Who are we?

You might be curious about who we are and how exactly our backgrounds fit within the mesh. So here's a little background on the Snake and I that was taken directly from our OLPC Developer Program applications:

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Tom's BIOGRAPHY
I obtained my Bachelors and Masters degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Much of my coursework focused on VLSI and Computer Architecture, but I am very familiar with Embedded HW and DSP applications through coursework, academic projects and professional experiences. My embedded breadth stretches from the low-level development of a light-weight RTOS on an XScale/ARM platform to an encrypted VoIP system on an Altera FPGA platform. My prototyping skills were also applied as a consultant to an educational NPO, Pittsburgh Voyager, where I architected hand-held device applications that collaborated students' data with databases on-board the vessel and on-shore.

In industry, I worked at Medtronic in their Cardiac Rhythm Management group. During my time at Medtronic, I worked on the migration of Heart Failure SW algorithms to ASICs as well as the power optimization of their Telemetry sub-systems. I also worked on the development of their Carelink Monitor firmware, which enabled clinicians to manage their patients' chronic illnesses remotely. I currently work in the aerospace industry on image processing R&D for tracking and discrimination. These DSP platforms range from custom-RISC processors to PowerPC cores. While my DSP background keeps me tight with various assembly languages, I am also proficient in C/C++/Java/Perl/MATLAB and have some familiarity with Python.


Jake's BIOGRAPHY
I obtained Bachelors degrees in both Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. There I was mentored by Prof. John Webster, a well-known expert in bioinstrumentation, both in classes and in several engineering design projects including a portable electroencephalograph, portable voice amplifier, and mosquito bite vibration sensor. My EE classes at UW focused on signal processing and circuit design. During my time at Wisconsin I also worked as a technician in the Chemistry Dept. electronics shop, where I learned practical skills in design, prototyping, and repair of instruments.

I am currently in my final year as a PhD in Bioengineering at the Univ. of California, San Diego. My thesis project, written entirely in Python, required me to build a software platform for automated measurement of heart function in adult fruitflies, including hardware interface (video, robotic stage, temperature and oxygen sensors). Design of this software required low-level memory management, threading, and GUI design. I am also proficient in data analysis languages (Matlab, IDL, R), and have some familiarity with Java, C, and Perl from some bioinformatics work over the course of my research.

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Who would've thought 4 years after our days at Medtronic that we would be collaborating again.

Although a tech background would be most applicable, we invite all who share the passion to join us. Our primary efforts lie in the front-end development, but there are many areas we have not even begun to address, such as program awareness, possible fundraising. If you are interested at all, send us a brief description of your HW/SW experience as well as areas in which you'd like to contribute.

Any other questions? Shoot us an email.
olpc.goldenstate@yahoo.com