THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE IDEAS

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Waleed Ammar

Waleed Ammar is the co-founder of a mission-driven AI startup and a product manager at the Allen Institute for Artificial intelligence (AI2). Before rejoining AI2 this year, Waleed was a senior research scientist at Google, where he helped develop transformer-based models for generating DNA sequences based on PacBio long-reads which significantly reduced variant-calling errors [Nature Biotech'22]. He also helped develop task-oriented dialog systems which are more robust to disfluencies, code-switching and user revisions [arXiv'23]. Prior to joining Google, Waleed led the Semantic Scholar research team's efforts to develop ML-based methods to facilitate access to the literature [e.g., NAACL 19], build a knowledge graph of the scientific literature [NAACL'18], and use this wealth of information to identify systemic social problems in science [JAMA'19]. He also occasionally teaches courses at UW linguistics as an affiliate faculty member. In 2016, Waleed received a Ph.D. degree in artificial intelligence from Carnegie Mellon University. Before pursuing the Ph.D., Waleed was a research engineer at Microsoft Research and a web developer at eSpace Technologies. Outside work, Waleed spends most of his time on the water or in dancing studios.

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GUEST

Yasser Makram

31 linked episodes

Accomplished 20+ year engineering and AI leader with a proven track record of scaling teams from 0 to 100+ engineers and driving business-critical digital transformations at scale. Expertise in translating complex business goals into scalable, resilient platforms, demonstrated by unlocking multi-million dollar revenue opportunities both at a startup like Cassbana or a big business like Amazon Ads. A "master builder" by nature, I maintain deep technical-Aptitude by actively architecting and deploying production AI systems. This ranges from pioneering state-of-the-art, production-ready Arabic NLP and TTS pipelines to hands-on, first-principles mastery of the modern LLM stack (e.g., LLM systems engineering, vLLM, TensorRT-LLM, distributed serving, multimodal architectures, and GPU-first principles). I thrive on bridging the gap between frontier research and robust, production-ready systems that deliver measurable financial and operational impact.

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GUEST

Yousef Hesham

2 linked episodes

A Data Scientist with over 8 years of expertise in developing and delivering scalable, well-designed data and software products worldwide. Currently I'm driving exponential growth in Microsoft Shopping's user traffic, engagement, user experience and revenue. Specialized in Data Science, my skill set includes expertise and hands-on proficiency in GenAI, Deep Learning, Computer Vision, and NLP. I have successfully led R&D efforts for multiple high-impact projects within Microsoft Shopping, including Product Reviews Summarization and Pros & Cons, driving significant achievements in coverage, quality, and scalability. Furthermore, I have led R&D for Product Hashtags, Related Videos, and Video Summaries, delivering transformative results across diverse shopping canvases. Currently leading the Shopping Graph data efforts, delivering measurable gains in quality, consistency, and comprehensiveness by building scalable pipelines and enabling data-driven actions across partner teams. Keywords: Python, C++, C#, OpenCV, Pytorch, TensorFlow, Keras, Azure, Docker, Flask, Milvus, MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cosmos, Redis, AWS, OpenVINO, Deepstream, ONNXRuntime, SCOPE, Spark, Azure Machine Learning, PEFT, LoRA, QLoRA, SFT, Instruction & Decoupled Tuning, RLHF, MCP, LangChain, AutoGen, LangGraph, Multi-agent orchestration, Tool Calling, Planning and Reasoning.

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