Joel Huang

👾 About me

I grew up in the 90s without much tech, but by the turn of the millennium I was building and publishing blog skins, modding and sharing GameBoy ROMs, and running (legally suspect) private servers for friends to experience games in ways they otherwise wouldn’t be able to.

I started my career developing software and AI, new tools for the same old job - to build stuff people love. This part of me will stay.

🧑‍💻 Startup life

I now lead work on AI and product at Bifrost, a Series A startup building 3D virtual worlds as sandboxes for AI.

To put it simply, it’s building photorealistic 3D worlds (à la Matrix) and having AI systems train within so they learn what to expect, and having them validate those newfound skills in the real world.

Startup work is diverse, by choice. I lead an applied AI team that focuses on generative AI, synthetic data, and data-centric computer vision / MLOps. I also play a leading role in product strategy and discovery, prototyping, AI consultancy and solutions engineering, hiring and teambuilding, content strategy, and more good stuff.

More about Bifrost

Our goal is to let anyone create realistic 3D worlds easily so they can train and test AI systems properly. Our customers include teams building perception and vision systems across automotive, robotics, defense, intelligence, and more.

Technically, our stack is monstrously complex. We had to develop expertise across highly fragmented 3D tooling, build AI models, tools, and data engines to generate and test realistic and performant data, and write custom software for orchestration and scale. We’re also constantly working on user experience and product design for the specification of 3D worlds and synthetic data development.

Bifrost is attemping to solve data, the most important problem in AI, in a time where it matters the most. We are backed by the likes of Sequoia, Wavemaker, Lux, Carbide, and other wonderful investors.

🧠 Education and work

I’ve spent 3 years leading teams and building product and 7 years developing AI systems. I graduated with a Computer Science degree from Singapore University of Technology and Design, and a master’s degree in AI from the National University of Singapore. Before Bifrost, I worked on computer vision and machine learning research with orgs like Singtel, Nvidia, and NUS.

✨ Other things I enjoy

Bouldering. I recently started my journey, wore out my first pair of shoes in 3 months, and continue to climb ~once a week.

Music performance, digital music and sound synthesis. Built software for a gesture-control armband to audiovisually produce music live. Last played keys/synthesizer for Singaporean rapper BGourd and campus band Spacecrumbs.

📱 Contact

For professional matters (consulting, partnerships, talks, workshops, hiring, etc) - You’re welcome to reach out on LinkedIn or Twitter. For personal matters (mentorship, coffee chats), do reach me via Telegram or email.