Hello. I’m Yad.

I do applied research for a living.

Previously, my work has been around building meta-research and data tools.

Areas of focus has been around search, (ranking) and industrial automation. Prior to applied research in machine learning, I was mainly focused on building and learning within the online education space.

I'm open for research collaborations: (Ping Me Maybe?)

- Currently building DOLMA (code): it is an easy to setup ETL tool for small teams and non-technical founders.
- Indie Learners (podcast): learning methods explored by self taught peeps, aka autodidactics.

Twitter GitHub Email

What Else?

My Research Interest(s):

Program Synthesis (ƛ) / Low-Rank Tensor Approximation. (specific)
Research Reproducibility In Machine Learning. (applied, machine learning)
Independent Research. (broad, economics)
Understanding The Nature Of Conversations. (broad, linguistics)
Learning To Learn. (broad, cognitive sciences)

Current Status:

Building DOLMA most days, practicing learnings from Program Synthesis
Learning more about language through practicing comedy.
Working on having more ways to learns, Indie Learners

WORK EXPERIENCE

2099

Something New

an independent research institute

Working around independent research, research reproducibility and program synthesis.

my work covers

2019

Head of Machine Learning and Research

On Deck

On Deck is a community for talent to accelerate their ideas and careers.

my work covers

Created datasets from scratch using email-lists and data borrowing techniques.

Built matchmaking models for founders and teams using graph models and deep learning.

Designed internal data gathering tools to create interpretable models.

2018

Head of Machine Learning and Research

Roby

Roby provides a conversational AI service hub for the next generation office. Roby learns from employees feedback to take predictive actions that resolve employee requests.

my work covers

Working with HVAC data and building energy simulators.

Building dynamics model for energy regulation within commerical buildings powered by Honeywell.

Research around zone of proximal development and productivity at work through environment sensors and support ticketing systems.

projects I work(ed) during this time:

How Roby uses Machine Learning to make workspaces comfortable and productive:

Read On Roby.

2017

Machine Learning Engineer

4th n Town

I'm a founder of this company, My goal for this entity is to collaborate with other research teams by doing applied research in machine learning.

my work covers

Implementing models from papers.

Working on Neural Machine Translation models.

Improving upon Seq2Seq Architectures.

projects I work(ed) during this time:

Research Engineer

I collaborated with a team of data scientists to build an Engineering Assistant using different approaches of machine learning, from linear models to deep learning.

Matching Issues with commits to avoid duplicate work.

Predicting labels for issues, whether; Bug, Feature or a Chore.

Generating commits from code.

Collecting Daily Stand Ups and summarizing them.

Issue Dup-Detector Demo Issue Labeler Demo

2015

Tech Lead & Web Architect

Draper University

I started from software engineering, then to lead the incredible technical team to build the following products:

my work covers

Draper University Site

Draper TV

Draper U Online School

projects I work(ed) during this time:

Web Architect

I built a video streaming service end to end, to serve about 17 Terabyte of videos.

S3 with Elastic Transcoder right after video uploaded.

Lambda Service with EC2 instances to fetch the videos to application side.

Generating commits from code.

CloudFront with SQS to cache and expire videos streamed.

2012

Founder, Software Architect

Easy Route

Easy Route was a short lived startup that I founded during my school years working with Microsoft with the help of my Professor (Dr.Hemin Latif). It’s purpose was to find critical and faster routes using close friends routes that shared on the network. Mostly to report traffic accidents. Now, it’s a little tiny feature on Nokia Maps.

my work covers

Introduced the use of GSM / GPRS data for geo-location without real Internet coverage in developing countries.

Built end to end hybrid graph algorithm to offer routing using GSM / GPRS data.

Used C#, ASP.net and lots of real graph algorithms.

EXTRACURRICULAR

2021

South Park Commons (member)

South Park Commons

South Park Commons is a community of builders, tinkerers, and domain experts that challenge you, encourage you, help you build and validate your ideas. We believe good ideas very rarely come about in isolation. We are the anti-incubator, a safe zone that promotes judgement-free exploration and development of new ideas.

2020

On Deck Fellowship (1)

On Deck

At the time, it was an experiment in community building among future founders, the Fellowship was designed to take the conversations from one-off dinners to an 8-week program.

2017

Foresight Institute Fellow

Foresight Institute

Joined the annual Foresight Institute in 2017, to brainstorm the impact of AI on different aspects of science.

2016

Top Writer 2016

Quora

"Combine the best answers to any question in one place". That’s what the goal is on Quora and I tend to share my part.

2015

Clinton Foundation Panelist (Educating Refugees and Children in Crisis)

The Clinton Foundation

During the panel, I focused on how much education and sense of connections from outside world is needed with the generation left behind, in case of wars and catastrophes.

2013

AMENDS Fellow

The American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford (AMENDS)

The American Middle Eastern Network for Dialogue at Stanford (AMENDS) is a collaborative student-led initiative interested in the promotion of understanding and respect around the Middle East, and the support of a generation of leaders who are working to ignite concrete social and economic development in the MENA region.

2012

Microsoft YouthSpark Advocate

Microsoft

YouthSpark Advocates are young leaders who have been selected to represent YouthSpark through online and offline activities. Advocates become subject matter experts in Microsoft YouthSpark world.

2010

Imagine Cup Winner / Microsoft Student Partner

Microsoft

Won the 1st place for regional in 2011, 2nd Place for 2010 and became MSP to start the ACM chapters.

EDUCATION HISTORY

2013

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

The American University of Iraq, Sulaimani

my work covers

The classes I loved; HTTP Protocol & Web Architecture, Algorithms Ground Up, Advanced Network Security, Research (Graph Algorithms) and finally Capstone Project in NLP.

AUI-S's CS program follows the ACM based curriculum.

I Built my first startup out of a research project here as well.

projects I work(ed) during school:

Design Editor - (AUIS Voice)

I helped starting an independent student newspaper for the first time in North Iraq.

President - (ASITA)

I started a computer science club on campus that worked on several applied CS projects.

President / Member - (ACM Chapter)

I opened the ACM student chapter in Iraq for the first time as well.

2012

Game Design / IAM(Interactive Art in Media)

Columbia College Chicago

😐 , nope, game design wasn’t the right one, dropped out back to CS degree at AUIS, though I learned about these topics in the meantime over there:

my work covers

AI; Basic of AI algorithms within Video Games.

Literature; Studied ‘Hero With A Thousand Faces’ by Joseph Campbell.

I Built my first startup out of a research project here as well.

Hello. I’m Yad.

I do applied research for a living.

Previously, my work has been around building meta-research and data tools. Areas of focus has been around search, (ranking) and industrial automation. Prior to applied research in machine learning, I was mainly focused on building and learning within the online education space.

I'm open for research collaborations: (Ping Me Maybe?)

What Else?

WORK EXPERIENCE

Something New

an independent research institute

Head of Machine Learning and Research

Head of Machine Learning and Research

How Roby uses Machine Learning to make workspaces comfortable and productive:

Machine Learning Engineer

Research Engineer

Tech Lead & Web Architect

Web Architect

Founder, Software Architect

Easy Route

EXTRACURRICULAR

South Park Commons (member)

On Deck Fellowship (1)

Foresight Institute Fellow

Top Writer 2016

Clinton Foundation Panelist (Educating Refugees and Children in Crisis)

AMENDS Fellow

Microsoft YouthSpark Advocate

Microsoft

Imagine Cup Winner / Microsoft Student Partner

Microsoft

EDUCATION HISTORY

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

Design Editor - (AUIS Voice)

President - (ASITA)

President / Member - (ACM Chapter)

Game Design / IAM(Interactive Art in Media)

Columbia College Chicago

My Brain-dumps in a writing log (WLOG):

Previously, my work has been around building meta-research and data tools.

Areas of focus has been around search, (ranking) and industrial automation. Prior to applied research in machine learning, I was mainly focused on building and learning within the online education space.