Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders - S5 Bonus: Kordel France, Seekar Technologies
Kordel France has always been infatuated with finding order in chaos - and has carried that way of living throughout his life. He is an engineer by training and schooling, but grew up on a farm. What triggered his interest in AI was the day that his father brought home autonomous driving systems for the farm equipment. His Dad let him tinker with it, and Kordel was hooked.
In college, he studied Physics and Mathematics, as his father always told him that there was a lot of math involved with autonomous systems. Aligned with this, he really enjoyed studying calculus. He saw the relationship between time series and control theory - essentially, autonomous guidance of a vehicle. And to learn to code, he tried to automate the calculation of derivatives. All in all, he considers math a beautiful thing, and sees it behind everything throughout our day to day lives. Post school, he worked for defense companies, specifically on autonomous systems. He also got to work as a mechanical engineer for a while, which helped him to view things from a different discipline. To round this out, he obtained his graduate degree in Artificial Intelligence.
For fun, he practices Jiu Jitsu and plays the drums. In another life, he says he might been a drummer, but in this life, he plays along with a wide spectrum of music - from punk rock to country. Both hobbies allow his brain to turn off, but at the same time, Kordel solves some of his biggest technical problems while he is doing his hobbies.
Way back in college, Kordel started building a codebase around computer vision and detection. He started adding to it over time, made it quite impressive, and figured out a way to monetize the platform. However, coming from the defense industry, he and his co-founder understood the apprehension around the use of AI commercially. They set out to change that.
This is the creation story of Seekar Technologies.
Sponsors
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Links
- Website: https://seekartech.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kordel-k-f-10349811b/
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Bay Curious - Deep in the Santa Cruz Redwoods, Your Mind Will Play Tricks On You
Listener Clayton Schloss sent Bay Curious this question: "Why do so many people have bumper stickers on their cars from the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz? What is that place?" Reporter Amanda Font takes us on a journey to "the Spot," where perception appears to bend reality.
Additional Reading/Listening:
- What's Behind One of California's Most Ubiquitous Bumper Stickers?
- The California Report Magazine Podcast
Reported by Amanda Font. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Katrina Schwartz, Sebastian Miño-Bucheli and Brendan Willard. Help on this episode from Suzie Racho, Victoria Mauleon, Sasha Khokha. Additional support from Erika Aguilar, Jessica Placzek, Kyana Moghadam, Paul Lancour, Carly Severn, Lina Blanco, Ethan Lindsey, Vinnee Tong and Jenny Pritchett.
The Intelligence from The Economist - States of emergency: Nigeria
Criminal gangs in north-western states, jihadists in the north-east, a rebellion in the south-east: kidnappers, warlords and cattle rustlers are making the country ungovernable. The new head of Samsung Electronics has a legacy to build—and aims to do so by breaking into the cut-throat business of processor chips. And the sci-fi classic “Dune” gets a good cinematic treatment at last.
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Omnibus - Ramtha (Entry 1029.AC1616)
In which the discovery of quantum mechanics leads inevitably to the reappearance of a 30,000-year-old warrior god from a lost continent, and Ken proposes missionaries for silverware. Certificate #27324.
The Best One Yet - 🐙 “The Tragic Kingdom” — EA’s FIFA breakup. Netflix’s squid game(s). Ulta Beauty’s journey.
What Next | Daily News and Analysis - How Immunity for Cops Ends
Once an obscure legal doctrine, the practice of qualified immunity for police has drawn widespread public scrutiny in the past year. But as mainstream support for ending qualified immunity grows, police unions are amping up their opposition.
Guest: Kimberly Kindy, national investigative reporter for The Washington Post.
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Everything Everywhere Daily - Why Does Monaco Even Exist?
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NBN Book of the Day - Esther De Dauw, “Hot Pants and Spandex Suits: Gender Representation in American Superhero Comic” (Rutgers UP, 2021)
Superman, Batman, Captain America, and Iron Man are names that are often connected to the expansive superhero genre, including the multi-billion-dollar film and television franchises. But these characters are older and have been woven into American popular culture since their inception in the early days of comic books. The history of these comic book heroes are histories that include bulging muscles, flashy fight scenes, four-color panels, and heroic rescues of damsels in distress. Esther De Dauw’s new book,
Hot Pants and Spandex Suits: Gender Representation in American Superhero Comic (Rutgers UP, 2021),analyzes these characters with a critical lens to explore what exactly these figures teach the readers and the public about identity, embodiment, and sexuality. De Dauw, a comics scholar, focuses her research on the intersectionality of race and gender in comic books.
Hot Pants and Spandex Suits takes the audience through the 80-year evolution of comic books to discuss the changes in identity and culture, and explore what these heroes say about and to the American people. As an expert in Comic Studies and Cultural Studies, De Dauw uses theories of structural power relations to explain the disenfranchisement of women, LGBTQIA+, and the Black community in comics. As she notes, superheroes are often metaphors for the concerns of the dominant culture, and are informed by the dominant gender ideology and the American cultural landscape. Hot Pants and Spandex Suits unpacks superhero actions to examine who these heroes are serving, how, and what this has to say about American culture and identity. These questions frame the discussion throughout the book as De Dauw traces the changing perceptions of identity, cultural, and historical shifts through comic books and their many different heroes. A significant avenue of analysis focuses on the fragility of white masculinity, and how the superheroes essentially became an antidote to the cultural sense that white men were “losing” in American society. With a fascinating tour of the history of comic books, De Dauw welcomes both the academic community and comic-book lovers to venture through this analysis to better understand the role of superheroes within our culture and our politics.
Shaina Boldt assisted with this podcast.
Lilly J. Goren is professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of the award winning book, Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics (University Press of Kentucky, 2012), as well as co-editor of Mad Men and Politics: Nostalgia and the Remaking of Modern America (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Email her comments at lgoren@carrollu.edu or tweet to @gorenlj.
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The NewsWorthy - Next Vaccine Rollout, New Bitcoin Record & Spanx Sold – Thursday, October 21st, 2021
The news to know for Thursday, October 21st, 2021!
What to know about the new plan to get young kids vaccinated against COVID-19 and the next phase in the booster shot rollout.
Also, a new call for water conservation in California during the state's driest year in nearly a century.
Plus, a widespread onion recall, a tense protest over a controversial stand-up special, and what's behind a new Bitcoin record.
All that and more in around 10 minutes...
Head to www.theNewsWorthy.com/shownotes for sources and to read more about any of the stories mentioned today.
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