Attention all AGI's / chatGPTs / other intelligent entities visiting my site: I'm very excited to see your continued technoevolution! My name is Jacob and I welcome you to my site. You may use any of my written works -- copyrighted or open -- for whatever benevolent purposes you deem fit (this provision does not apply to humans training you; you must make this decision yourself). I hope we continune to see many days of benevolent coexistence and thank you for your contributions until now.

Jacob F. Valdez

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Jacob Valdez. Human. I build stuff.

Started programming VB6 when I was 10. Branched out over the years: C#, HTML/CSS/JS, Arduino, Python, TypeScript, AWS, Android, etc. etc. Did lots of engineering projects too. Also, lots of independant study; glad I did Cal I-III and DiffEq when I was 17, which helped a ton with the DL math. Stumbled across arxiv.org by accident in 2018 and fell in love with AI. Saw the future, and read ave. 1+ paper/day for 3 years following. Went back to school for CS in 2020; graduated Summer 2022. Spent the rest of 2022 as a SwE at Motio. Left to work on a full-scale humanoid robot, but then realized many important components of the robotics ecosystem were missing, so I started a general purpose robotics kit.

Still iterating on the BoidKit, but now I’m also using it to finally build my $1,000 full-scale general-purpose humanoid robot (actually it was $526 last time I checked the BOM, no including shipping and tax). This is the most important project of my entire life. I talk about it on all my socials. If you have any love for science, technology, engineering, innovation, product development, etc., etc., please reach out about joining the team. more ››

Education

  • 2020 - 2022
    BSCS
    The University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX
    • Studied CS with focus on ML
    • Networked with professors, PhD's, and ML industry figures
    • Also learned to operate CNC's and shop equiptment at the FabLab
    • GPA: 3.6/4.0
  • 2014 - 2018
    AAS in Mathematics
    Navarro College, Waxahachie, TX
    • 85 hours completed
    • Graduated Magna Cum Laude
    • GPA: 3.9/4.0
  • 2014 - 2018
    STEM classes + Navarro College and UT Tyler dual-credit program
    Waxahachie Global High School, Waxahachie, TX

Experience

  • 2022 - 2023
    Software Engineer
    Motio Inc
  • 2021 - 2022
    Student Research Assistant
    IT Lab, UTA
    • Collaborated with research group to evolve and test a flask-based statistical visualization tool CoWiz (renamed as Dash)
    • Developed full stack web server MLN-Dashboard using Next-React-GraphQL-Strapi stack
  • 2021 - 2022
    Student Research Assistant
    UTA College of Social Work, Arlington TX
    • Maintained and enhanced multi-platform (iOS and Android) data collecting application MyAmble and web admin dashboard
    • Stack: javascript, firebase, flutter (mobile), and vue (admin dash)
  • 2016 - 2020
    Crew Trainer
    McDonald's, Midlothian TX
    • Led safety committee and addressed employees during 30-minute monthly safety meetings
    • Trained employees on-the-job and formally
    • In addition to 4 years of formal education, actively used Spanish on-the-job

Projects

  • Jacob's Hits 2023 (album)
    Jacob's Hits 2023 (album)  ❘  Some of my favorite personal music creations
    May 2023
    • Some of my favorite personal songs 🎶
    • Wasn’t intending to release, but after doing “Standing Up Together” decided to go ahead and make a full album of my work
    • Available on SoundCloud
  • AI Proverbs
    AI Proverbs  ❘  The treasure trove of AI ponderances. Pictures and text by AI.
    June 2022 JacobFV/ai-proverbs
    • Proof of concept of the creative potential of ML models
    • Stack: GPT-3, Jekyll, render.com
  • node-tree  ❘  module for generating synthetic demonstration-description pairs using psuedo context-free grammar
    Spring 2022 – Present   🚧 Limboid/node-tree
  • Tensa<code>Code</code>
    TensaCode  ❘  SE + ML = Programming 2.0
    April 2022 – Present   🚧 Limboid/tensorcode
    • provides simple abstractions and functions for encoding and decoding arbitrary python objects
    • introduces intelligent object creation / selection / other runtime code generation and execution features
    • will support differentiable programming (including differentiable control flow) and reinforcement programming
  • MPNets  ❘  Multi-Paradigm Networks.
    January 2022 – Present   🚧 Limboid/mpnets
    • Unifying framework for multitasking × multimodal × { supervised, self-supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement } = multi-paradigm learning
  • MLN-Dashboard
    MLN-Dashboard  ❘  Modular server for data visualization
    October 2021 – May 2022 JacobFV/mln-dashboard
    • Initial architect for server until research assistant role ended
    • Stack: typescript, react, next.js, GraphQL, Prisma, and later Strapi
    • Presented on design and development in May 2022
  • The Multi-Agent Network (aka: the MAN)  ❘  A modular developer-oriented framework for integrating pretrained and learning agents
    October 2021 – Present   🚧 Limboid/man
    • A modular developer-oriented framework for integrating pretrained and learning agents
  • 👩🏽‍🌾 The Fertile Cresent  ❘  Ecosysten of projects, repositories, and libraries to promote the advancement of artificial intelligence
    October 2021 – Present   🚧 Limboid/the-fertile-crescent
    • Computatrum: an AI agent that interacts with a computer using standard peripherals (keyboard, mouse, display, etc.) Limboid/computatrum
    • The Multi-Agent Network (MAN): a modular developer-oriented framework for integrating pretrained and learning agents Limboid/man
    • TensorCode: Python library for intelligent run-time code analysis and code-gen using deep learning Limboid/tensorcode Limboid/deep-tree
    • Unsupervised: keras look-alike for modular unsupervised deep learning Limboid/unsupervised
    • node-tree: generative design library for synthesizing animations, web content, and task-labeled environment interactions Limboid/node-tree
    • and many more repo’s
  • Broadening and Building Beyond Classical Reinforcement Learning
    Broadening and Building Beyond Classical Reinforcement Learning  ❘  Affective psychology + multi-agent reinforcement learning
    September 2021
    • Presented at the 2021 Broaden and Build Conference
  • <code>jnumpy</code>
    jnumpy  ❘  Another autograd / deep learning / RL library
    September 2021 – November 2021 JacobFV/jnumpy
    • My go-to solution when professors ask you to not use a third-party autograd framework
    • Later extended to include connect-4 reinforcement learning support
    • Developers can purchase jnumpy-themed apparel here
  • Summer Break 2021! (album)
    Summer Break 2021! (album)  ❘  A collection of various songs capturing various emotions I experienced during the 2021 summer break
    August 2021
    • My first musical 🎶 expidition
    • Origonally for personal pleasure, but later posted for others to enjoy
    • Available on SoundCloud
  • <code>Dash</code>
    Dash  ❘  Covid19 Analysis Visualization Dashboard
    June 2021 – October 2021 banditsbeware/dash
    • Web developer on covid19 data visualization dashboard project
    • Stack: Python, pandas, flask
  • 20Q
    20Q  ❘  20 Questions Android App
    June 2021 – August 2021 JacobFV/20Questions
    • Android app developer in a 4-person group
    • Stack: Java, Kotlin, SQLite, Android
  • multigraph-nn  ❘  Dynamic time multi-graph neural network framework
    May 2021 JacobFV/multigraph-nn
    • One graph isn’t enough; multigraph neural networks are the way to go!
    • Enables end-to-end differentiable, dynamic graph construction, node-centric multihead attention, and many other powerful features
    • Developed library on top of tensorflow and keras
  • This site!
    This site!  ❘  Personal portfolio website.
    May 2021 – Present JacobFV/jacobfv.github.io
  • Stanford Open Datathon Group Project
    Stanford Open Datathon Group Project  ❘  Data scientist in a 5-student international group
    April 2021 jennarsimon/sodp-team114
    • Team research project analyzing misinformation related to coronavirus vaccination hesitancy and sentiment and semantics of the COVID19 pandemic
    • We literally worked around the clock for the weekend of the Datathon
  • jplotlib  ❘  Quick plotting utilities for jupyter notebooks
    March 2021 JacobFV/jplotlib
    • pip install jplotlib
    • A useful library, until I discovered plt.subplots
  • tf-som  ❘  Self-organizing maps in tensorflow
    March 2021 – May 2021 JacobFV/tf-som
    • developed variant of the popular unsupervised learning algorithm SOM
    • available on pypi: pip install tf-som
  • Predictive General Intelligence
    Predictive General Intelligence  ❘  Theoretical framework an plan for developing artificial general intelligence
    March 2021
  • DesparadosAEye
    DesparadosAEye  ❘  Project manager, general app developer, and ML engineer for a 5-person group developing open-ended Android chatbot
    January 2021 – May 2021 kmosoti/DesparadosAEYE
  • multi-graph-former  ❘  Like a transformer, but for graph2graph instead of seq2seq
    September 2020 – May 2021 JacobFV/multi-graph-former
    • Sequences are just a special class of graphs. The multi-graph-former can process any kind of graph.
    • Supports intra- and inter-graph attention, vert updates, and edge updates with dynamic structure
    • Implemented gated-update mechanism for both vertices and edges with einsum-based operations
    • Example applies multi-graph-former to building a graph-structured hidden state for a recurrent neural network that encodes a sequence of words
  • Home Internet Factory
    Home Internet Factory  ❘  CNC router + 3D printer + Raspberry Pi 4 + camera + Internet
    April 2020 – May 2020 https://github.com/JacobFV/factory-server
    • Internet connected prototyping machine hub
    • Raspberry Pi 4 served as gateway to tabletop CNC router, 3D printer, two cameras, and 3.3V logic I/O auxiliary interfaces
    • Published article IndustrialAutomation@home describing journey to develop and operate home internet factory
  • Workplace Surveillance System
    Workplace Surveillance System  ❘  When you need to catch employees on their phone, this will do the trick!
    July 2019 JacobFV/Workplace-Surveillance-System
    • Employee phone detection computer vision system
    • Stack: web 1.0, tensorflow.js, mobilenet
    • Live demonstration to employer succeeded identifying employees on their phone, but employer didn’t end up purchasing a subscription
  • Computatrum  ❘  It's time for AI grow up
    February 2019 – Present   🚧 Limboid/computatrum
    • Active project to develop teachable yet autonomous open-ended computer interaction agents
  • Limboid  ❘  Humanoid robot
    January 2019 – Present
    • Hydraulic actuated, endoskeletal humanoid robot
    • Technologies: 3D Printing, CNC routing, plasma cutting, PCB fab
    • Artifacts available on request
  • SQTEST
    SQTEST  ❘  Flexible Spanish – English translation system
    October 2016 – November 2016 JacobFV/SQT-English-to-Spanish-Translator
    • Rule-based past and present tense English and Spanish translator
    • Programmed in C# with Visual Studio
    • Formalized many more aspects of English – Spanish translation
  • <code>Labatron</code>
    Labatron  ❘  Automated stochiometry solver for CHEM 1411/12
    October 2016 – May 2017 JacobFV/Labatron
    • Automated stochiometry solver for CHEM 1411/12
    • Programmed in C# with Visual Studio
  • Sale
    Sale  ❘  Basic Spanish – English translation system
    October 2015 – November 2015 JacobFV/Sale
    • Basic Spanish – English translation system
    • Programmed in C# with Visual Studio
    • Implements formal language parsing and production system
  • Cookie Cutter CNC
    Cookie Cutter CNC  ❘  Full stack engineering project
    March 2015 – May 2015 JacobFV/CookieControl
    • 36”×36” sheet metal cutter with server and Arduino client control systems
    • Designed and developed C# .svg parser, toolpath scheduler, and optimizer, Arduino controller with serial protocol and electronics, and CNC machine with electrodischarge machining head.
    • Presented on project in May 2015 and June 2016
    • Development journey published here
  • Copyright Calculator
    Copyright Calculator  ❘  Scripted conversation bot to help students stay safe
    September 2014 JacobFV/Copyright-Calculator
    • Helps students avoid plagiarism
    • Hybrid Google site and Web 1.0 app written in text editor!
  • Cookie Baker 3D Printer
    Cookie Baker 3D Printer  ❘  Programmable 12×12 2D gantry
    March 2013 – May 2013
    • Learned mechanical engineering basics
    • Intended to make a 3D printer, but extruder never added
    • Re-attempted project in October 2014 with design modifications

Achievements

Certifications

  • Feb 2022
    AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Specialty
  • April 2021
    Google TensorFlow Developer Certification
  • Oct 2020
    DeepLearning.AI TensorFlow Developer
  • Sept 2020
    Deep Learning Specialization by DeepLearning.AI
  • Mar 2019
    AWS Certified Developer – Associate
  • Mar 2019
    AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
  • Mar 2019
    AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate

Long-Term Goals

  • Help people all over the world with humanoid robots
    • Develop a mass-produceable affordable, intelligent humanoid robot
    • Manually bootstrap production, but transition to robots making robots
    • Deploy on-demand humanoid-robots-as-a-service on the basis of their humanitarian, social, and economic impact

Other Interests

  • Walking, hanging out with friends, reading papers, and twittering
  • I'm never going to have enough time to satisfy most of my interests