In 2001, Arjun Jain arrived at the JEE exam in his classmate's father's car, accompanied by a security guard. However, he realized that the exam results could not be changed by special privileges, and he noted his experience in a LinkedIn post.
He shared that he was only able to answer a few questions in the examination hall, which immediately showed him a very low level of preparation. For two years, Jain focused all his efforts on preparing for the JEE, giving up hockey, quizzes, and debates. When his JEE performance was unsatisfactory, he planned to continue his preparation in Kota, but his family's financial situation did not allow it. Therefore, he enrolled in computer science studies at RV College of Engineering in Bangalore, and this decision became a turning point in his life.
At RV College, Jain did not limit himself to studying computer science only within his group; he actively sought knowledge outside of the curriculum. He took research papers from IEEE journals and began studying this field independently. After a year, he decided to retake the JEE directly from his hostel room. This time, he achieved a rank of 3363 and secured a spot in IIT. However, a snag arose: he was offered a position in petrochemical engineering at IIT-BHU, which he declined.
The reason for the refusal was that he had already completed a one-year course in computer science and did not want to start over in a field that did not interest him. He decided to finish his degree at RV College. For him, starting over would mean additional time and money spent on studies that would not excite him. Ultimately, this decision moved him away from the IIT he once dreamed of attending.
Jain's journey did not stop there. He obtained a PhD in Computer Science from Saarland University. Following this, he conducted postdoctoral research at the Courant Institute at New York University (NYU). At NYU, he worked on research related to deep learning and human pose recognition. He collaborated with researchers such as Yann LeCun and Chris Bregler. His work was presented at major conferences, including ICLR, NeurIPS, and CVPR.
The results of his research found application in industry, leading to the creation of the company Perceptive Code. Later, Mercedes acquired the intellectual property of this company. After this, Jain's career continued at Apple, where in 2015 he worked as a senior researcher in the Project Titan team, focusing on computer vision and sensor systems for vehicles, including driver and passenger monitoring technologies.
However, an event occurred in 2016 that may have touched him deeply. Approximately 14 years after his first JEE attempt, Jain began working at IIT Bombay as an assistant professor. He felt the irony of fate: he was called by IIT Bombay not for an appointment to any position, but for teaching. Now he was teaching students computer vision, taking an exam in which he himself had failed to succeed.
For many years, Jain taught at IIT Bombay and mentored two postgraduate students. One of these students, Rishab Dabral, later became a professor and group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics, where Jain was interning. In his post, Jain noted how striking this similarity was: his student teaches where he studied, and he taught where he could not study. Today, Jain is the founder and chief scientist of Fast Code AI, working in both academia and AI research.
