Emmanuel Oquendo

Emmanuel is the co-founder and CEO of BrainHi, an artificial intelligence startup already making waves as it helped the most popular meteorologist in Puerto Rico keep her followers in the island and abroad informed about Hurricanes Irma and Maria, even when power and communications failed. Before Hurricane, BrainHi's core product was simply an AI-powered virtual receptionist. After the Hurricane, they had the opportunity to solely focus on the product for a few weeks, adding groundbreaking features to their product and having the biggest growth to date. In sum, Emmanuel and his team worked relentlessly from sidewalks and hotel lobbies, and even in the dark, wherever they could find wi-fi to keep their platform working and improving. Emmanuel Oquendo is a Mechanical Engineer from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez, an institution recognized for graduating the most Hispanic Engineers in the U.S. As a student, he founded the biggest student organization for tech student-entrepreneurs in Puerto Rico, called Idea Platform and participated in internships as a software developer with companies like Verizon and Yiftee (startup in Silicon Valley). In his final years, he learned about the latest artificial intelligence techniques by working on multiple research projects at MIT.

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