Alishba Imran is a 17-year-old machine learning and blockchain developer who has worked with organizations such as IBM, TD Bank, Ethereum, Hanson Robotics, and more.
Alishba Imran is a member of the human accelerator program The Knowledge Society and of the Masason Foundation, a program founded by SoftBank CEO and Founder Masayoshi Son. She recently co-founded Voltx, building software to accelerate energy storage testing for research and development and production by up to 96%.
At 14, Imran co-rounded Honestblocks, a platform aimed to put an end to counterfeit medication by using blockchain technology to effectively and securely track medication in the supply chain. The project, according to Alishba's personal blog, was eventually integrated into IBM Blockchain. She subsequently interned at TD Bank and CIBC to develop products to improve data security.
Among many other experiences at leading organizations such as Wealthsimple and Walmart, Imran contributes part of her time at the engineering team at Hanson Robotics in developing machine learning and deep learning software surrounding Sophia the robot, who interestingly in March 2021 sold a self-portrait for $688 888 as a non-fungible token (NFT).
Imran's main project is building Voltx, a "machine learning software to accelerate the testing of energy storage devices from 3 months to 3 days".
In this episode, Imran talks about how her childhood influenced her passions and what prompted her to dive deep into emerging technologies at a young age.
References
People to check out:
- Vinod Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems and founder of Khosla Ventures.
- Chamath Palihapitiya, venture capitalist, founder, and CEO of Social Capital.
- Naval Ravikant, entrepreneur and investor, co-founder, chairman, and former CEO of AngelList
Learning techniques:
- The Feynman Technique
- First principles
- Get started early and quickly adjust after each mistake
- Proactively asking for help and feedback
