Lately I'm building AI tools I think the world needs but are underexplored.

Previously, I cofounded Gigit AI, backed by Sequoia Capital and Pear VC, and led a research team that trained the best LLMs for Southeast Asia languages.

I am currently on leave from my joint PhD in Robotics at Columbia University and Nanyang Technological University. My focus was on biology-inspired deep learning methods, neuroscience and meta-learning.

Recent projects (most recent first):

• dawn-cli-agents — AI agents that work concurrently in cloud sandboxes to turn feature requests into PRs
• horizon-cli-agents — Transforms Linear tickets into pull requests, optimized for local development using parallel git worktrees
• robot brains for humanoids — Built custom robots from scratch used for industrial cleaning
• vlprm — Training vision-language process reward models for test-time scaling and reinforcement learning
• web_scale_pdf_processing_pipeline — Data pipeline for processing 1 TB of web-scraped PDFs for LLM pretraining
• fully_oss_realtime_voice_ai — Fully open source alternative to OpenAI's realtime voice AI
• intelligent_summarization — Long document AI summarization when details matter using recursive agents and Claude 3 Sonnet
• Gigit AI — Multilingual customer support agents for WhatsApp businesses to scale personalized customer interactions
• natural language understanding research — Neurosymbolic approaches to language understanding beyond natural language processing

Long term ambition:

• Build self-replicating robot spaceships to extend life to other planets
• Understanding the universe and our role in it is a moral obligation

More fun things about me:

• Taller than I look: 6'2 (188cm)
• Hobbies: biographies (fav: Einstein), history (fav: Chip War), motorcycles, fighter aircraft and BIFLs
• Simple things I enjoy: coffees/matcha, quiet spaces to read and reflect and sports with friends (beach volleyball now)

Things I believe in:

• Driving meaningful progress fast is important
• Doing so is a forcing function to focus on what's most important
• Action and progress creates energy and momentum to keep moving forward
• Doing difficult things, often
• Proven to be the most effective way for me to grow fast and holistically
• Truth seeking always
• Being super matter of fact drives clarity and focus
• Being genuine
• Bad information compounds, most people appreciate candor
• Trust and relationships are built on vulnerability
• Less is more
• There is clarity, elegance and beauty in simplicity
• Conducive environments
• Tacit knowledge is learned from osmosis from being around the best people
• Mimetic behaviour is real and insidious
• Kindness and gentleness

Core memories:

• Served as a radar officer (Lieutenant) in the Republic of Singapore Air Force
• Representing Team Singapore at the Flag Football World Games
• Captain of my university's basketball team and growing up competing in basketball tournaments