12/7/2015 Bill Bowman
Raffi Krikorian, a technology leader who was a vice president at Twitter and now works at Uber’s Advanced Technologies Center, spoke on the utilization and advancement of technology to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges.
Written by Bill Bowman
The abstract for the lecture stated: “This talk is a summary of Raffi’s experience on building massive scale data and software platforms to change computing, transportation, and the world. The talk will highlight integration of scientific advances in big data science with technology platforms, coupled with the business logic, the scalable services, APIs, storage, core libraries, and the internal development model of all of Twitter. He will summarize lessons learned from his experience and will make recommendations regarding priorities for building something meaningful in highly competitive industries as robotics, information technologies, and many others.”
Krikorian works at Uber's Advanced Technologies Center, thinking about and building massive scale data and software platforms to change computing, transportation, and the world. Until August 2014, he was Twitter's Vice President of Engineering in charge of the Platform, the core infrastructure of Twitter. He managed 400 people who worked on, amongst other things, the business logic, scalable services, APIs, storage, core libraries, and the internal development model of all of Twitter.
Prior to working at Twitter, Krikorian created technologies to help people frame their personal energy consumption against global energy production (Wattzon - Business Week's "Best Idea" 2008), fueled his television habit through writing, "TiVo Hacks" (O'Reilly, August 2003), and also ran a consulting company, building off-the-wall projects. He has also taught at NYU’s ITP (created the class, “Every Bit You Make”) and was a student at MIT and the MIT Media Lab (Internet 0 - Scientific American, September 2004).
This lecture honors Alwin Schaller, an engineering pioneer and civic leader who completed his B.S. in mechanical engineering in 1907 and his M.S. in 1912. In the early stages of pressure flooding in oil fields, he studied the effect of adding heat on secondary recovery. His was the first article on the subject ever published in a technical journal, and led to the widespread adoption of thermal recovery.
Mr. Schaller established the Alwin Schaller Endowment Fund in memory of the late mechanical engineering professor George Alfred Goodenough, whom he described as “a major force” in shaping his career. Recognized as an expert in the field of thermodynamics, Professor Goodenough’s interest in specific heat values of gases led him to what was perhaps the first sound thermodynamic analysis of internal combustion engine processes.