Michael Leventhal Email & Phone Number

Bamako, Ml

Bamako, Mali

Responsible for providing guidance and oversight to the executive team as RobotsMali continues to expand its geographic reach and partnerships with educational institutions, funders, and the government. Supporting special projects in AI research and entrepreneurship.

Bamako, Mali

RobotsMali, The National Collaborative Center for Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Education delivers in-person and online educational programs in robotics, computer science, programming, artificial intelligence, and IoT, trains robotics teachers, facilitates collaboration between national universities in robotics and AI research, and provides the home for the national robotics teams at high school and university levels. Our national robotics teams have won numerous medals in international competitions. RobotsMali is sponsored by the Malian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MESRS) and integrated into the National University of Professional and Technical Education (ENETP) as an independant scientific and pedagogical laboratory and has received funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Deep Learning Indaba, UNICEF, UNESCO, The World Bank, the Malian government, Google, Lacuna Fund, and IDRC. I planned the project from its inception and was responsible for developing and running the Centre's programs. I also led administration, fundraising, and communication activities.In 2019, I created and led Mali's first initiative in Artificial Intelligence, organizing many public conferences including Mali's first IndabaX and taught several university courses including NLP, Python for AI, and AI in Embedded Systems. RobotsMali also initiated incubation of Malian AI-powered startups, including Yelenkoura, a company using AI in assistive mobility devices for the visually-impaired, funded by AI4D (IDRC). RobotsMali also launched research projects including GAIFE (Generative AI For Education), with funding from The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Bayɛlɛmabaga, to create a machine translator for the Bambara language, with funding from the Lacuna Fund and from Google. RobotsMali, with collaborators, has published multiple peer-reviewed research papers. RobotsMali also initiated a national program for certification of STEM and robotics teachers.

Accra, Ghana

The Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST), the premiere entrepreneurship training program on the African continent, offers an intensive one-year residential training program in technology entrepreneurship in Accra, Ghana. During my tenure at MEST, 11 companies that were launched received $1.1 million in pre-seed funding, the best outcome in the history of the program.As head of the school, I was responsible for the educational program of MEST and all operational aspects of the training program. I set the curriculum, managed a staff of Teaching Fellows, oversaw housing and food service and all other aspects of our activities and facilities, represented MEST in local, national, and international forums, assisted in recruitment, and, most importantly, worked hard to enable our students to launch African companies that provide employment and accelerate the development of the continent. I updated the curriculum, introducing artificial intelligence, data science, and IoT in the program of study, and implemented a more flexible structure that allowed students to choose courses better aligned to their interests or to engage in guided independent study. I also supported the creation of a student-led Meetup group in data science and machine learning that established a data community with over 1000 members in Accra and interaction between MEST students and the tech-interested public. The changes contributed to an historic level of startups created in the training program getting pre-seed funding.

Silicon Valley, California, United States

Business leader responsible for growth and revenue generation in use of FPGAs for compute acceleration in hyperscale data centers (e.g., companies like Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Baidu, Alibaba, as well as Tier 2, 3 enterprises). Developed marketing strategy for increasing understanding of FPGA as a low power, low latency, flexible, massively parallel compute fabric superior for a wide range of data center and cloud applications including machine learning and deep learning, data analytics, image processing, video transcoding, security, data processing, bioinformatics, etc. Led outbound marketing efforts including messaging strategy and activities at conferences including SC, created SC15 Workshop on Heterogeneous Computing and Reconfigurable Logic, Linley, GTC, Open Power, ICML (machine learning) and others. Lead business development for data center compute acceleration including direct management of Tier 1 relationships, working with the channel sales force for all other customer engagements, provide sales training and materials. Responsible for ecosystem development including leading partnerships with Tier 1 companies and strategic partners and identifying investment opportunities. Major accomplishment was establishing company focus on machine learning/deep learning as a major market opportunity for FPGAs as well as 11 other major application areas for FPGA compute acceleration. Responsible for contributing to product planning (Verstal chip) and other engineering initiatives, providing market input to guide next generation silicon development and IP development.

Boise, Idaho, United States

Highly technical product management of hardware and software, competitive analysis and market research. Defined new major market opportunities in HPC, bioinformatics, IoT, data analytics,, network security, AI and NLP. Invented and led development of a parallel programming language (Automata Network Markup Language - ANML), led development of application prototypes, wrote a 1000 page Developer's Guide and "Cookbook" with the first Automata Processor applications, managed an agile software team developing an IDE, the AP Workbench, developed collaboration with research institutions (Iowa State University, Georgia Tech, University of Virginia, University of Missouri), and managed a team developing bioinformatics applications. I contributed to 3 patent applications.

San Diego, California, United States

At LSI I continued to lead the business unit I had created for Tarari after Tarari's acquisition by LSI. Tarari was a venture-funded Intel Capital company which made hardware and software products for networking, network security and enterprise software acceleration. With the greater resources of LSI I made key contributions to bringing in over $120M of design wins for my business unit. At LSI I used a formal product management methodology originating from Intel which included market research to quantify product opportunties, competitive analysis, ROI analysis, tactical planning, pricing strategy and product lifecycle management and preparation of business unit "dashboards" to give upper management visibility into program status.

San Diego, California, United States

Start-up, successful exit with acquisition by semiconductor company LSI. Networking, network security and enterprise software acceleration using hardware (FPGA and ASIC) and software. Responsible for overall business strategy, go-to-market strategy, marketing, product management, strategic partnerships, business development and tight collaboration with software engineering, hardware engineering and sales teams. Took my business unit from zero revenue to $3M/year and contributed to making Tarari an attractive acquisition target for LSI.

Silicon Valley, California, United States

My own start-up/consulting house. Pioneer in XML tools and XML-based applications and web sites, internationally recognized authority. Published first book on XML and internet applications (Designing XML Internet Applications), participated in W3C Working Groups, taught the first university courses on XML (U.C. Berkeley Extension), spoke at 50 or so conferences, worked with Oracle, Commerce One, Nokia, Pacific Bell and start-ups Citec, Zuno, Grif, Nokia, DMSi, in U.S. and in Europe.

Bs-Eecs, Computer Science

Major coursework focused in core computer science (e.g., algorithms, compilers) and computer architecture Extensive elective coursework.

Education record

The desert has a deep personality; it has a voice. Great leaders in all ages have sought the desert and heard its voice. You can hear it.