Here is a list of “stuff” I have built over the years.

User-facing products I have launched

ZXing (open source 1D/2D barcode image processing for Android)

When I stated at Google coming from Bell Labs, I was very curious and excited about the QR-code technology. I played a few existing solutions … I convinced some Google software engineers to work on a generic library as a 20% project. This inspired the development of Google Lens.

GOOG-411 (Google, 2007)

GOOG-411 (or Google Voice Local Search) was a telephone service launched by Google in 2007, that provided a speech-recognition-based business directory search, and placed a call to the resulting number in the United States or Canada.[1] The service was accessible via a toll-free telephone number.

The motive behind GOOG-411 was to acquire enough voice data to train Google-own speech-recognition engine. A voice local search service was picked because it was doable (via Google Local Search), useful for people and provided a great coverage of the english language in terms of utterances.

Taxicab ad Billdboard ad Business cards
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Google Audio Indexing aka GAudi (Google, 2008)

Leveraging the data we collected with GOOG-411, the Google speech team built its own speech recognition engine. We were looking for interesting use cases for testing. It was the spring of 2008 and the presidential campaign was in high-gear. We realized that this could be a really cool application. We partnered with YouTube to have access to the videos of the republican and democratic campaigns and we builts a gadget for i-Google to let people search videos. Later on, the gadget was “promoted” to its own page on Google Labs.

Google Labs logo Election Gadget GAudi user interface
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  blog post for launch blog post for launch

One Today (Google.org, 2013)

OneToday is a mobile application we launched in April 2013 for Google.org. The key idea was to radically change the way people make donations. Instead of having people wait for the end of the year to pick the handful of organizations you will donate to, we tried to create a new habit where people could donate as often as once a day.

Featured Project Matching donation Achievement screen
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Network of Innovators – first version (NYU GovLab, 2015)

The Network of Innovators is a knowledge-exchange network for open government and open data professionals, where you can:

  • Ask a question or discuss all things open data & government,
  • Find & connect with innovators to get advice on your projects,
  • Get matched with others who have experience in what you want to learn!
Landing page Map of user on launch day
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Social Impact and For-Good Projects

Data for Good Exchange (2015-)

Data for Good Exchange

I was part of the founding team with Gideon Mann and Susan Kish (both at Bloomberg at the time). I was the program chair of the Bloomberg Data For Good Exchange for 4 years (2015-2018).

For the first few years, our main concern was to get enough paper submissions and we strongly encouraged our program committee (including myself) to submit papers.

I was also deeply involved in the D4GX efforts to create a code of ethics (video).

Debugging Politics hackathon (2017)

Over the course of a long week-end, we built Influenza, a tool to find “patterns of influence” in politics: (1) we create a graph of the US political system using open data and (2) we query the graph to find “bugs”.

NYU-AD hackathon (2013-2016)

I started as a mentor, then judge, then co-organizer with Prof Sana Odeh, 4 years in a row.

  • Ideation deck (2015)

Google OneToday (2013)

(see above)

Data Science

I have been involved in various activities related to data science, including tools, lectures, and presentations.

Google CoLab (2013-)

I started a new inititiave with Gideon Mann at Google Research, initally focused on Big Civic Data. After doing market resarch and user interviews, we realized that the real need was for a collaborative platform for data science, hence CoLab. I stumbled upon the open source iPython project and realized this could be a great starting point. First, we modified the code to make it run in the Google infrastructure and it was used by Kayur Patel to teach the first Machine Learning class at Google. Gideon, Kayur and I left Google. The tool then got a life of its own, being used by lots of people at Google, before it got productized as Google CoLab in October 2017.

Gov Lab’s “Solving Public Problems with Data: Platforms and Where to Store the Data?” (2018)

I was invited by Gov Lab to talk about “the state of the art in technologies for collecting, storing, analyzing and visualizing data.”

Other presenations

  • Are We There Yet? challenges for location-aware data science. NYS GIS Symposium, October 2016
  • Data Science: challenges & opportunities. Information session at Ecole Polytechnique, December 2014.

The Foundry

Here are some projects we did at the Foundry.

  • Pallette, the world’s first open-source tongue-computer interface
  • Magic Mirror, a two-way mirror with a screen display behind it.
  • Limbr, to enhance self-management of CLBP (chronic lower back pain) by packaging self-directed rehabilitation tutorial videos, visual self-report tools, remote health coach support, and activity tracking into a suite of mobile phone apps.
  • Uni, an ideation platform designed for the Product and Startup Ideas class.
  • ArLane, a mixed-reality shopping experience.
  • MoveMeant, a mobile app that uses automatically generated location data from your mobile devices to increase local community awareness and connect people who live close to each other through anonymous shared location histories.
  • ResearchStack, a SDK and UX framework for building research study apps on Android, designed from the ground up to meet the requirements of most scientific research, including capturing participant consent, extensible input tasks, and the security and privacy needs necessary for IRB approval.

Innovation

I have always been interested in innovation, first for products and then for organizations. I gave a few lectures and contributed some writings on the topic.

Guest lectures

  • From Research to products (and vice versa). February 2016
  • De Innovatione Rerum. For EDF at Columbia Universtity. Otober 2014.

Nesta Tech innovation series / #Tech4Labs (2015)

I was asked by Nesta to contribute a few pieces about tech innovation.

Urban Tech, Civic Tech

Urban Tech hub

  • The Jacobs Institute Urban Tech hub at Cornell Tech (coming soon).

  • Cornell Tech Presents: Urban Tech Trends (Smart Cities New York conference, May 2019)

Teaching

Some guest lectures I have given at Cornell Tech and NYU.

  • PM Bootcamp, a guest lecture about product management for new Cornell Tech MBA students. Spring 2017.
  • Hosting 101, guest lecture for the Building Startup Systems class (CS-5356). Fall 2016.
  • Tech for non-Tech, 2 guest lectures for Professor Rafael Pass. Fall 2016.
  • “Design Thinking”, a guest lecture for the Smart Cities course offered by Cornell Baker Program in Real Estate. Fall 2018.

  • “Startup Systems”, a guest lecture for “Tech for Business” class taught by Professor Rafael Pass. Fall 2015.

  • “Fake it before you make it”, a guest lecture for “Product Management” class (CS 5093) taught by Professor Greg Pass. Fall 2015.

  • “Civic Tech for Local Legislatures and Legislators”, with Ben Kallos. Coaching program from NYU GovLab Academy, Spring 2015.

  • “Mobile Civic Apps”, a guest lecture for Beth’s Noveck class at NYU Wagner. Spring 2013.

Casual Writings, Blogging

The WTF Digest

From 10/2016 to 12/2018, I publsihed a weekly digest (the Foundry Weekly Tech Fix or WTF). The digest is a curated list of articles, posts, etc. that I find interesting. The digest is articulated around the following themes:

  • Department of Digital Addictions — 🎮 💉
  • Department of Smarter Cities — 💡🏙
  • Department of Shameless Plugs — 🤑 🔌
  • Department of Silver Linings — 🌈🎆
  • Department of “we” the people — 🙋👨🏽‍💼👷🏿👩🏼‍🔬
  • Department of worthy quotes — 🎬 📖

The entire archive can be found on Medium.

I try to write short pieces about topics of interest, conferences I have attended or recent projects I have been working on

About AI

About the Blockchain

  • Somebody said “Blockchain”?. A guest lecture for high-school students attending a programming contest at Cornell Tech. Spring 2018.

Other Cornell Tech Projects

Misc.

Patents