Andrew Ng

Published by Daniel at April 1, 2023

Andrew Ng is a trailblazer scientist who has transformed deep learning with his algorithms and is a pioneer in online education...

Andrew Ng is a British-American computer scientist and businessman born in the United Kingdom in 1976. He is considered a very prominent figure in the machine learning field and is also a pioneer in online education. He led the Google research team on artificial intelligence, Google Brain, and is passionate about offering access to quality education, launching in 2012 what is considered one of the best online learning platforms, Coursera. He spent his early years between Hong Kong and Singapore, where he graduated from high school at Raffles Institution in 1992. Afterward, he moved to the United States and earned his triple undergraduate degree in computer science, statistics, and economics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1997.(1,2)

The following year, he obtained a master’s degree from MIT and built a web-search engine for a research paper, considered the precursor to ResearchIndex, and in 2002 received his Ph.D. from the University of California after presenting his thesis on “Shaping and policy search in reinforcement learning.”.(1,2)

A multitasking leader

Dr. Ng has occupied several positions worldwide in the most crucial research labs and AI companies. He founded and led the Google Brain project. During his time in Baidu, Ng was Vice President and Chief Scientist of the AI Group. Andrew Ng is also a Member of the Board Of Directors and Chairman of two AI startup companies: “drive.ai,” focused on self-driving, and “Woebot Labs,” and founder of “deeplearning.ai” and “Landing AI” and General Partner of “AI Fund.”(2,3)

A lifetime of innovation

While at Carnegie Mellon, Andrew Ng started his first approach to research on artificial intelligence. He conducted several projects at the AT&T Bell Labs on machine learning, primarily attracted to reinforcement learning, model selection, and features. Between 1998 to 2003, Ng worked with other scientists, including David M. Blei and Michael I. Jordan, on natural language processing, introducing a statistical model called “Latent Dirichlet allocation,” which is used for deep reinforcement learning for drone navigation. Along with other notable research contributions to the AI world, he was part of multiple projects in the area of robotics and autonomous driving, including the Stanford Autonomous Helicopter project. He led the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Robot (STAIR) project, a precursor of a software platform for open-source robotics. However, his most famous contribution is his work on Google Brain. Ng developed large-scale artificial neural networks with one billion parameters that it learned by itself to identify cats on YouTube without being told what to look for, gaining the name of the “Google cat” project. His algorithms addressed the issue of learning from sparse data, and his work has inspired many researchers worldwide.(3,4,5,6)

Top-notch in teaching

Dr. Ng’s contributions to education are a distinctive and remarkable area in his professional profile. In 2002, Dr. Andrew joined Stanford University’s staff as an assistant professor in the department and escalated gradually to associate and adjunct professor, his current position, in 2015. During these years at Stanford, he also performed as Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (also known as SAIL), mentoring at least 60 students, including Ph.D., M.Sc., and postdoctoral students. Andrew Ng is responsible for the Stanford Engineering Everywhere project, which currently offers nine free computer science, artificial intelligence, and linear systems and optimization courses. The most popular achievement of this mastermind is the Co-Founding of Coursera in 2012. At the moment of its launching, a famous “Machine Learning” course dictated by himself at Stanford was made available and counts, nowadays, more than 3.9 million enrollments, the most popular course offered in the platform as of October 2020. Furthermore, 3 out of the Top 10 Coursera programs were designed and instructed by Dr. Ng.(2,7,8,9,10)

If nowadays is this good…

Despite being the former director of SAIL, Dr. Andrew currently leads a group of Stanford researchers focusing on artificial intelligence, specifically machine learning and deep learning. After Coursera‘s success as a platform, Andrew Ng founded Deeplearning.ai in 2017. This endeavor designs and creates educational tools about the diverse uses of AI, including several specializations, TensorFlow training, and even AI for Medicine. The AI for Medicine specialization comprises three courses: AI for medical diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment; the latter launched in May 2020. Additionally, Dr. Ng continues to exert functions as Chairman of the Board of Woebot Labs Inc., Chairman of Coursera, General partner in AI Fund (startup AI venture capital and strategic AI consulting services), and Founder and CEO of Landing AI (enterprise for AI training and software as service).(2,11,12,13,14)

The AI for Medicine specialization comprises three courses: AI for medical diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment; the latter launched in May 2020. Additionally, Dr. Ng continues to exert functions as Chairman of the Board of Woebot Labs Inc., Chairman of Coursera, General partner in AI Fund (startup AI venture capital and strategic AI consulting services), and Founder and CEO of Landing AI (enterprise for AI training and software as service).(2,11,12,13,14)

Worldwide Wonderful Writing

At this point, it is clear that these contributions to AI and education ease access to AI knowledge for the general population. This motivation fueled him to write his book titled: Machine Learning Yearning. Its objective is to make widely available a correct and systematic approach to structuring AI projects. Afterward, he published another book called “AI Transformation Playbook,” which contains Andrew Ng’s insights about how former projects catalyzed AI evolution in renowned companies such as Google Brain and Baidu AI Department.(15,16)

Afterward, he published another book called “AI Transformation Playbook,” which contains Andrew Ng’s insights about how former projects catalyzed AI evolution in renowned companies such as Google Brain and Baidu AI Department.(15,16)

Achievements that don't go unnoticed

With such a successful career, Dr. Ng has earned important distinctions. Some include CNN‘s 10 Thinkers, Time‘s 100 Most influential people, Fortune‘s 40 under 40 in 2013, Fast Company‘s Most Creative People in Business in 2014, and World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders.(17,18)