Andrew Ng, who co-founded Coursera, driven by desire to improve world

Students wondering where a life in scientific research might lead them should ponder the career of eminent scientist Andrew Ng.

The 39-year-old Ng, who was born in Britain to Hong Kong parents, works simultaneously in the corporate sector and academia. He's chief scientist at Baidu Research, an institution owned by the search engine giant that's based in Silicon Valley, California. At Baidu, Ng is conducting research into computer science subjects such as image and speech recognition. Ng is also associate professor at the department of computer science and the department of electrical engineering at Stanford University, California, a private research institution.

Ng teaches machine learning at Stanford, a subject which aims to develop computers that simulate human thought processes. But he's probably best known for co-founding the popular massive online open course (MOOC) Coursera in 2012, a for-profit project that was the result of his after-hours research into online education at Stanford.

There are differences in conducting research in the corporate sector and in an educational institution, but the two experiences are more similar than is commonly thought, he says. Both can offer a high degree of freedom, although university research can be heavily constrained by the availability of funding. Those conducting research should take a good look at what they are trying to achieve, and then weigh up which approach will best facilitate the achievement of their goal, Ng says.

"I am always mission driven, and I always ask myself what I want to be working on, what project excites me the most. I figure that out, and then find the best place to do that work.

"The mission that excited me a few years ago was universal access to education. I thought that starting a new company was the best way to execute that mission, so I formed Coursera. But after this, I wanted to return to the artificial intelligence mission and develop new technologies that will have a lot of impact on people. I decided that Baidu's research environment would be the best way to execute that mission. No university is the best place to execute every mission, and no one company the best place to execute every mission."

As a computer scientist, Ng says he wants to transition the results of his research into products and get them out into the world as soon as they are ready, so that they can benefit end users. Universities are seldom good at making this transition, he says, which is why it's a good idea to work in the private sector sometimes.