Hi there (wave emoji)!
I'm Lari and love software engineering and machine learning.
I always try to expand my knowledge by pursuing new opportunities and challenges.
A good example of this would be when I first started working on my project for the German National Contest for AI (“Bundeswettbewerb Künstliche Intelligenz”).
Despite having little knowledge of the technical details, I imagined a clear goal.
After three months of learning, trying, failing, and finally finishing my, to this day, biggest project I was invited to the national finale where I competed with the top 4 of over 2500 participants from all of Germany.
My main area of passion is (machine learning) education.
Since 2020, I have been volunteering at the German National AI Competition and creating freely accessible online courses that teach students the full range of ML subjects
ranging from basic Python all the way to implementing and deploying deep neural networks.
I also have a blog where I explain ML topics with a focus on interactivity and fun.
I teach subjects from the ground up by reinventing and rebuilding them with the reader, while providing
interactive elements to actively involve the same into the learning process.
I also love combining fun technologies together.
For my blog, I built my own client-side Python execution environment using Pyodide and WebAssembly.
For the German National AI Competition, I deployed a convolutional neural network onto a Raspberry.
I also love customizing my virtual environments.
When I could not find a theme for VSCode that I liked, I made my own.
I love making my desktop feel cozy and homely.
Another big passion of mine is diversity and inclusion.
Wherever I am, I do my best to contribute to a positive environment where everybody can feel safe and encouraged.
Currently, I lead the organization of the local queer student group "queerstiftis" in Frankfurt and am also part of the national working group for diversity and inclusion.
Lastly, I really love playing table tennis and badminton! :)
I would love to connect with you! Feel free to contact me via E-Mail or LinkedIn!
Site Reliability Engineering Intern
In 2022, I interned at Google as an SRE intern! Here's a brief summary of what I did:
Software Development Engineer Intern
In 2022, I interned at AWS Dublin as an SDE intern! Here's a brief summary of what I did:
Lead Educator and Organizer
In 2019, I was a national finalist at the German National Competition for AI, which saw over 2500 participants that year but only invited 4 teams to the finale. In 2020, I joined the organizational team and have been volunteering for the competition ever since. I have contributed to many aspects of the organization, but here's a brief summary of the key points:
Project
In January of 2021, I launched Machine Learning Compass. On this website, I will post articles about all sorts of machine learning topics ranging from technical tools and hands-on projects all the way to abstract and mathematical concepts. The goal? Help people become better at machine learning. Not through raw text and dry formulas, but vivid visualizations, step-by-step explanations and clean code.
Student Researcher
For my bachelor thesis, I cooperated with the German Research Center for AI (DFKI) to work on explainable AI.
I developed a new algorithm for evaluating feature attribution methods and tested it on thousands of experiments.
Research Assistant
Since high school, I have worked as a research assistant at the Fraunhofer Institute of Technological and Economical Mathematics (ITWM).
I have worked in the optimization department, mainly focusing on developing ml methods to replace costly physics-based simulations. Here's a summary of my work:
Degree
I graduated from the RPTU with a degree in CS, doing so at the very top of the class. I was
For my outstanding academic achievements and my volunteering activities, I have been awarded the
three distinct, highly-renowned scholarships.
During my undergraduate studies, I have specialized myself in intelligent systems, taking several courses
in the mathematical foundations as well as shallow and deep machine learning and collaborative intelligence.
I have also taken several courses of the software engineering specialization, including functional programming.
I was admitted into the the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, Germany's largest and most prestigious scholarship foundation. The foundation supports fewer than 0.5% of German students and is named “Germany's secret elite university” on Wikipedia. I was nominated by my university examination office, which can only admit the top 2% of students.
I was admitted into the the Foundation of the German Economy, one of Germany's 13 highly prestigious scholarship foundations. The foundation supports students with exceptional academic performance and a strong entrepreneurial spirit.
Selected as one of 149 students to receive the Scholarship of Germany ("Deutschlandstipendium") based on outstanding academic performance and extracurricular commitment.
At the German National Competition for AI ("Bundeswettbewerb Künstliche Intelligenz")2019 I reached the national finals, to which 8 out of 2500 participants in total were invited. The project "BetterRecycling" was the main reason for my excellent placement. In addition I completed a variety of quizzes and programming challenges on the topic of machine learning and artificial intelligence.
In 2019 my "Facharbeit" (student version of a paper) with the title "Modeling, Implementation and structural comparison of neural networks for handprint character recognition and comparison with modern library" (translated) earned the Dr. Hans Riegel-Award for outstanding scientific work. The paper earned second place at the corresponding contenst in the category of computer science at the Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz, which represented the state of Rheinland-Pfalz. In addition this paper was graded with 15 MSS-points (highest possible grade) in my computer science honors-class.
The Max Planck-Award for Computer Science is given to high school graduates who have been noticed due to their exceptional performance in the field of computer science. The price was awarded by the Max Planck Institute for Computer Science.