Netizen

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Sameer Maskey Of Fusemachines

I have brushed against Sameer Maskey at a few events, and he might even know me by name - the New York City Nepali community is small like that, especially since we seem to have a bunch of mutual friends - but there is no mistaking the guy. When you mention "tech startup" to any professional Nepali in the city, they inevitably drop the Sameer Maskey name. I am int the process of going to meet him, hopefully some time next week. I thought I might as well read up on the guy.

Fusemachines: About Us

Sameer Maskey runs a New York-based startup that is building state of the art Artificial Intelligence algorithms for big data Natural Language Processing problems. .... Sameer has a PhD in Computer Science from Columbia University.

Columbia: Sameer
Sameer On Twitter
Next question, please

It’s not every day that someone claims they have the future in their hands, but Dr Sameer Maskey says just that. .... Straight after graduating from school in Nepal, Maskey left for the United States in 1999 where he was to complete his undergraduate, masters, and finally a PhD degree from Columbia University, New York in 2008..... After years of studying and working abroad, the 33-year-old researcher wanted to start a project that could benefit his home country. In 2013, Maskey opened a company called Fuse Machines that would produce, market, and sell conversation systems. ....... The software he is currently developing allows people to text or web-chat a company with a query or complaint and the system will respond with an answer or solution straight away. ....... In laymen’s term, data analysts from Fuse Machines and analysts from their respective clients exchange information based on what kind of services and complaints individual consumers demand of them. This data is catalogued in the system, so when a customer asks a question from within this inventory in any language, the software is able to give the answer. If a consumer asks a question the system does not have the answer to, within 24 hours with the help of an analyst, it will find the solution and retain the answer for next time. ...... Fuse Machines already has an array of e-commerce clients in the US and Maskey says in the coming months a lot of firms based in Nepal will also be using the software. ..... In a country where the most successful companies do not have adequate face-to-face customer service centres, Maskey is hopeful that his conversation systems based on web chats and artificial intelligence will take off and improve the way organisations handle queries and complaints. “Once in a while technology does leapfrog in Nepal, here’s hoping this is one of those times,” says the professor.

Angel List: Fusemachines
Dr. Sameer Maskey

His course is designed to bring MBA students and Computer Science students in the same classroom with the aim of bridging the gap between Computer Science and Business management. Case in point: the booming industry of startups that has taken the western world by storm. ...... Dr. Sameer shares his experiences and views regarding the issue of choosing off beat careers and choosing to become more than a doctor, scientist or business man. Here’s an insight from a man who dared to break the convention and succeeded. ...... What it does is it understands what you said, processes it and converts it into text and speaks back to you. ...... Siri is a voice based application which instigates a lot of errors. Our program is focused on a text to text dialogue which has fewer errors. ...... Imagine calling any company in the world and talking to a machine or robot for customer service which answers all your queries as well as a human. If machines can replace the human function, it increases efficiency and that manpower can be better utilized. ..... I studied at St. Xaviers .... After high school, I enrolled into Army College in Bhaktapur where it wasn’t really common for students to apply for SATs or even apply to study abroad as a whole. In army school you aimed to go into the army. .... I applied to a bunch of colleges where I got a number of full scholarships and chose to study in Bates

BusinessWeek: Fusemachines
CorporateWiki: Sameer Maskey
BusinessWeek: Sameer Maskey

Looks to me like this guy wants to be the world's Call Center.

Google's Modular Phone Challenges OnePlus One

The Nexus phone was a breath of fresh air. But I thought the OnePlus One did challenge the Nexus brand. Now I think Google's modular phone is a major challenge to the OnePlus One, and other smartphones in general. My current phone is still Nexus 4. I wish I could get a battery that lasted twice as long, and I wish I could replace my 5 MP camera with a 10 or 13 or 15 MP camera. But other than that, I am quite happy with my phone. And the modular phone is supposed to allow you just such upgrades. You don't ditch the whole phone. You just upgrade a part you want to upgrade. I like that. And I love the price point. $50. Finally a smartphone for the global masses. And, yes, I also want 64 GB. My 8 GB has felt inadequate as soon as I got my phone!

Google’s modular $50 smartphone set for January 2015 release