CSpotlight: Turning imagination into reality
Why did you choose to pursue a degree in data science specifically at the University of Minnesota?
I chose computer science at the University of Minnesota because I always wanted to come to the U.S., and the University of Minnesota was one of the best universities I got into. I also liked how many research opportunities the university offered. While I haven’t pursued research since coming to college, I feel like I am right where I belong. This is where I was always supposed to be.
How did you become interested in data science? What are your specific interests within the field?
I used to build Legos and play video games as a kid, so I have always been interested in building and experiencing new things. I am interested in things that bridge the gap between what you can imagine and what is out in the world. That is why I became interested in computer science; it gave me a way to build things that had previously existed only in my mind.
Within the field, I am interested in voice-controlled AI. In the future, I believe technology will adapt to us, so we need to work on more natural ways of interacting with technology, like voice-controlled AI, brain-computer interfaces, augmented reality, and related technologies. These bridge the barrier between what is in people's minds and what is in the world.
Tell us more about your internship experiences.
The summer after my freshman year, I interned at a hedge fund based in Singapore called RV Capital. I was a summer analyst intern, where I authored reports on asset allocation for family offices and built internal AI agents to track primary and secondary bond market data. I wanted to explore finance, so I was happy to find a finance internship and enjoyed the experience.
Are you involved in any student groups? What inspired you to get involved?
I run the accelerator program alongside Joshua McMackin in Zero to One, an on-campus entrepreneurship club. We have been able to take eight separate teams from having no product to within four weeks producing something at least one person is willing to pay for. A few of our members have been really successful, and it’s been fun to talk about and build startups with others. I am also a partner and director at Atland Ventures, a venture capital fund on campus. I was interested in meeting founders, so I decided to join. Atland invests in pre-seed and seed stage startups and has invested in over 34 companies, raising over $2 million. Personally, I am interested in startups that enable natural ways of interacting with technology. I run my own startup, Altivis AI, where I build AI agents for user research by product managers. I want to have a startup in the future, so this has been super fun, and I’ve learned a lot from it.
What do you hope to contribute to the computer science community at the University?
I hope to contribute to the computer science community by building spaces where students can work together to build things. I think I am doing this with the accelerator I run. We build together, and I feel we’ve pushed a lot of people who were vaguely interested in entrepreneurship to make something real and put it out into the world.
What advice do you have for incoming computer science students?
Talk to the people beside you. Go to class in person, because meeting people offline is cool. It’s amazing what you can do if you’re surrounded by people who think and are interested in the same things you are. Also, build many projects. I think that's the best thing you can do. Build a lot of projects, pick up the latest stack of technology, work on it, show it to others around you, work with others, and you'll do well.
What are your plans after graduation?
Ideally, I want to move to San Francisco and work on my startup. I want to find amazing people in order to build a great team, so I can fix problems in the world that I am excited about. I want to build the best voice AI company in the world, or something similar that resonates with me. Overall, I want to help solve a problem and be known for it.