Spearheading a Technological Revolution with CEO & Co-Founder of TurinTech AI, Dr Leslie Kanthan #34
These days we’re taught of an industrial revolution in the history books, but with innovations in AI and ML led by companies like TurinTech AI, we’re most likely living through a technology revolution.
Co-Founder & experienced researcher Dr Leslie Kanthan is one of the incredibly bright minds behind the venture, who’ve garnered recognition and support from Microsoft, Google & Amazon.
We hear from Dr Kanthan how reverse engineering a Donkey Kong replica game catalysed a desire to learn programming, why passing on knowledge is essential, and the balancing of business with lifestyle & relationships.
Lee and leslie discuss:
The educational catalyst of hands-on experience with coding at an early age
Growth of a culture in which collaboration is key
A need to fully understand the requirements of clients, the industry, and your own team
TurinTech AI’s groundbreaking developments in artificial intelligence and quantum computing
How the value of sharing knowledge is integral to their company culture
Links & references:
Lee Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leecooperrecruiter/
Leslie Kanthan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-kanthan-phd-545951a2/
TurinTech AI: https://www.linkedin.com/company/turintechai/
https://www.instagram.com/turintechai/
Get in touch: lee@extrology.com
Episode highlights:
“Outside of comics, people like Gandhi and Mandela are the kind of guys that I started hearing about when I was a young kid that I looked up to. I think I liked that peaceful approach to solving problems, and also their perseverance as well, working really hard against all odds to achieve what they wanted to set out to achieve.” - 2:45 - Dr Leslie Kanthan PhD
“I remember they had this game, which was like a replica of Donkey Kong, but it throws a banana. So I opened up the code because the source file is given - you compile and then you play - and then learning how that code is written to create the same type of character or changing a lot of the characters’ features was quite good.” - 10:05 - Dr Leslie Kanthan PhD
“London has its own Silicon Valley, right? If you think of it that way, there's a lot of VCs and startups now emerging, and we wanted to be one of them. So we had this idea of building out our company from an idea that we had together.” - 16:40 - Dr Leslie Kanthan PhD
“I think that we learned from experience to persevere with our ideas and dreams, to learn from others and understand the challenges, and even if you cannot crack the challenge now to open doors, because there's always that hope that you will be able to later crack that challenge, as was the case with us.” - 24:30 - Dr Leslie Kanthan PhD
“We meet a lot of companies and startups where the staff turnover rate is quite high. Maybe that's quite normal, so people are used to this idea of joining a startup for a few months, maybe leaving to join another startup or another company. So loyalty is quite a big thing here, the team is very close to us, as are the customers - they’re quite close to us as well.” - 30:10 - Dr Leslie Kanthan PhD
“During the time when we were studying and doing our research, there were a couple of professors and academics who were strongly involved in industry, and were very supportive and pushing across that you don't need to have a career just in academia only. You can use your academic background to apply your ideas and research into industry.” - 39:45 - Dr Leslie Kanthan PhD
“There's no point having knowledge if all you do is just sit on it. I think that it's really good to pass that knowledge and aim to make people smarter than you. I get enjoyment from doing that. We have a lot of kids that come from really good schools, and come to learn and train with us. We have helped them and motivated them, so that they will become these budding AI scientists in the years to come.” - 41:15 - Dr Leslie Kanthan PhD
“Make sure that you know what you exactly want to do, and have the right set of people around you to achieve that. Because in this day and age, building a business alone is very hard. But sharing that responsibility, and having that support, is what's going to really help you.” - 46:00 - Dr Leslie Kanthan PhD
Extrology is sponsored by Progresso Talent Partners who for more than 25 years have successfully delivered interim and permanent leadership talent to transform businesses and to hire the talent you need to enable your business to thrive: https://www.progressotalent.com/