Amol Kapoor
Amol Kapoor is a New Jersey native who graduated as a member of the Cum Laude society from The Pingry School in Basking Ridge, and is now completing his fifth semester at the Columbia School of Engineering. Amol is a junior year Computer Engineering major and is deep in his major classes, having taken Operating Systems, Electronic Circuits, Fundamentals of Computer Systems, Circuit Analysis, and more.
Amol is currently researching at the BioNet lab, a neurotech lab focused on creating an open source emulation operating system to simulate the Drosophila brain. He previously developed a real time interface system to allow Neurokernel to use sensory input, effectively giving the virtual brain a connection to reality. He is now working on a reinforcement learning vision processing robotics system that will model fruit fly behaviors, such as mating and fleeing.
Amol spent the summer working at Google in Mountain View, California. Having never worked on computer security before, he joined the Gmail Security team where he developed networking signals for the discovery of malicious Chrome Extensions. In his free time, Amol found and read everything Google had to offer on Machine Learning, while meeting with engineers working on AI projects.
Amol enjoys working on numerous personal web-development projects for his tech startup, Diagraphic Technologies (www.diagraphictech.com). After developing and deploying a social media '360 degrees' application, Amol is currently working on creating a neural network Tensorflow AI to play Super Smash Bros Melee.
Outside of tech, Amol cultivates his love of philosophy and argumentation by competing with the Columbia Debate team, where he has enjoyed teaching incoming novice debaters. Amol is also excited about his English minor, and is currently enjoying Russian classics in Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and the English Language. In his free time, Amol can be found reading in his room, playing 7 Wonders, Super Smash Bros, Riven, and other video/board games with friends, as well as experimenting with new restaurants in and around Manhattan.