone project was particularly influential, in which he conducted a case with an AI start-up, AmplifAI. He contacted AmplifAI's founder and CEO, Sean Minter, to see if his team could work with his firm's data. “He was very gracious and very generous,” Ali says. “He said, ‘Sure, come over, we'll give you data. You can see what comes out of it.’ What I'm also happy to share is that after the capstone, Sean asked me to stay with the organization, which I did.”
Launching data science program student leadership group
An avid volunteer for organizations like the Aga Khan Education Board for Central United States and his local Texas NPR affiliates, Ali wanted to give back to the MSDS program. Thus, he helped launch the program’s student leadership council, creating a governance structure and kicking off events with organizations like Boston Consulting Group. “I wanted to look at how else I can contribute to our students, alumni, and the community at large,” he says. “I am happy to say, as of this year, I passed the reins peacefully to the new president and the new organization, and they're doing phenomenal things.”
MSDS student leadership council at 2019 Northwestern University symposium (photo provided by Ali Gowani)
Ali eventually leveraged his degree and his experience into a role as a senior technical program manager in Amazon Robotics where his team is working on advanced robotics and next-gen automation. “Leaders have to get out of their peripheral understanding of technology and have a much more intimate understanding of how data functions, how it flows, our biases within it, and how we make decisions based on more than just looking at charts,” he says. “Getting deeper into the sciences allowed me to get deeper into the technology.”
When he’s not immersed in technology, Ali spends time with his two children, hoping to ensure future students can benefit from the type of education he’s had by helping set up an educational childcare facility in Farmers Branch, Texas. “This is something that we are putting our blood, sweat, and tears into because it will groom students to help others, to contribute to the societies in which they live, and to hopefully make the world a better place.”
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