Journey off the beaten path
Growing up in London, Khanh’s connection to Vietnam came mainly from his mother and trips back to visit family. He always had a desire to understand more about his roots.
In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, which was also the time Khanh completed his Economics degree at Cambridge University. From his background in Economics, he realized the power of AI in solving economic and social problems, opening up new directions that he had never thought of. At that time, the UK was almost completely locked down, making starting a career or switching to a new field challenging. But at the same time, Khanh realized that this was the right time to pursue what he truly wanted without being overwhelmed by career pressure.
Khanh often learns Vietnamese through a popular podcast channel on YouTube. By chance, he came across a podcast episode featuring Dr. Nguyen Xuan Phong, Director of AI (CAIO) of FPT Software, FPT Corporation. In the video, Dr. Phong shares about the potential of AI in Vietnam, large-scale AI projects at FPT, and especially the FPT AI Residency youth talent training program.
That moment became the "door" that helped Khanh see a clearer future, and at the same time realized his long-standing desire: to return to Vietnam, not only to connect more deeply with his homeland, but also to pursue the field he was increasingly interested in - AI.
Stefan Van Khanh at FPT AI Residency.
Stepping stone for great aspirations
Returning to Vietnam and joining FPT AI Residency, although he had no AI background, under the guidance of leading experts, the support of talented colleagues and the opportunity to cooperate with prestigious research institutes such as MILA, he quickly achieved his first successes. “AI Residency not only trains but also encourages the spirit of engaging in difficult problems and creating real value, inspiring me to confidently pursue AI in Vietnam,” Khanh shared.
To date, Van Khanh has become the lead author of two scientific papers accepted and presented at the world's most prestigious AI conferences - NeurIPS and ICLR - which gather the leading minds in the field, meaning his research is recognized by the international academic community.
Stefan and the other “AI Residents” join in presenting the science project.
His paper “Elliptical Attention” proposes a new approach to building Transformers (a deep neural network architecture widely used in AI) that reduces Representation Collapse and increases Robustness (the stability, resilience to noise and data changes) for the model. Meanwhile, his second paper “Tight Clusters Make Specialized Experts” explores how to organize deep learning models in a way that increases the specialization of the components in the neural network, helping to improve the performance of AI systems in handling complex tasks.
At NeurIPS 2024, Stefan presented the paper Elliptical Attention as lead author.
Sharing about his journey at FPT AI Residency, Khanh expressed: “Here, I not only learned from my Vietnamese colleagues but was also convinced by their spirit of conquering AI, motivating me to set higher standards for myself. Above all, thanks to AI Residency, I found new meaning and direction in my career when I returned to my homeland.”
After graduating from FPT AI Residency, Khanh will pursue a PhD at a prestigious university, with the aspiration of becoming a scientific researcher at an industrial laboratory. With his background, Khanh believes that he can contribute to the global AI research community, inspiring the young generation of Vietnam to follow in his AI journey.
“Keep an open mind when you start researching. At first, a topic may seem strange or unrelated to your expertise, but the deeper you dig, the more unexpected connections you will find with your passion and knowledge. Machine Learning is an ever-evolving field, constantly absorbing ideas from many different disciplines. Sometimes, it is the outsider perspectives that lead to the most important breakthroughs in your career,” Khanh advised future students.
FPT
Comment (0)