Computer Vision News - December 2016

CVN: What is the most important thing you learned from your own teachers? Paragios: They taught me hard work and dedication to objectives . Set your target, keep investing and never give up. Even if you fail, at least you did your best and have no regrets. CVN: Failure is certainly part of the life of a scientist. Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don’t. Did you see any of your colleagues or students very deeply affected by failure? Paragios: Yes. I had several cases of PhD students whose first paper was rejected and their whole world collapsed . You should be able to handle these kinds of things. No one is perfect and failures are part of life. CVN: We are not all equally strong. How can we help younger students who will read your interview gain enough confidence to overcome failures? Paragios: The important thing is that you do your best. Each of us has different strengths. Some people are good at some things, other people are good at something else. Once you assure yourself that it is possible to achieve that goal and invest the time and the effort to reach the objective, then it’s not a failure, since you did your best. Maybe their objective was too high or the timing not right. If you did your best, then you can move on, because you fulfilled the requirement. We can’t meet our objectives all the time, but that doesn’t stop us from submitting papers to the next conference, even if papers are not all of exceptional quality. CVN: The largest companies are already exploring the hottest topics of scientific research. How can small companies or startups find a place in research and make a breakthrough in technology? “ I had several cases of PhD students whose first paper was rejected and their whole world collapsed ” Computer Vision News Guest 7 Guest “ If you did your best, then you can move on, because you fulfilled the requirement ”