A Technology Officer’s Look Back on 2017

It is 12:18 AM, and I am skimming through Bret Victor’s for the fourth time in two days. I’m kind of disappointed that I was 6 years & 653k views late. For my fourth time though, I have the transcript up on my other screen and New Year’s leftover wine on my side. Inventing on Principle talk New year’s eve was fantastic this year. I hosted a gathering in my new apartment & we had an absolute blast! Moved to a new apartment in December. Just Dance! The party reminded me of Cincinnati where I spent the weekend hanging out with friends and ended the year with a well-written resolution’s post. This time was different. I deleted all my previous Medium articles. 2018 is going to be more of the same. (more later) Iterate. Revamp. “brainstorming” This year, Most importantly, I met my mom after being elected as the , the largest telecommunication service provider in Nepal. I met my parents after 1.5 years. Managing Director of Nepal Telecom Making us proud, everyday! I joined the payment startup in 2014 as a summer intern in California. The company has grown to become a household name ( ) in Mexico and has provided thousands of small businesses the power to sell more by accepting cards. Clip turned 5. “Clip” Today, we have grown from a dozen people to 200+ in Mexico, California & Utah. I can’t be more proud of the company’s achievement in the last couple of years. We launched two scholarship programs in Nepal, hosted the first-ever digital conference in Janakpur, raised funds for causes & created the first of many chapters, starting from San Francisco Bay Area. Code for Nepal reached new heights in 2017. We started writing memos . too I went head-first into really understanding cryptocurrencies, blockchain development in 2017. I was invested in this space since 2015, but only this year, I switched my gear to immerse into the completely. technology We worked on building a prototype (proof of concept) but had to pause the project due to technical limitations. We went back to the drawing board to reassess our idea and vision. We have a lot to share on what comes next, stay tuned for 2018 . (seriously, though!) In the meantime, if you are interested in this ever-growing space, say hi! I took Udacity’s Deep Learning course. To sharpen our machine skills, we decided to work on some hobby projects. Unfortunately, we couldn’t finish them as we spent the entire year discussing, and not doing. It led us into a rabbit hole, and we couldn’t come out of it. learning We delved more into the problem statement and less into the implementation. The projects that were interesting to us: predicting cryptocurrency prices, estimating vehicle travel time, recognizing doodle & storytelling and predicting the success of a government based on inflation. If you are interested to collaborate, message me! This year, I also had the opportunity to organize the first-ever Artificial Intelligence (AI) Hackathon in SF Bay Area. Signing winning certificates was fun! #GlobalAIHackathon in Pubnub, San Francisco. I challenged myself to be in control of my financials & investment. The goal was to understand the stock market & get higher returns than all index funds. These were the kind of conversation we used to have on a daily basis. At the end of the year, I was able to get 3X the average gains. It was a fun experience to read earning reports & technical analysis. I’m going to keep on doing this. Ask anyone I know how much of a meat lover I was. If I’m proud of one thing this year, this is it, hands down! I went a couple of months without eating meat. The process wasn’t as daunting as I thought it would be. I guess the stories where you suddenly wake up one day and are a changed person is real for a reason ( ). hah! I haven’t completely switched green, but I have massively reduced my meat intake ). My goal in 2018 is to cut down dairy & eggs and exercise regularly. (reducetarian I leave you with my favorite reads this year and happy new year again! Favorite reads of 2017: _The fastest way to learn how Blockchains work is to build one_hackernoon.com Learn Blockchains by Building One _A central question of debate leading up to the Senate's passage of a sweeping tax overhaul plan asked which Americans…_www.npr.org What Living On $100,000 A Year Looks Like _Here are some examples of financial news headlines from the last few days:_decentralize.today Don’t fall for the hype — Why Bitcoin’s $10,000 Price Doesn’t Reflect Its True Value. _Sound familiar?_hackernoon.com Stop Obsessing Over “The Teams” _However, the introduction of larger datasets with an increased number of classes will likely provide new metrics for…_www.themtank.org A Year in Computer Vision _I’m James Bridle. I’m a writer and artist concerned with technology and culture. I usually write on my own blog, but…_medium.com Something is wrong on the internet _Easy Bugs for Hard Cash_medium.freecodecamp.org How I hacked Google’s bug tracking system itself for $15,600 in bounties _Years ago I interviewed to be a book editor at a data-centric company that made me sign a nondisclosure agreement, so I…_mobile.nytimes.com An Algorithm Isn't Always the Answer _Introduction_medium.com How does Ethereum work, anyway? _Every week, I send an email blast to a million people who’ve signed up for freeCodeCamp.org._medium.freecodecamp.org Our nonprofit needed a cheaper way to send email blasts. So we engineered one. _I set up my own company in 2012. After decades of working for other people I felt the time was right. I had the…_medium.com HSBC is killing my business, piece by piece — How to plan for your bank screwing up _When you wake up, it’s 6:00 a.m., you think. You’re not sure, so you ask Alexa. It’s 6:15 — you must have asked for…_thebolditalic.com You Are Now Fully Optimized _Six months ago I won the lottery - the H-1B visa processing lottery for skilled foreign workers. I called my thrilled…_mobile.nytimes.com Is Anyone Good Enough for an H-1B Visa? _Blockchains are changing the foundation of the global economy, and everyone is freaking out._hackernoon.com A Primer on Blockchains, Protocols, and Token Sales _Storj is a “storage coin” with over $30M of ICO funding. The thousands of investors would be outraged if Storj was…_shitcoin.com Storj: Not a Dropbox Killer _Blockchains are digital organisms. As organisms evolve through changes in their DNA, blockchain protocols evolve…_medium.com Funding the Evolution of Blockchains _Working at Netflix 2015: What is it like to work at Netfilx? Brendan Gregg describes his job and experiences at Netflix…_www.brendangregg.com Working at Netflix _UberCab, as it was called at the time, started its service in San Francisco in May 2010. Mr. Camp and Mr. Kalanick…_www.nytimes.com Uber's C.E.O. Plays With Fire _I love Trello because there are very few ways you can screw it up. You simply don’t use Trello for the “more…_hackernoon.com Trello, “Jira Sucks”, and Tool Dysfunction _The Crypto market is gaining lots of steam. Gravity-defying price rallies…_hackernoon.com Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain, Tokens, ICOs: Why should anyone care? _Note: If you want to print this post or read it offline, the PDF is probably the way to go. You can buy it here. And…_waitbutwhy.com Neuralink and the Brain's Magical Future - Wait But Why _True story._medium.freecodecamp.org Hackers Stole My Website…And I Pulled Off A $30,000 Sting Operation To Get It Back _The nation has spoken: weird pointless $400 wi-fi enabled juicer company Juicero is the perfect symbol of Silicon…_slatestarcodex.com Silicon Valley: A Reality Check _A few days ago I ordered 61 books, most of which you’ve probably never heard of. I didn’t even flinch when Amazon…_medium.com WTF? I Spent $1,207.40 on Books? _Each year for April Fools', rather than a prank, we like to create a project that explores the way that humans interact…_redditblog.com How We Built r/Place _Code is central to Stripe: we build APIs, software tools, and infrastructure that are in turn used by other software…_stripe.com How Stripe teaches employees to code _When I was in college, I faced a pile of unappealing job opportunities, things that required polishing my résumé to a…_medium.com $5,000, no strings attached _How to Think Rationally About Tomorrow_umairhaque.com How Authoritarians Win Favorite books of 2017: _A lot of people talk about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard…_www.goodreads.com The Hard Thing About Hard Things _Start-up Nation has 5,929 ratings and 676 reviews. Mohammed-Makram said: الكتاب من السخافة بحيث لا أتوقع اتمامه الا لأ…_www.goodreads.com Start-up Nation _Ego Is the Enemy has 14,361 ratings and 932 reviews. João said: Everybody who knows me knows that I am a big fan of…_www.goodreads.com Ego Is the Enemy _The Internet of Money has 762 ratings and 95 reviews. George said: The Internet of Money by Andreas M. Antonopoulos is…_www.goodreads.com The Internet of Money _On Writing Well has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity and the warmth of its style. It is a book for…_www.goodreads.com On Writing Well _101 Things I Learned in Architecture School has 3,313 ratings and 188 reviews. Nate said: We've all heard that we're…_www.goodreads.com 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School _The Undoing Project has 20,764 ratings and 2,025 reviews. Trish said: This nonfiction is unlike others Michael Lewis…_www.goodreads.com The Undoing Project Favorite talks of 2017: If you came across any good post or book in 2017, please comment below.