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    Jim Reich

    Jim Reich

    Serial startupper, hard tech aficionado, hands-on engineering leader & inventor. Can start a product in a shoebox on my desk, expand to a large team and product

    CTO San Francisco Carnegie Mellon Unive...
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    Experience
    Alio
    Alio
    Vice President of Engineering 2016 - Present (over 10 years)
    Joined seed stage medical sensor company (www.alio.ai) as Employee #3. Developed a wireless remote monitoring system for medically complex dialysis patients, including a flexible,... more ultra-low-power patch, a Linux relay hub and an AWS based backend and UI. Development started from a prototype on my desk, progressing to a full end-to-end system and FDA submission. Wrote first version of firmware and hub software, and then built and led software, electronic, firmware, mechanical and QA teams through 5+ years of growth. Our patch detected multiple novel blood metrics via a suite of 11 sensors, and after several years of clinical trials will be deployed to several health systems in 2022. Prior to the patch, developed an implantable version for peripheral arterial disease, which was successfully tested in sheep before pivoting to the patch design.
    SensingElements
    SensingElements
    Founder
    Streetline
    Streetline
    VP of Engineering 2007 - 2014 (over 6 years)
    (Acquired by Kapsch)

    Streetline is the leading company in smart parking. Using some of the largest wireless sensor networks ever built, we let drivers find parking... more based on sensors embedded in the pavement, and pay for parking via retrofit devices in parking meters or via third-party APIs. Cities use both realtime and analytics data from the system to manage their own operations, from dynamic pricing to meter maintenance and enforcement.


    As VP of Engineering, I started with a prototype vehicle sensor and a team of 6 engineers and grew it to a team of 21, building hardware, firmware, web and mobile applications in house with very small teams. This includes 6 devices, 5 customer-facing apps and 2 mobile apps, as well as internal apps for surveying, device management and over-the-air reprogramming. The system is ultra-low power, with all the devices getting a 5 year lifespan from internal batteries. Our sensors are the most accurate in the industry, with novel multi-sensor fusion algorithms that self-calibrate, adapt to the presence of noise and are highly resistant to external noise sources.

    My role has been both hands-on and managerial — presenting at board meetings, talking to customers and partners, adapting an agile management system for managing embedded development, helping design app behavior and analytics, working with developers on software design, tuning mesh networks and helping design and troubleshoot hardware are all parts of my day-to-day work.

    Streetline’s technology has won over 15 awards, including IBM Global Entrepreneur of the year, Mobile World Congress “Best Mobile Innovation for Smart Cities,” Fast Company’s “10 Most Innovative Companies in Transportation” and the Wall Street Journal’s Innovation Awards.
    Xerox PARC
    Xerox PARC
    Area Manager 1998 - 2007 (almost 10 years)
    Early researcher in the Internet of Things, back when it was only known as Sensor Networks or even "Smart Matter." As a team lead and as a individual researcher, developed... more systems such as:

    - Microphone array-based system for automatic realtime facilitation of meetings
    - Ceiling-mounted video sensor network for tracking people and activities
    - Vehicle-to-Vehicle communication systems and algorithms for automotive collision avoidance
    - Wireless sensor network for tracking vehicles using microphone arrays and a decentralized detection system
    - Airjet paper mover which controlled paper position to 20 micron accuracy using a batch fabricated array of 1200 airjets built on a printed circuit board substrate
    - Middleware for self-assembling applications in sensor networks
    - Wireless sensor nodes which scavenged energy from vibration of an HVAC duct

    In addition to role as functional manager, served as project manager and Principal Investigator for government and commercial sponsored research totaling approximately $10M. This included deep involvement in business development and proposal-writing process and customer interaction at all levels with US and Japanese partners.

    Designed and implemented significant components of most of these systems, selecting tools, hardware, designing demonstration scenarios and testing and troubleshooting electronics. Included coding in C for embedded systems, C++, Java, and Matlab, and designing control systems, signal processing and information dissemination algorithms.
    Lockheed Martin
    Lockheed Martin
    Member of Research Staff 1996 - 1998 (about 2 years)
    - Prototyped control system and simulation for Lockheed's original version of the Webb space telescope
    - Led control systems team in development of the world’s first strapdown... more antimissile system— orders of magnitude lighter and cheaper than competing systems. In addition to my role as control systems lead on the project, built control system models for the system and designed and tested electromagnetic actuators for nanoradian accuracy, kHz-bandwidth optical system.
    - Designed nonlinear analog controller, wrote multi-processor DSP code.
    Orbital Sciences
    Orbital Sciences
    Employee
    Cinder (YC W'15)
    Cinder (YC W'15)
    Cofounder / CTO 2014 - 2015 (almost 2 years)
    (Y Combinator startup Acquired by Desora)

    Cinder is building a new cooking product for the home-- a connected grill which cooks your food perfectly every time, even... more if your guests are an hour late or you have to pop out to the store for a forgotten ingredient.

    As co-founder, I led the engineering team, and especially focused on novel sensing, inference and control algorithms and the hardware and firmware to implement them, but also got involved in food science and thermal analysis, and worked with the manufacturer in China to get the unit ready for production.
    Founder
    SensingElements
    Employee
    Streetline, Lockheed Martin, Xerox PARC, Alio, Orbital Sciences, Cinder (YC W'15)
    Investor
     
    Incubator
     
    Advisor
     
    Attorney
     
    Board Member
     
    Mentor
     
    Member
     
    Acquired
     
     
    Projects
    Cinder Sensing Cooker
    Perfect Food with the Touch of a Button
    Cinder is a first-of-its-kind cooking device that prepares foods perfectly by using thousands of tiny heating nodes. Think of it like a countertop grill but… · More with the precision of sous-vide and the power of a stovetop. By staying within 1 degree of your food's ideal temperature, Cinder provides edge-to-edge cooking with no temperature fluctuations.

    All the moisture and flavor stays inside your food giving you the perfect steak, salmon, chicken, vegetables, tofu, or anything else you have the on the menu.
    Joe Morin
    John Yu
    With John Yu, Joe Morin
     
    Education
     
    About
    Achievements

    Built a flexible, wireless, ultra low power medical patch for dialysis patients, with 11 sensors detecting multiple properties of blood noninvasively. Took device from desktop prototype I built and coded, through FDA submission, built and led teams in EE, firmware, mechanical, QA and software.

    Cofounded Cinder, built a novel cooking device giving high end sous-vide-like quality to food, but without the water bath.

    Built world's largest wireless sensor network, covering every parking space in Downtown LA, Hollywood and Venice. Grew the Streetline engineering team from 6 members to over 25.

    Built the controller for the world's first strapdown antimissile seeker, stabilizing large, high frequency vibrations to microradians. Built control systems hardware and algorithms for suborbital and space launch vehicles, including first optical control simulation of Lockheed's version of the Webb Space Telescope.

    Describe the most impressive thing you've done.
    Skills
    Digital Signal Processing Control Systems Embedded Systems System Design Firmware Cooking Sensors IoT Signal Processing C Python Linux
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