The Engineer's Plan

First published in April 2022, this book is aimed at engineering students and people preparing to enter the profession. It offers practical guidance, techniques and approaches for reaching professional goals efficiently. Readers who want to work in engineering will find explanations of how to get a research paper published, how to register copyright for software, and how the patent filing process works in India from start to finish.

The author also lays out sensible sequences of steps for readers who plan to pursue work outside engineering, including government and public sector service, academic careers, and business administration.

A central aim of the book is to prompt readers to examine their own assumptions and to build a deliberate roadmap toward what they want to accomplish.

Ravin Kumar, born on 21 August 1993, views life through many lenses at once. He works as an artist, engineer, researcher, inventor, economist, poet, mathematician, ethical hacker, game developer, author and writer. Alongside this book he has written Philosophy of the Trident, which also exists in a Hindi edition titled त्रिशूल दर्शन. He runs the YouTube channel CodeBeings, which shares knowledge about computer programming.

His technical output is wide-ranging. It includes a computer programming language, a ransomware program and its antivirus software, developed as an academic cybersecurity project, and the Adaptive Base Representation Theorem in computing and mathematics. He has also published several theorems in geometry and pure mathematics, two research papers in theoretical economics ("Addictive Auctions: Using Lucky-Draw and Gambling Addiction to Increase Participation during Auctioning" and "The Economics of Sovereignty: Phased Virtual Currency and Coalition Reserve Entity"), and research in artificial intelligence and deep learning on the APTx Neuron and APTx Activation Function. Further work covers a quantum computing algorithm, a cyclic scheduling algorithm for operating systems, and a modified counting sort. He holds several patents in artificial intelligence and electronics, began his career in AI, and continues to work in that field. Outside science and technology, he paints, writes poetry in English and Hindi, writes short stories such as "The River Between Us: Because Even Rivers Choose Love", and composes shayari. He says these pursuits have broadened his understanding of the world.

From August 2013 until 31 October 2021, he carried out a project of living ten different life paths. Details of the project are available on his website.