Meet the Interns: Sohail Lokhandwala
Manager: Trish O'Grady (@Trish)
Project Lead: Krzysztof Jozefowicz (@Krzysztof)
Sohail Lokhandwala is a senior majoring in Computer Science at the University of California, San Diego. This summer, he is working as a Machine Learning Development Intern on the JMP Development Team.
During his internship at JMP, Sohail is working with the Localization Team in Development Operations to create Neural Machine Translation (NMT) models. JMP will use these models to augment translation resources and processes.
Krzysztof Jozefowicz, Globalization Architect says, "Over the years, we have accumulated huge repositories of JMP software and documentation translations performed by human translators. Sohail used those translations to train a machine translation engine that "speaks" the JMP language. These customized engines produce more accurate translation output than off-the-shelf MT solutions like the generic translate.google.com. Translations that are consistent with the terminology and style we use at JMP require less posting-editing; hence, we will improve the speed and quality and reduce the cost of our future translation projects."
This project consists of three major phases: data preparation, training custom models, and evaluation of the results. Sohail is using the Google AutoML cloud solution in his work. He has made good use of his programming skills to create and cleanse the training data using our existing translations. He then used this data to train our custom models. Two test projects have been delivered to translation teams to evaluate the quality of the machine translations generated from the Google AutoML models. "These two projects focused on JMP software user interface strings and documentation, but the NMT models that Sohail is creating can also be leveraged by other divisions in JMP that translate content." says Trish O'Grady, Senior Manager of JMP Localization. "A test project is underway to translate the transcript for Module 1 of the Statistical Thinking for Industrial Problem Solving (STIPS) course using the German Google AutoML model. Mia Stephens recruited Martin Demel to review the translations and provide feedback."
Sohail is also training another engine (OpenNMT) to benchmark the results against Google AutoML.
Let’s learn a little more about Sohail.
Interns Angelina, Michael, Vitesh and Sohail getting boba after the first day of Internpalooza.Interns Angelina, Michael, Vitesh and Sohail getting boba after the first day of Internpalooza.
What department are you working in?
Localization
What is your job title/position?
Machine Learning Developer Intern
What made you want to intern at JMP?
The intersection of machine learning and working with many languages combined with an amazing work culture at JMP made me super excited about working here!
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Nuclear Chemist
What's something most people don't know about you?
I love skateboarding, surfing, and going on long drives up and down the coast.
Of the places you've visited, what's your favorite?
Big Sur was one of the most beautiful places I've ever visited. The sunset colors are breathtaking and the landscape is truly surreal.
What are you most excited about this internship?
I'm extremely excited to see the final results that we get from training all of the models for each target language and I also can't wait to come back for the intern expo and meet everyone in person again!
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Sohail at the beach during a sunset.Sohail at the beach during a sunset.What do you hope to accomplish during this internship?
I hope to learn more about the practical applications of machine learning and how it is being incorporated as a feasible solution into various different systems.
If you could splurge on one item and cost was no object, what would you buy?
Plane tickets, I'd love to see the world!
What would be the title of your autobiography?
Thinking in Different Languages
What advice would you give prospective intern applicants?
Definitely apply!! You won't regret it!
Find Sohail on LinkedIn!
Thank you to everyone who has left kind comments welcoming me to JMP and a special thanks to Abrah (@abrah) for putting together this wonderful article!
I'm very much looking forward to sharing all that I've been working on at the SAS Intern Expo Poster Session and at my JMP Virtual Presentation. As Trish mentioned, these will be happening on August 2nd 9am-11am at the Global Education Center and on August 3rd 10-11am (during the JMP Dev Meeting) respectively.
I hope everyone is able to attend and I'm excited to share even more results from our ongoing projects. Thank you to everyone once again!
Thank you for working on the test translation for STIPS @Sohail! Can't wait to see the results, as this could potentially open the doors to translations of STIPS to other core JMP languages! Exciting and valuable work!
@Sohail we feel so fortunate to have you on our team! You've done some amazing work in a very short amount of time.
Sohail will be discussing his project at the SAS Intern Expo on August 2nd from 9am to 11am. Be sure and swing by and check out his poster! On August 3rd he will give an overview of his project to JMP at the 10am JMP Dev meeting.
Cool answers Sohail! It's a pleasure working with you.
Fantastic! Look forward to learning more about your project and hearing about the model outcomes at Intern Expo.
Very cool project, Sohail. Welcome to JMP!
