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With a passion for service instilled by her community-minded parents, Priyanka embarked on a mission to leverage technology for the betterment of society.
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, individuals like Priyanka Kukreja stand out as beacons of empowerment and innovation. Hailing from Ballabgarh, a small town near Faridabad, Haryana, Priyanka’s journey from a determined young student to an accomplished AI expert is both inspiring and impactful. With a passion for service instilled by her community-minded parents, Priyanka embarked on a mission to leverage technology for the betterment of society. Let’s delve into the remarkable story of Priyanka Kukreja and her relentless pursuit of using AI to uplift communities.
I am Priyanka Kukreja, hailing from Ballabgarh, a small town near Faridabad, Haryana. Growing up, I was surrounded by the spirit of community service. My parents, hard-working entrepreneurs in the morning and community champions in the evening, never spared a chance to give back, whether it was organizing hygiene product drives, spearheading blood donation camps, or running slum improvement projects. Their dedication instilled a deep belief in me to work hard and serve the people around us. So, naturally, when I became a Software Engineer, I had a mission to leverage technology to empower and uplift my community.
While growing up, technology rapidly changed the business horizon, fueling my decision to pursue a unique path: a Bachelor’s in Computer Science and a Master’s in Economics from BITS-Pilani. As the first engineer in my family, let alone the first woman engineer, the initial hurdles I faced were steep. When I arrived at BITS-Pilani in 2011, I was underprepared for the technical rigor. Undeterred, I became my own champion. I spent every extra moment – evenings, weekends, vacations, even college festivals – diligently building my foundation. My dedication paid off when I landed one of only two internship spots at Microsoft’s India Development Center in 2014, chosen from a pool of 400 applicants. This internship exposed me to Artificial Intelligence (AI), where I used it to empower millions of businesses and make their technology footprint more efficient. While I had initially focused on backend software engineering, AI’s critical role in the upcoming technology revolution was undeniable. This sparked my interest in pursuing higher education in the United States, the hub for AI innovation. I was thrilled to receive acceptances from several top US universities, but Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) stood out, where I started studying from 2016 onwards. Their longstanding interdisciplinary approach to research in AI, particularly in Machine Learning (ML), perfectly aligned with my academic interests. Looking back, my journey has been about empowering myself with education to make a real difference in my career.
At Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), I tackled harmful content (nudity, scams, weapons sales, and more) and made social media safer for our users via Augmented Machine Learning. This was one of the most impactful and personally rewarding accomplishments in my career. The sheer scale of the challenge was immense. India has over half a billion users who interact with the Meta platform (Facebook, Instagram, etc.), and roughly 100 million posts are created on any given day. Even if 0.01% of the content was harmful, it translated to impacting the experience and safety of millions of people each day! So, it was critical to ensure a safe digital experience for everyone and reduce harm online. I worked at Meta from 2018-2022. As the Technical Lead for this initiative, I leveraged Augmented ML to combine the power of machines with human intelligence and built a model that could adapt and generalize across diverse cultural contexts. These models were powered by some of the most massive datasets on earth, consisting of trillions of examples of user interaction with each piece of content on Facebook and Instagram. Once trained, these models could identify patterns indicative of harmful content with high accuracy. But accuracy wasn’t the sole metric. I meticulously balanced it with precision to minimize the accidental removal of legitimate content. This involved leveraging transfer learning and active learning to prioritize evaluation of the ambiguous cases flagged by human reviewers. Presently, I am working with Stripe as a software engineer.
The goal of reducing harm for our users had several challenges along the way. Since the adversarial actors constantly devised new tactics to bypass detection, what is considered harmful kept changing rapidly (and in unexpected ways) over time. Here, my expertise in adversarial learning came into play. I continuously tested our models against adversarial examples – synthetic content specifically crafted to evade detection. This iterative process of ‘red-teaming’ (i.e attack and defense) kept our models on the cutting edge and enabled me to keep our users safe.
Ultimately, my success in removing digital harm wasn’t measured solely in technical terms. It was about creating a tangible impact. Every piece of harmful content removed translated to a safer online experience for millions. I witnessed this firsthand through the feedback of my local community members. My journey at Meta Platforms solidified my belief in the power of responsible AI. Now that I am equipped with the necessary technical expertise, I plan to continue using Machine Learning as a force for the good of our communities.
Unfortunately, the tech industry’s gender gap continues to be a stubborn problem. Women, despite making up half the population, remain vastly underrepresented (around 10%). This is especially true in regions like Haryana and Punjab with historical disadvantages for women. And even as numbers improve, the pace is slow. In addition to the representation issue, women also struggle to reach leadership roles. To address these problems, I’ve championed women engineers through sponsorships and mentorship, both formally and informally. But change requires a collective effort. And I believe we need more allies to tackle this structural issue.
My biggest source of peace in life is “sewa” (i.e., service). As a kid, I used to collect donations for old age homes. And for the last few years, I have been volunteering in food banks and mentoring early-career women engineers. On Sunday evenings, you’d find me with my cleaning supplies making my home sparkling clean to de-stress myself. Occasionally, I also enjoy making still-life oil and acrylic paintings when I have some spare time.
Source: Indian Express
