Founding Team
Babak Pahlavan
Co-founder & CEO
By the age of 15, Babak had already penned over 10,000 lines of code. But that was just the start. Since those first 10,000 lines, Babak has created numerous e-commerce businesses and managed product development at companies such as Intel and Wyse Technology. As a product line manager for mobile platforms at Wyse Technology, he was responsible for successfully launching the company's smartphone software business. Since 2008, mobile product design and development has been a passion for Babak. Having shipped products on iPhone, Android and the iPad, he is very detail oriented and understands the nuances that are involved in designing a high quality mobile product.
Babak is the head of the Product Design Committee at Clever Sense.
Babak bootstrapped Clever Sense during its first 2 years and has since secured equity financing from angel investors. He earned his dual-degree bachelor's with honors from UC Berkeley in EE and CS and earned his master's degree with honors from Stanford in EE, with emphases on CS & data mining.
Nima Asgharbeygi
Co-founder & CTO
Nima is the technology mastermind behind Clever Sense Platform. He is a deep thinker and a guru in machine learning and data mining technologies. For the past 7 years he has been crafting intelligent agent architectures capable of learning and decision making for his PhD research at Stanford University. Such technologies are also at the heart of the Clever Sense platform. When not thinking about technology, he finds inspiration on long walks on the beach in Half Moon Bay, or in art museums.
Nima is also is a member of the Product Design Committee at Clever Sense.
Nima holds a master's degree in EE and is a PhD candidate at Stanford. His latest publications on machine learning can be found here.
Norberto Guimaraes
VP, Product
Norberto enjoys working at the intersection between technology and consumer behavior. His interest in the mobile space started in 2001, with his Master Thesis on Tech Speed in the mobile industry, back when smartphones were not yet very smart. Now that they are, he is fascinated by the world of opportunity that lies ahead for Clever Sense. He co-founded and served as the CEO of a web platform for mass-customization and personalization at MojaMix, which was later acquired by private investors. He has Product and Marketing management experience in Bay area startups in mobile and rich internet applications as well as large high tech corporations.
Norberto is also a member of the Product Design Committee at Clever Sense.
Norberto is Clever Sense's resident globetrotter. He speaks 6 languages, and has lived in Germany, Finland, Sweden and Portugal. He holds a MS in Engineering and a Berkeley MBA, with a focus on technology and entrepreneurship.
Viktor Persson
Creative Director
Viktor hails from Sweden and is an experienced UI/UX designer with a passion for pixels. At an early age, he started playing music, and that was how he found his interest in design -- by doing CD covers for different bands. After studying at some of the best design schools in the world, he started working for the biggest full service digital agency in Sweden. Ever since then, he has been providing pixel perfect digital solutions for some of Sweden's largest companies, and now, Clever Sense.
Viktor graduated Berghs School of communication in Stockholm, Sweden and Billy Blue College of Design in Sydney, Australia.
Chad Chen
VP, Engineering
Chad is a seasoned architect and programmer with 11 plus years of experience in the software industry. He has worked in the areas of e-commerce, bio-informatics, search engine, data mining, machine learning, and mobile applications. Chad's recent roles include senior technical positions at Infovell, Mobile Content Networks, TeleNav, and MyLife. Before joining Clever Sense, he was the chief architect at Ikain. Most importantly, Chad is the resident Clever Sense ping-pong champion.
Chad holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from The Ohio State University and a B.S in Biochemical Engineering from East China University of Science and Technology.
Chris Schilling
Sr. Data Mining Engineer
Chris loves data. Prior to Clever Sense, he used his powers for science at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory while working on the BaBar experiment. He was responsible for the development and implementation of machine learning and data mining techniques used for extracting extremely rare physics events from extremely large datasets. Now he uses his powers for contextual-discovery to develop scalable solutions in the area of unstructured web data mining.
Chris received his Ph.D. in Physics from The University of Texas in 2008 and holds a B.S. in Mathematics and Physics from The University of Arkansas.
Andrés Portillo
Sr. Back-end Engineer
Starting with an old Atari, Andrés has been programming since age 13. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in IT and has worked for several startups since 1998. He has worked in a large range of projects from 3d game development, mobile app development, web backends, to big data analysis in the cloud. These development projects have taken him to three different continents.
Besides programming and computer science, Andrés enjoys hiking, the outdoors, and touring historic and archeologicallly interesting places.
Jade Wang
Community Manager
Jade's fondness of the web is no secret, and she loves being able to talk to so many people with just a few swipes at her keyboard. From teaching math to middle school students to writing for Stanford's eco-advice column, Jade is in her element when she is communicating about her interests to others.
She hails from Southern California, has some serious GChat chops, and holds a B.S. and M.S. in Earth Systems from Stanford University.
Federico Mikaelian
Lead Mobile Developer, iOS
Frederico, aka, Super Guitarrista, is an experienced mobile application developer, with a focus on iPhone applications for search and geolocation. Earlier, he helped develop an Android app that monitors and maintains virtual servers from Amazon EC2 that was a finalist in the Google Android Developer Challenge 2.
Despite his long hair and Argentinean heritage, Federico has feet too slow for soccer but fingers fast enough for the guitar. He plays in a tango band and speaks basic Armenian. Federico holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Buenos Aires.
Salil Pandit
Lead Mobile Developer, Android
By Salil's 21st birthday, he had lived in 6 countries and travelled to another 60. Being constantly on the road meant that smartphones became the lifeline that Salil and his family use to share everything -- from daily events (like the best place for a kebab in Istanbul) to life changing occurrences (like joining Clever Sense!). Paired with his degree in computer science and a desire to build products that touch people's daily life, building apps has become Salil's passion.
Prior to Clever Sense, Salil worked for The Boeing Company as a Software Engineer in R&D with a focus on secure mobile applications and cyber security. He also co-founded TopDish, a startup to help users find and rate great foods near them. In college, he spent a year running data centers for DreamWorks Animation SKG, most of the time under a raised floor.
Salil graduated from California Polytechnic University, Pomona with a B.S. in Computer Science.
