About The Author & Technical Reviewer

Aruna Chakkirala, a seasoned technical leader and currently serves as an AI Solutions Architect at Microsoft. She was instrumental in the early adoption of Generative AI and constantly strives to keep pace with the evolving domain. As a Data Scientist, she has built Supervised and Unsupervised models to address cybersecurity problems. She holds a patent for her pioneering work in community detection for DNS querying. Her technical expertise spans multiple domains, including Networks, Security, Cloud, Big Data, and AI. She believes that the success of real-world AI applications increasingly depends on well- defined architectures across all encompassing domains. Her current interests include Generative AI, applications of LLMs and SLMs, Causality, Mechanistic Interpretability, and Explainability tools.

In her two-decade career, she has developed expertise in scale, security, and strategy at various organizations such as Infoblox, Yahoo, Nokia, EFI, and Verisign. Aruna has led highly successful teams and thrives on working with cutting-edge technologies. She is a frequent technical and keynote speaker, panelist, and an active blogger. She contributes to community open groups and serves as a guest faculty member at premier academic institutes. Outside of work, she is an avid reader and enjoys creative writing. A passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, she is actively involved in GHCI, LeanIn, and WITI communities.

Aruna holds an M.Tech in Software Systems from BITS Pilani and a Master's in Computer Applications from Goa University. She is also an IIMB alumna and has earned certifications in Data Science from IISc Bangalore, Azure Data Science, Azure Data Engineering, and Google Professional Machine Learning Engineer.

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ABOUT TECHNICAL REVIEWER

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Nehaa Bansal is a trailblazing thought leader and data scientist with a strong passion for early-stage innovation. Her extensive experience across diverse sectors including banking, finance, telecom, and insurance has honed her expertise in developing impactful predictive models. She graduated with top honors in Computer Science and holds a Master's in Data Science from BITS Pilani, which provided a strong foundation for her career.

Nehaa's professional life is guided by core values of ownership, prioritizing people, and understanding the "why" behind every action. She embraces an agile approach, acting quickly, learning from failures, iterating continuously, and prioritizing fairness. Driven by a passion for solving user problems, Nehaa combines her expertise in analytics, product strategy, and leadership to develop innovative solutions, consistently pushing boundaries and demonstrating unwavering dedication. Nehaa's commitment to continuous learning, inclusivity, and collaboration, combined with her dedication and empathy, makes her an inspiring leader driving positive change in technology and data science.