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Dear reader, welcome!
My name is Ahmed Ahres and I am currently 22 years old. I am Tunisian as well as Dutch and was born/raised in Tunis, Tunisia. I am currently a Lead Machine Learning Engineer at an early-stage Gaming /AR startup in London with a specialisation in 3D computer vision. My team creates the 3D pose estimation system that will empower the player's experience in real-time. I was previously a Machine Learning Engineer at Revolut in London in the Computer Vision team. Our goal was to build an in-house solution to on-board new customers. During my experience at Revolut, I've had the opportunity to build models and productionise features that are used by thousands of people every day. I started my Bachelor in Computer Science at the age of 16 years old and graduated from the Eindhoven University of Technology in August 2018. Prior to that, I graduated with the highest distinction from a French high school in Tunis. In September 2018, I moved to Lausanne, Switzerland to start a Computer Science Master's at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). From February 2019 to July 2019, I was a teaching assistant in machine learning under the supervision of professor Pascal Fua. My task was to explain the basics of machine learning to undergraduate students by designing, assisting and correcting exercise sessions for approximately 50 students in the class. I was invited to Stanford University (California) in March 2019 to present my data visualization project on pollination contribution to nutrition (available in the "My Projects" section) as part of the Natural Capital Project yearly Symposium. We were invited to present to the world our project detailed how the decrease of pollination contribution to nutrition in the future will have a massive impact on the world population. During my Bachelor phase, I pursued a career in the Honors Academy at the TU Eindhoven in my 2nd and 3rd year of bachelor's, which is a special program destined to the passionate and top students of the university requiring extra work. In my track, called High Tech Systems, I was the leader of Cyclone, a team consisting of 12 students from diverse studies, building an autonomous racing drone. Apart from the leadership position, I was also responsible for the computer vision sub-team working on obstacle detection. At the end of the 2017/2018 academic year, Cyclone won the award for the best Honors project out of more than 25 other Honors projects. In January 2018, I spoke during 10 minutes to a Tunisian radio called Shems FM about my game Shapion and my future ambitions in the world of technology (a video is available also down in this page). In February 2020, an online magazine interviewed me for my work at Revolut and my views on the future of facial recognition in the world. The article is available down in this page. From April until July 2018, I was a teaching assistant in the DBL Algorithms course under the supervision of Mark de Berg, where groups of students develop a software to solve a complex algorithmic problem. I tutored 4 groups of 7 students each and technically assisted the online grading system where students test their algorithms. Moreover, I was previously a board member of the Honors Study Association Confluente, the study association taking care of the Honors Academy I am part of. My role, as a "Counselor" was to lead various projects both in the long-term and the short-term. I joined the board with three goals in mind: - Build a community within the Honors Program - Enhance and expand the association's reach beyond the university, through events and social media - Be the contact person between the board and the members of the association On top of this, I previously worked, in collaboration with PhD candidate Martijn Kors in the Industrial Design Department, as a research assistant on virtual reality at the TU Eindhoven with a focus on Programming and Game Design. Our project focused on studying the human attitude towards the Nuclear Energy and try to switch it in favor of Sustainable Energy through empathy. We worked on our VR game called "Permanent" using Unity3D extended with C#. I spent 7 months working (as a volunteer in my spare time) on that game, in which 4 months were spent initiating the project (game design, emotions targeted in the player, setting up the project for future team members), and 3 months mainly on programming and designing the content. I had to stop after the team moved to Amsterdam. This experience made me realize the potential of VR games in helping people and creating a better world. I can fluently speak Arabic, English, French and have an intermediate level of Spanish. Moreover, I am a Tennis player for 15 years now and was the Tunisian national champion in 2008 and 2010. I also read a lot of books and my favorite one is: How to Win Friends and Influence People written by Dale Carnegie. I love making games, and have published one called Shapion on Android! It is currently rated 4.9/5 stars. Other than Shapion, I have developed 6 complete games either by myself or with a group of passionate people. They are available in the "My projects" section. I am proficient with Python, C++, Java and Javascript. I have also extensive knowledge of OpenCV as well as machine learning/data analytics libraries such as Pandas, Keras, Scikit-Learn & TensorFlow. I am deeply interested in the potential of virtual and augmented reality to be at the heart of the next big changes in the world. I am a firm believer in the fact that dedication and solid time management are the keys for a more productive and pleasurable life. Some of my favorite quotes:
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March 2019 - Taken at Stanford University, California for the natural capital project symposium where we presented our data visualization project.
February 2017 - Taken in San Francisco, California just before an Oculus event for exclusive VR titles
November 2016 - Taken in Helsinki, Finland at Junction hackathon where I worked on The Resurrection of Ctulhu project
June 2018 - Taken in Eindhoven, Netherlands for the Jury Award of the best Honors project in 2017/2018 with the Cyclone team.
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Here are some useful links to things I have mentioned previously.