Rachad ALAO

Email: rachad_alao@yahoo.com

 

SUMMARY OF QUALIFICATIONS:

·       Executive (Facebook, Google) with industry experience in Responsible AI, Mobile Phones, Consumer Electronics, Audio, Video, DRM and Camera technologies.

·       22 years of international technical leadership experience (Silicon Valley, Canada and France) at both startups (TiVo, OpenTV, Bluestreak Technology) and big tech companies (Google, Facebook)

·       Lead Inventor on several patents (encryption, communication protocol, mobile payment, etc.)

·       Angel investor and Advisor

 

RELEVANT EXPERIENCE:

Engineering Director Responsible AI at Facebook Inc

Angel Investor and Advisor @ Nova Farming Inc (Ferme d’Hiver)

Angel Investor and Advisor @ MarketCipher Partners

April 2019 until now

December 2018 until now

November 2017 until now

Facebook is one of the largest technology company in the world. It operates AI powered social networks and communication platforms used by over 3 billion people worldwide.

Nova Farming is a sustainable vertical farming company.

MarketCipher Partners is Investment Management company that blends Human Insights with Artificial Intelligence.

 

Responsibilities include:

Leading Facebook Responsible AI teams. Our goal is to ensure that AI at Facebook work equally well for everyone. My day-to-day responsibilities include:

  • Building Facebook Responsible AI org and managing some of the world’s top experts in AI Fairness, Privacy Preserving ML and ML explainability.
  • Shaping Facebook strategic vision for Responsible AI and overseeing its execution.
  • Leading the research and development of new Responsible AI tools and methodologies.
  • Ensuring all AI at Facebook is done responsibly.

 

Achievements include:

  • Co-founding Facebook AI Privacy Preserving ML team
  • Ensuring Algorithmic Fairness of several critical Facebook AI system ML systems
  • Developing new Fairness measurement Methodologies and PPML Technologies including
    • Privacy Preserving Race bias measurement methodologies
    • Differentially Private ML Optimizer for PyTorch (Opacus)
    • Federated Learning Platform
  • Speaker, panelist, moderator at various AI and Ethics related events, including:

 

Engineering Director Android Multimedia at Google LLC (Alphabet)

March 2013 until April 2019

Google is one of the largest technology company in the world. Android is the world most popular operating system and has been deployed to over 3 Billion devices worldwide.

 

Responsibilities include:

Leading Android’s Audio, Video, DRM and Live TV teams. My day to day responsibilities include:

  • Building the Android Media org and managing some of the best experts in the world in embedded multimedia technology
  • Shaping the technical direction and evolution of the whole Android multimedia ecosystem
  • Leading the development of ground-breaking multimedia technologies
  • Building strategic partnerships

 

Achievements include:

  • Releasing new Android Multimedia Framework components:
    • Pixel phones Camera video recording, AAudio framework, HEIF encoder/decoder, MediaPlayer 2, Codec 2 framework in Android Pi
    • Android new MediaPlayer, Google Cast Mirroring, HEVC decoder, Modular DRM framework, and Android Camera2 stack in Android JellyBean MR2, Kitkat and Lollipop and Nougat versions
  • Leading the redesign of Android Media components to secure them against critical security vulnerabilities such as Stagefright
  • Helping design and ship world class consumer devices: Pixel 1, 2 and 3; Nexus 5, 6, 6P; Nexus 7 and 9; Nexus Player, Sony Android TVs
  • Hiring and retaining world class engineering talents including the current Android Camera director

 

 

Chief Technology Officer at Bluestreak Technology (Montreal, Canada),

Co-founder at HappyChat

May  2010 until February 2013

February 2011 until February 2013

Bluestreak Technology (now part of Espial) was a leading Video Everywhere solution provider. Bluestreak’s Flash® and HTML5 based UI Engines have been embedded into millions of Consumer Electronics devices (Set Top Boxes, Mobile Phones, Digital TVs, Tablets, etc.).

HappyChat is a Video Chat and Video Broadcast application for Facebook.

 

Responsibilities included:

  • Defined Bluestreak’s technical strategy, product architectures and product roadmaps
  • Managing Bluestreak technical relationships with large STBs, Digital TVs and Mobile Phones customers worldwide (Panasonic IC, Qualcomm, Orange, Bouygues, Technicolor, etc.)
  • Contributing to critical technical developments
  • Leading special development projects
  • Representing Bluestreak (including speaking obligations) at industry trade shows (IBC Amsterdam, MWC Barcelona, etc.)

 

Achievements included:

  • Helping close several multi-million dollars contracts
  • Defining Bluestreak’s HTML5 and Video Everywhere technical strategy and product roadmap
  • Architecting Bluestreak’s Hybrid Flash / HTML5 (MachBlue XT) and Video Everywhere (MachBlue Smart Screens) solutions
  • Leading the development of Tubetime’s Connector (hardware) for Smartphones
  • Building HappyChat Video Chat and Video Broadcast platform

 

 

Various Senior Management positions at Bluestreak Technology

September 2004 April 2010

Positions included VP Engineering (Americas), VP Technology, Deputy CTO, Chief Architect and Technical Manager

 

Responsibilities included:

  • Building and managing a 25 people engineering organization, providing technical leadership, managing resources, tracking project executions and solving outstanding problems.
  • Defining product architecture and technical strategy.
  • Leading technical discussions with large European Digital TV STB customers (NDS, Thomson)
  • Contributing to key development projects

 

Achievements included:

  • Helping close several multi-million dollars contracts
  • Participating in the development of Bluestreak’s BREW® based Broadcast TV solution for Qualcomm’s FLO TV
  • Architecting, managing and leading the development Bluestreak’s Hardware Porting Kit and MachBlue TV solutions. These solutions accounted for a large portion of Bluestreak’s revenues at the time.
  • Significantly contributing to the design and deployment of MachBlue TV and MachBlue Mobile for several operators including Orange (France), TvCabo (Portugal) and Telecom Italia Alice (France).

 

MTS at TiVo (Silicon Valley, California)

owner and CTO at Voodoo Tech

May 2003 to August 2004

TiVo is a world leading company in Personal Video Recorder systems.

Voodoo Technologies is a software development and consulting firm I founded.

 

Achievements included:

  • Managing the integration of Broadcom’s Linux MPEG Audio/Video drivers for TiVo’s Series2 (Generation 04) Set Top Boxes. Ported TiVo Hardware Porting Kit to new platforms and developed several miscellaneous Linux drivers for the above mentioned platform.
  • Designing a multiple satellite, multiple Set Top Boxes, shared medium, DiSEqC based control protocol for a major US satellite service provider.
  • Participating in the architecture and development of TiVoToGo, TiVo’s Home Media Option package.

 

Software Architect at OpenTV US (Silicon Valley, California)

August 1998 to April 2003

OpenTV is a world leading company in Digital Interactive TV software.

 

Achievements included:

  • Inventing many OpenTV US and European patents covering novel aspects of OpenTV’s back-end infrastructure.
  • Leading the architecture design and the development of OpenTV return channel communication platform including OpenTV Gateway server and the DigitalTV Application Transfer Protocol stack.
  • Leading the development of OpenTV Html to O-code (H2O) transcoder. The H2O transcoder is a server side browser that converts dynamically Web based assets (HTML, JavaScript, jpegs, gifs, etc.) into OpenTV specific assets suitable for low-end Set Top Boxes (less than 40 MIPS and 4MB of Ram).
  • Leading the architecture design of Echostar’s Digital Video Recorder (DVR) capable Electronic Program Guide embedded applications.
  • Leading the architecture design and the development of Echostar’s OpenTV powered Interactive Program Guide embedded applications. This project was critical for OpenTV’s IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange.
  • Developing OpenTV O-code common libraries as well as a reusable Unix based large O-code application framework. Provided technical assistance to Telefonica I+D (Madrid, Spain) for the launch of Via Digital OpenTV EN1 STB.

 

Academic Experience

November 1995  to July 1998

Achievements included:

  • Developing a Data compression FPGA chip using LZSS parallel architecture, Data compression software for PC.
  • Developing a Window Manager Library for Borland C programming
  • Contributing to the design and development of OpenTV's first Internet Solution (OpenTV Web).
  • Designing a Scheduling Algorithm for WDM Optical Fiber networks.
  • Building a specification draft for a hardware implementation of an IEEE 1394 high-speed serial bus.
  • Developing a digital communication simulator to analyze the behavior of coded modulations on a Rayleigh channel.

 

EDUCATION:

Telecom ParisTech (Paris, France) – a “Grande Ecole”

September 1995 to July 1998

Master in Telecommunication Engineering

 

"Mathématiques Supérieures / Mathématiques Spéciales"

September 1993 to July 1995

National Preparatory Class Program emphasizing Mathematics and Physics. This is an elite undergraduate program leading to competitive examinations for admission to French graduate-level elite engineering institutes ("Grandes Ecoles", i.e. “French Ivy League Schools”).

 

PATENTS:

Granted US Patents:

  1. US 9213972 -- Systems and methods for fast mobile payment
  2. US 8826399 -- Systems and methods for fast authentication with a mobile device
  3. US 8712245 -- System and method for infrared dongle
  4. US 8645572 -- Service gateway for interactive television
  5. US 7961743 -- Service gateway for interactive television
  6. US 7882533 -- Digital television application protocol for interactive television
  7. US 7669212 -- Service platform suite management system
  8. US 7490346 -- Digital television application protocol for interactive television
  9. US 7305697 -- Service gateway for interactive television
  10. US 7221757 -- Method and system for accelerated data encryption
  11. US 7017175 -- Digital television application protocol for interactive television

 

Granted European patents:

  1. EP 1529390 -- Method and system for accelerated data encryption
  2. EP 1451661 -- Service platform suite management system
  3. EP 1389385 -- A service gateway for interactive television
  4. EP 1364511 -- A digital television application protocol for interactive television

 

US Patent Applications

  1. US 20130174188 -- Method and system to implicitly link second screen advertisement campaigns and commerce events to main screen video and audio program content

 

TECHNICAL SKILLS:

  • AI Platforms: PyTorch, TensorFlow
  • Presentation Formats: Flash®, HTML5
  • Computer languages: C, C++, Java, ActionScript 2/3, JavaScript, C#, Intel x86 and ARM assembly, Ada
  • Computer, Mobile and TV API's: Android, POSIX, Java JNI, OpenTV, Win32, Linux kernel API, Microsoft MFC, BREW.
  • Computer and embedded OS: Android, Linux, iOS, Unix (Solaris), Windows (10,8,7/XP/2000/NT, 98, 95), MS-DOS, ST OS 20/21.
  • Communication Protocols: Internet related protocols (PPP, IP, UDP, TCP, HTTP, SMTP, etc.), WDM protocols, HFC, IEEE1394, ADSL.
  • Data/Audio/Video/Image Compression: Lempel-Ziv, Huffman, H.265/HEVC, H.264/AVC, MPEG2 Audio and Video, JPEG.
  • Encryption: RSA, Diffie-Helman, Blowfish, RC4, DES, AES
  • Graphics: OpenVG, DirectFB, OpenGL ES
  • Digital TV and Streaming protocol: MPEG4, MPEG 2 Transport, DVB SI, DVB C/S/T/H, RTSP, HLS
  • Electronic CAD software: Altera Platforms, LT-Spice, VHDL and AHDL Languages
  • Internet: Linux Server administration (including IPChains based Firewall, HTTP Apache, SMTP Sendmail, DNS, SSH servers administration).
  • Build environments, version control tools and debugger: git, gmake, gcc, gdb, ddd, sccs, cvs, ClearCase, Perforce, Sun Workshop, Visual Studio.net, Visual C++, Borland C++, st20cc.

 

LANGUAGES:

  • English: Fluent
  • French: Mother tongue