On The Rise is a student-led podcast, which aims to inspire the next generation of leaders. Today we spoke with Abhinav Kommula, a machine learning researcher and a current student at the M.E.T. Program at U.C. Berkeley. He has won numerous math and computer science competitions and reached the Platinum Division of the United States Computing Olympiad, the competition’s highest division. Abhinav discusses how he got started in competitive programming, how this contributed to his real-world programming experiences, and his recommendations for aspiring software engineers and developers.