Avijit Thawani

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thawani@usc.edu

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Filmmaking

I’ve made a couple of short films and videos in college:

  1. Stoppping by Woods - a long short film on conversations. 60k views last I checked!
  2. World War 2 jet in our campus - a documentary on a very rare artefact inside IIT (BHU) and the fascinating story behind it.
  3. 10 ways LC and Facebook is the same thing - a comedy sketch on how our college hotspot resembles Facebook-ing
  4. The Last Date - a cute short flick, that is yet to be compiled and released!

Data viz

I love playing around with data. Some of my data science and visualization projects have been:

  1. Intranet portal of student pics (FaceTrash)
  2. Samsung employee entry/exit data (Knox)
  3. Internet usage statistics in campus (Squish)
  4. Singapore weather data modeling (SUTD Smart City)
  5. US 2020 elections Voter Guide with USC Annenberg Media

Writing

I write articles, stories, newspapers, blogs, songs and novels. Some of them are:

  1. Published Articles: I have published in The Print and ISI News.
  2. Sci-fi novel: DNA Revolution, a story of Venezuela embroilled in a politico-military crisis on the eve of a major breakthrough in genetics.
  3. Short stories book: Martyrs’ Horizon (will upload a soft copy soon!)
  4. Newspaper: Articles for the college newsletter Quest at IIT BHU, and the school newsletter at City Montessori School
  5. Blogs: I have some old ones on Medium and many newer ones on Notion.

Miscellaneous

  1. Books: I love books but am a slow reader. Trying to update my list on Goodreads
  2. Street Play: on blood donation at a slum near campus
  3. Dance: ranging from Bhangra to David Guetta and Govinda dance, we did it all!
  4. Robotics: stood 1st at a robot making and handling event - the best day in my life. If I scripted the day, I couldn’t have made it any better (unless you allow me to script Emma Watson into the story)
  5. Skit: on media corruption. I played Rahul Gandhi!
  6. Contraption: at a contest called Goldberg’s Alley. For those who don’t know what a contraption is, think of the set of traps that Tom often set up for Jerry to step into. One action leads to another and finally resulting in a reaction, which is usually Tom-caught-up-in-his-own-trap.
  7. Rap songs in Hindi and English, inspired from Kartavyo, the Sanskrit-English rap song by Arihant and Apoorv
  8. Stand-up Comedy: at the Lit Club and The Tripling Bistro
  9. Crafts: I’ve helped my friend Akash in co-founding a startup called HandyPresents which makes persoanlised handmade gifts for special occasions. Think of the ‘Handwritten Greeting Cards’ company as in the movie ‘Her’, but with more than just letters! We aggregate tinkering Instagram-ers and local craftsmen, with just the right amount of input from your end to deliver a one-of-a-kind experience for your loved ones.
  10. Sketching: I and my brother Siddharth Thawani loved cartooning as kids (he still does) and sketched several comics.

Travel

I’ve been around a lot, and wish to continue to do so. Some of the cities I’ve been to are (most recent first):