Meet the DeepRacer 2019 League Community Finalists!
November saw the final virtual race in the AWS DeepRacer 2019 League, bringing with it the conclusion of months of hard work training models and hoping they do well on the track. Now that all (but one!) of the races have completed, the qualifying finalists have been officially announced by AWS.
The finalists now progress to the AWS DeepRacer Championships at re:Invent 2019! In total, 64 people will take part in a series of knock-out rounds before the overall champion for 2019 is crowned. But before that, a final 3 entries will be selected from a last-minute qualifying race at re:Invent itself!
The AWS DeepRacer Community has had tremendous representation at most of the DeepRacer events and we’re delighted to announce many of our community members have qualified for the Championships! If you’re attending re:Invent 2019, keep an eye out for these people and don’t forget about our Community DeepRacer Bootcamp!
With no further delay, let me introduce to you our Community Finalists! (Shown in order of submitting their profile for inclusion in this blog post)
DeepRacer Community Finalists
Lyndon Leggate
Racer Name:
Etaggel
Residence:
UK
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, 1st place overall runner up
Summary:
Lyndon is founder of the AWS DeepRacer Community, an AWS ML Hero and is Founder/CTO at deəp, a data science and machine learning consultancy that assists a variety of clients with technology strategy and data solutions. Lyndon is a senior technology leader with extensive defining and delivering complex technical solutions on large, business critical projects for consumer facing brands.
Ayrat Baykov
Racer Name:
ABaykov
Residence:
USA
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
What I do: Principal Software Architect for Waste Management How I qualified: By being in the top 18 point getters of Virtual Circuit What helped me get there: AWS DeepRacer Community on Slack, local training, various AWS content about DeepRacer/ML/AI, being stable, improving time every month, making reward function simpler and adjusting action space along with hyperparameters.
Robin Castro
Racer Name:
Robin-Castro
Residence:
Singapore
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
I am a resident of Singapore and working in a financial services company. I was a Cobol Mainframe developer for many years. I then moved on and learned Cloud technology through AWS Developer and Solutions Architect certifications. Also, became an Agilist / ScrumMaster and currently in a team building web application. DeepRacer and this community makes it easy and fun to learn ML / RL!
Tomasz Ptak
Racer Name:
Breadcentric
Residence:
UK
Qualification:
Winner, August Virtual League Race
Summary:
I’m a software engineer at OpenMarket, a messaging solutions provider. Outside of work I spend time with family, bake bread and race. I also blog on CodeLikeAMother.UK
Jim Wu
Racer Name:
JimWu
Residence:
Taiwan
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
I am an employee of Trend Micro. The Slack AWS DeepRacer community provide many information and knowledge. I can learn a lot of Machine learning knowledge here. Including how to adjust the parameters, make a better reward function and analysis your training logs.
Tomasz Panek
Racer Name:
PGS-Tomasz-Panek
Residence:
Poland
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
I am a 25 years old Machine Learning Developer with Java background at PGS Software. I am responsible for solving Machine Learning problems like image recognition, data forecasting etc. I’ve started my adventure with DeepRacer in May
I am in the middle of transformation from service manager to Data Scientist / ML Engineer. At the moment I am on a study leave from work to finalize my studies. Besides DeepRacer, my research / thesis work on NLP in Finnish language has kept me busy.
Kire Galev
Racer Name:
Kire
Residence:
Macedonia
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
Working with Computer Vision 3 years, at first OCR now solving Semantic Segmentation problems. In past small bar owner and start-up founder. In free time grower of sweet pepper and other vegetables.
Richard Fan
Racer Name:
RichardFan
Residence:
Hong Kong
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
A Cloud Solutions Architect from Hong Kong. My job is to help clients migrating legacy system to cloud.I am new to reinforcement learning but DeepRacer is a really fun and simple-to-start stuff. And finally get into the knockout stage after 6 months of racing.
Darren Broderick
Racer Name:
Outrun@LibertyMutual
Residence:
UK
Qualification:
Enterprise Wildcard Entry from Liberty Mutual
Summary:
Senior Software Engineer, DeepRacer is my first ML Experience, I’m from Team Outrun at Liberty Information Technology, Representing Liberty Mutual Insurance
Jochem Lugtenburg
Racer Name:
Jochem
Residence:
Netherlands
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
My name is Jochem, a computer science student based in the Netherlands. I work part-time as a mobile app developer at Relive. Relive is a platform where people can share their outdoor activities in the form of a video. Started racing at the Amsterdam summit and qualified via the virtual league.
Rick Fish
Racer Name:
PrimeWheels
Residence:
UK
Qualification:
Winner, 2018 DeepRacer defending Champion
Summary:
A technologist who loves experimenting and finding new ways to apply approaches to difficult problems… regularly breaking stuff around the home and attempting to put it back together without getting told off by the wife and kids! Co-founder of a Fintech startup, JigsawXYZ, whose strategists, engineers and designers are on a mission to help individuals access, and banks offer fairer financial products.
Mohammad Al-Ansari
Racer Name:
Myplanet
Residence:
Canada
Qualification:
Winner, Toronto Summit
Summary:
An AWS Solution Architect and a veteran technology professional, Mohammad’s interest into DeepRace came from a meetup session he attended along with his colleague, Weiling Gu. Together they raced at the AWS Toronto Summit nailing down the #1 and #4 spots. Aside from racing, Mohammad loves using technology to make people’s lives easier – including building conversation interfaces (Alexa and the gang), AI for social good, and implementing cloud solutions. Connect with Mohammad on LinkedIn
Karl Stiegler
Racer Name:
Karl-NAB
Residence:
Australia
Qualification:
Winner, May Virtual League Race
Summary:
My background is in software engineering, specialising in investment banking. I’m a Senior Engineer at National Australia Bank (NAB) working on front-to-back-office trading platforms, fixed income and derivatives pricing, and leading DevOps and automation. Prior to getting into DeepRacer I had no experience in ML, and I was drawn to DeepRacer specifically to get some exposure and understanding of ML. I was fortunate enough to qualify for the re:Invent knockout stages by winning the London virtual circuit race…… And the New York race…… And also China too
Jungyoul Yu
Racer Name:
Nalbam-me
Residence:
Korea
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
My name is Jungyoul Yu And my racer name is nalbam-me. I am from Korea. I am a DevOps engineer. My main interests are Kubernetes, Container, Terraform, CI / CD, Automation. And another my task is Pit Boss, an unofficial DeepRacer competition in Korea. Last year I got a DeepRacer from re:Invent and started training. I finished 9th at the Seoul Summit and 22nd at the Tokyo Summit. I went to the final with 6th place in the virtual league points ranking.
Kim Wooglae
Racer Name:
kimwooglae
Residence:
Korea
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
I’m co-founder and CTO of Inswave Systems. Inswave is a member of W3C and one of the leading players in the HTML5 UI platform.
Ray Goh
Racer Name:
RayG
Residence:
Singapore
Qualification:
Summit Circuit, 1st place overall runner up
Summary:
Ray is a Tech executive who leads Agile Teams in the delivery of FX Trading & Digital Solutions at a bank in Singapore. He is a passionate Cloud advocate with deep interest in Voice and Serverless technology, and has 8 AWS Certifications under his belt. Obsessed with home automation, he owns more than 15 Alexa-enabled devices at home and in the car. Since Apr 2019, he has been spending all his free time learning about Reinforcement Learning and DeepRacing in the physical and virtual leagues.
Jason Lian
Racer Name:
JasonLian
Residence:
Taiwan
Qualification:
Winner, September Virtual League Race
Summary:
I am an engineer of Trend Micro. Actually, I don’t have any experience of Machine learning. But I learn more knowledge from this AWS DeepRacer community. I appreciate for everyone help.
John Amos
Racer Name:
john@invex
Residence:
USA
Qualification:
Winner, D.C. Summit
Summary:
I’m in the US from northern Virginia (near Washington DC), been in the IT business for over 25 years. After the doing data/comms in the US Marine Corps, I worked for IBM and Lockheed Martin in various roles from data centers, networking, mainframes, and software development. Started my own company about 5 years ago and we’re focused on cloud (AWS) in the areas of DevOps, security, data, and analytics (currently focused on Computer Vision).
Tony Jenness
Racer Name:
TonyJ
Residence:
UK
Qualification:
Virtual Circuit, top 18 runner up
Summary:
Originally hailing from New Zealand, I spent the last 10 years contracting for a wide range of companies in London before joining the team at Jigsaw XYZ. I raced at the London summit with my good friend and colleague MattC, with Matt taking the trophy and I finished fourth.
Scott Pletcher
Racer Name:
A Cloud Guru
Residence:
USA
Qualification:
Winner, Chicago Summit
Summary:
After 27 years in corporate IT doing stuff like ERP implementations, cloud migrations and Agile rollouts, I decided to try my hand at teaching full-time for A Cloud Guru. I get paid to create silly videos, play with cutting edge technology (like DeepRacer) and interact with other curious students all over the world. I currently host ACG’s original series “DeepRacer: The Fast and the Curious” and maintain the AWS Certified Solutions Architect Professional course and the AWS Certified Machine Learning Specialty course (together with co-instructor Brock Tubre). Currently, I’m producing a new ML course aimed at complete beginners.
2 Replies to “Meet the DeepRacer 2019 League Community Finalists!”
Well done guys! And all the best for the finals! Will be sure to follow along online :-D.
Man I knew I would see John Amos, and Ray Goh in there! These guys are top notch! I raced with them in Re:Invent and what a great set of guys! Best to all the rest but my money is on these two!
Well done guys! And all the best for the finals! Will be sure to follow along online :-D.
Man I knew I would see John Amos, and Ray Goh in there! These guys are top notch! I raced with them in Re:Invent and what a great set of guys! Best to all the rest but my money is on these two!