Taichi Kato

I am a sophomore student at UWCSEA in Singapore. With interests in machine learning, philosophy, design and photography, I enjoy spending a lot of my free time learning and creating things. My recent interest is in 3D modelling and procedural design with Houdini, but I haven't gotten around to do much with them yet.

For the past five two years, along with Arya and Khush, I've been working on an AI app called Questo which generates questions based on a photo of a textbook. Questo has won several awards, receiving more than USD100,000 in subsidised funding from IBM and Google Cloud.

Previously, I was a machine learning engineer at Mercari, deep learning researcher at Digital Nature Group and a software engineer intern at teamLab. You can view my résumé here.

If you like what you see here, hit me up! I do enjoy a good cup of coffee, although they're quite rare to come by in Singapore. You can also find me on twitter, instagram or worst case linkedin, if email doesn't float your boat.

Bio

I was born 2001 (Age 17) in Tokyo, Japan and moved to Singapore at the age of 8.
After close to ten years, I'm still in Singpore, currently attending UWCSEA pursuing the IB diploma. (My courses if you're interestd: HL: Math, Physics, CS. SL: Philosophy, English Lang/Lit and Japanese Literature)
I began programming when I was 10 with interest in generative art and minecraft mods, building some weekend hacks, websites and apps along the way.
Got in to machine learning around two years ago.
Launched an AI startup, got 1,200+ users, came first place on Hackernews.
Did a few side consulting gigs, which was fun and got me some cash to spend on my hobbies.
I've been trying to widen my perspective on the world, and have been doing a wide range of reading both online and offline. This has helped pull me out of the tech glamour in which I was really engulfed in.
Despite certain fears I have regarding technology (tendency towards extremism, widening of social inequality, privacy concerns ... etc.), I still do love technology and see many ways in which it can benefit the society. I hope to contribute to the future of our world through utilising AI in fields such as education, which can benefit a wide group of people.

Projects 🚀

Some projects I have worked on / am working on.

Questo AI (2016- Present) - A smart iOS app which generates quizzes based on a photo of a textbook.
Photonify (2017-Present) - An iOS app which tells you how to take better photos in real time
Photography - A smart iOS app which generates quizzes based on a photo of a textbook.
Hequals (2017) - An automatic human resource allocator which aims to eliminate any form of discrimination in the tech world by basing decisions purely on skills.
Komme (2015) - A virtual navigation game to find ways to get to a certain location only through Google Streetview - made with js.
RealAR - Created a prototype iOS framework for creating shared AR environement between multiple devices through socket. (BUT Apple ended up including it in their ARKit on iOS12 in June)
Kanji Frequency (2018) - Visualising and ordering kanjis in order of importance to learn only the important ones :)

Achievements and Experiences 🏆

iOS intern at teamLab when I was 15 (youngest employee ever 🥳). I was primarily involved in the architecture design and the development of iOS apps. I also introduced and integrated Redux as a primary framework for all of teamLab's upcoming iOS projects, creating a template project.
Won $40,000 in prizes for the "Most Creative" prize at Startup Weekend - the most prestegious hackathon in SG.
Lead organiser of ideaHacks_ 2018, partnered with StartupX, Acronis and Carousell, attracted amazing mentors and judges from CitiBank, Temasek Holdings, IBM and more. Around 100 students participated in a weekend full of coding.
Winner of PitchIT Competition at SG Fintech Festival 2016
Won ideaHacks 2016 with Questo.