Reflecting on 2021 and What’s new in 2022!

Well you know how much someone procrastinates, when that person writes a reflection of the past year in April of the following year! But to be really honest, I was having a roller-coaster of a ride during the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022. Let’s start!

A huge win

Filed a patent for my machine learning model and project. A major win for my department and Citi APAC.
September, 2021

New role

Got selected for a new role of Data Product Management within Citi, with a level up.
November, 2021

Singapore VTL & wedding plans

Singapore opens up Vaccinated Travel Lane with India and with that, my wedding plans resumes. Decided to tie the knot on 25th January!
December, 2021

Travel to india after 2 years!

Amongst rising covid cases and other uncertainties, we managed to travel to India and meet our families after 2 long years!
January, 2022

omicron punches in the gut

Omicron wave keeps things uncertain until last minute but we managed to pull off a very beautiful intimate destination wedding. Thankfully, we & all the guests were safe.
January, 2022

Back to Singapore

Omicron wave ebbed immediately after our wedding. Spent some really quality time with our families and bid goodbye to them!
February, 2022

So you see, how eventful last few months have been! Some of the events in the timeline require a bit of expansion.

The patent revolves around a new technique to identify PII content in the columnar databases. I will share more details about the patent when I can, currently I am not allowed to disclose the details of the project outside Citibank. Personally, the journey of documenting each and every artifact of the project, talking, explaining the technicalities and sharing the project to the 1 downs of the CEO, the lawyers, was more fascinating experience for me than the filing of the patent itself.

I eventually got an opportunity for a Data PM role within Citi. It’s Citibank’s APAC & EMEA marketing team that owns all the campaign intelligence, operations, and delivery. So who gets which offer, when and how, is all looked after my team including running experimentations. I will gradually share my projects, use cases, and my transition from data science to data product management.

Back to the personal stories. Last year, as November approached, we saw Singapore easing up border restrictions with other countries. When one fine day, we got the announcement that Singapore and India is setting up a travel bubble. That led us to resume our wedding preparation plans that were on-hold since last two years.

In hindsight, even a treacherous mountain road would shy away in the number of twists and turns that we saw until the day of our marriage. From my passport renewal troubles, India travel ban by my wife’s employer, to the exponential rise in Covid cases, we had quite a lot of drama in our lives. But even so, meeting our families was the one thing that we were looking forward to, quite eagerly. And when that happened, there were a lot of emotions, happy emotions!

And finally, we had the big day, the day we were preparing for since years! Here’s a glimpse.

After the wedding, we travelled approximately 5 cities, socializing with families, friends. Soon, it was time for us to leave for Singapore.

We spent some of our best days in India, during our trip. 2021 was pretty rewarding, for both personal and professional front. I forged some of the best memories, traveled home to meet family after years of border restrictions, married my life partner (twice), and even walked more than 600 kms (the image below captures runs from only 1 app, I couldn’t collate the data from other apps at the time of writing this blog).

Looking forward to a rocking Q2-4 of 2022!

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