Have you ever wondered why backend system integration is such a challenge after a company acquisition? It’s not just about merging people and processes — often, it’s a problem of merging data. Recently, at OptiSol’s Data Labs, we tackled this issue head-on for a waste management & recycling conglomerate.

This conglomerate has been growing through acquisitions, riding the wave of consolidation in the industrial waste management business in the US. Each acquisition brings a new set of backend systems to integrate, and although these systems may look similar on the surface, they have just enough differences to make integration a long and painful process. The database schemas, entities, and relationships — what we call the Ontology — often require months, sometimes years, of manual mapping and tinkering by database developers and subject matter experts.

So what is Ontology, you ask? At its core, Ontology is a collection of entities and their relationships. Imagine it as a blueprint that tells you not just what data exists but how different pieces of data relate to one another. With RS, every acquisition brings a new Ontology into play, and the tricky part is that each Ontology is similar but different enough to resist easy integration. This is where Generative AI comes into the picture.

We’re building a Generative AI-based Ontology Mapping tool called OM Mapper — the name might be simple, but its mission is anything but! The OM Mapper aims to learn how an enterprise’s ontology connects to a newly acquired company’s ontology, handling the integration that would normally require a lot of manual labor. In some cases, the mapping is straightforward — tables and column names match easily. But in other cases, you need a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the data values themselves to figure out how things should be connected. Many times the there are many-to-one or one-to-many mappings. Categorical data needs to be converted to numeric data types or vice versa. Our OM Mapper is designed to deal with these nuances, applying seven different mapping rules ranging from simple direct matches to complex semantic matches.

We’re already seeing some promising results — OM Mapper is managing to map about 80 to 85% of columns accurately. This is a huge leap compared to manual integration work, cutting down both the time and effort involved. And it’s not just the waste management industry that can benefit from this. Imagine the purchasing industry, where products across different geographies need to be mapped to streamline catalogs. Or the healthcare industry, where illness and treatment codes vary across standards and borders, making it difficult for health records to be shared when patients move. Ontology mapping could help bridge those gaps too.

We built our MVP on OpenAI 4.0 mini, but it’s flexible — it could be adapted to work with other models like Claude Sonnet, Llama, or Mistral. We’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible. Every new industry and every new challenge is a chance to push the boundaries of what Ontology mapping can do.

What industries do you think would benefit from Ontology mapping? We’re curious and would love to hear your ideas. The potential applications are only limited by our imagination — and sometimes, our domain knowledge. Let’s bridge those gaps, one Ontology at a time.

When the dawn broke on the 3rd August 2022, the news of OptiSol leasing an 8 Acre land in Vadapalanji IT Park in Madurai made to the headlines everywhere! OptiSol is the 8th Company at the Vadapalnji IT Park to get the approval of the government alongside HCL, Chainsys, Pinnacle etc. created a stir on the Internet. The speed of travel for this news cycle surprised us. We didn’t have a chance to do a formal announcement before this cycle took over. Here is summary of our aspirations for Madurai.

Madurai has always been close to the hearts of all the directors of Optisol. Most of them are a native of Madurai. We have an office in Madurai in smaller set-up since 2014. Putting a Grade-A office has been a long-term dream for us. We were able to do this in our 2-floor rented space in Chinna Chokikulam in July 2022.

Early this year, we got an opportunity to lease space in the Vadapalanji, IT park ins 8 acre lots. We weren’t sure if we needed that big a space. The cost of land acquisition, construction is not cheap. It was an important financial decision for us. Since inception, we have always rented our office spaces. Starting with garages, rented houses to Vadapalani Office then to our Tiruvanmayur office, we moved a lot. We moved every few years. Every time we move, we leave the furnishing behind, and it was a sunk cost for us.

We aspire for our future office to be an integrated campus. With facilities not just to work, but to gather, relax, play and stay. We aspire to invite our remote team members to travel to our office, stay and collaborate with their team members as needed. We aspire to have auditoriums to host events. We aspire for lot of green spaces to allow us to relax and unwind. We aspire to have cafeteria to server tasty and healthy food for our team members. We aspire to host college interns from all over the country to come, stay and train. We aspire to build an OptiSol Finish School (perhaps a University) to teach young folks on industry focused skills. We aspire to be a good corporate citizen and give back to our community by providing vocational training for economically disadvantaged, rural, women, physically challenges and others who will gain from it.

For all these aspirations to come true we need a big space. These dreams and aspirations for the future has given us the courage to make the investment now and lease the 8-acre plot in the Vadapalanji IT Park in Madurai. We funded this investment by selling another piece of company owned land.

This wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work all our team members taking care of our clients day-in day-out. Our sincere gratitude to all OptiSolites who have contributed to our success. This is not just a bet on Madurai but a bet on how sustainable and prospective our business is. We have miles to go. However, this is a moment to congratulate all of us in what we achieved so far and continue our efforts and work together for a brighter future.

Our aspirations for Madurai was originally published in Life at OptiSol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I am a motorcyle enthusiast myself. There were few team members Sharth, Praneeth, Gowtham and Nizam with similar inclination. So 4 motorcycles and a maxicab headed out from Coimbatore.

We had a breakfast stop near Salem. The we made an impromtu visit to Varshini’s home in Salem and met her parents. From there we headed out to Yercaud. The original plan was to go to a camp site in Suryanelli near Munnar in Kerala. The plan shited to Yercaud to avoid the monsoon rains. The weather was nice till we reached Yercaud proper and we had a nice lunch at Shervoroy’s hotel. It was just past 2 pm. The campsite was about 30 min drive from there. The Sun was shining till then and it looked like a great day for camping.

As we started to ride to the campsite the weather turned dark and started drizzing. The motorcyclists went first armed with Google maps with me in the lead. As we turned off the main road, to an unpaved coffee estate road, the rain became heavier. The GPS said we were only a 5 min from the camp site. As we drove in the rain with the path getting more slippery, we realized the Google maps was off by a long way. We still have another 20 min or so of ride in slippery mud in which all the bikes stuggled. I rode a Honda CB500X, supposedly an adventure styled off-road bike. It didn’t matter and the going was quite tough. I was worried about the bikes as well as the maxi cab and an innova that was coming behind. It looked like only the bikes could traverse this path. Sharath, Nizam, JP, Gowthan, Bharath and Yaswanthan in the bikes were quite gung-ho. They were telling me that this will be memorable trip as we were riding gingerly on the mud path. I was getting worried if it will be memorable for the wrong reasons :) Finally we reached the top, dripping wet and waited for the maxi cab and innova to show up.

After close to an hour, there was no sign of the rest of the team. No cell phone signal. No way to communicate. So me, Nizam and Bharath headed by foot back the road looking for out lost comrades. I was quite worried about them stranded somewhere. After a half hour of walking, I found Vijay walking towards us. Apparently, the vehicles stopped at the beginning of the mud road itself. Thankfully a Bolero that came that way took the luggage and few of our team members up to the camp site. The rest of the team walked their way back to the campsite. We were joking if this was the ‘free’ trekking promised by the camp organizers.

Soon everyone reached the site. Had some hot beverages and snacks to fill us up. It was about 5 pm, the camp organizer asked if we want to go for a sunset hike. By now the the rain has stopped and the Sunshine returned. We were basking in the evening warmth. The hike was spectacular. I was a native of Idappadi (near Salem) and Yercaud is only 2 hours away from my home. I have visited Yercaud only about 100 times. But I have never seen this side of Yercaud. The vistas were green, the setting sun’s rays dazzling between the tall trees and leaves. The view at the top, looking down the valley of verdant green was amazing. Our earlier travails were long forgotten and we enjoyed the view and the comraderie of the team. Many of the team members are meeting each other for the first time in person.

After out sunset hike we returned to campsite in pitch black. We settled down in our campfire. Balamuruga and Poojah serenaded us singing and playing guitar. They sung many popular songs recommended by our team members. After that the team introduced themselves to everyone else. Not just telling their role in the team but about themselves, their personality, life moments that are rewarding, interesting or funny.

Then we had some sumptuous dinner. Everyone were tired and hungy. Either the food was really good or we were just really hungry. After dinner, many team members retired to their tents. A few young party animals partied till late into the night.

The next day was morning Sunrise hike. There was not much of a chance to see Sunrise since it was very cloudy. Not all the team members could join. Many slept it. A few of avid nature lovers amongst ourselves joined the hike. The hike was again amazing. The weather was nice and dry. The view was breath-taking.

From the Sunrise hike, the guide took us to a “waterfall”. It is is quotes because you can’t really call it a water fall. But just water falling through a culvert under a road bride. Yash said in Hindi that we have gotten robbed looking at this “waterfall” :). Regardless, the water was cold and pristine, coming from the recent rainfall. It was falling from sufficient height to give those us who braved it a nice neck and back massage.

We went back to campsite, showered, had a hearty breakfast and headed down. We arranged a pick-up van, herded our team members and luggage like cattle (figurative, it wasn’t that bad) on the truck bed and headed towards where our maxi cab was parked. The motor cyclists enjoyed the bumpy ride down in our bikes. It was the most off-roading we did in our lives. We probably didn’t have the right bikes or the training to do it. We did it regardless and came out victorious.

Once we reached Yercaud, most of the team wasn’t as tired as I was. They wanted to try paint-ball, bungee jumping, quad-bike riding etc., I let the young guns to have their second day of adventure and headed home. I and Sharath with Vishal as his pillion rode out from Yercaud to Coimbatore. On the way we were lashed at by some heavy rain squalls. It was my first time riding in heavy rains. But the road was good, the bikes handled well.

This weekend was more adventure than I signed up for. All of it memorable for the right reasons. We bonded together and made friendships that will last a long time. At least till our next year trip. My gratitude to Balamuruga and Pooja for co-ordinating the entire trip. What a wonderful trip!

Love to join our team! Apply for software engineering jobs

What a wonderful trip was originally published in Life at OptiSol on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The short answer is No. Machine learning is where the traditional Statistical modeling of data meets the algorithmic and computational field of data science. Such statistical modeling has been used for a long time probably since mid 60’s or even before to model some real world process. Actuarial modeling in the insurance industry is a good example, where a lot of data about general health, longevity, personal habits are used to model and determine insurance premiums. Statisticians and Actuaries have been doing this unsexy work for modeling for decades with none of the pomp and attention that Machine learning has been getting the last few years.

So if Machine learning is mostly about model building then why is there all the recent hoopla? Well it is not just model building based on the data, there is also some learning involved by turning the model parameters to achieve better prediction accuracy. This learning part could be somewhat thought of Artificial Intelligence since the algorithm learns on its own from the data without human intervention.

In the recent years new algorithms are being invented that create complex and computationally intensive models that are very good at detecting and parsing subtle patterns in the data. This coincided with the exponential increase in computational resources at very low cost through cloud computing. There is also an exponential increase in the data generated in fields like Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, FinTech etc that started exceeding existing means of analysis. This troika of events precipitated in bringing Machine Learning to the main stream. Researchers and Data Scientist from these diverse disciplines started looking at Machine learning to help them in their data analysis and classification tasks. The advent of sites like Kaggle, brought open competitions into the world of data modeling and it really helped machine learning take off.

We at Optisol, are building a team of data analysis and machine learning experts to satisfy our customers growing need for analyzing and classifying their data and build data centric decision support practices. It has been an interesting journey for us in the last one year and we are excited about the prospects of this interdisciplinary blend of Statistics, Computation and Data to answer our customer’s questions.