Dr. David Dao
david@gainforest.net
Executive Director, GainForest | Researcher at ETH Zurich | Past: Stanford, Berkeley, MIT
I'm the founder and executive director of GainForest and senior researcher at ETH Zurich on AI for Nature & Climate.ποΈ Media features (selected):
GainForest is a non-profit grantee of Microsoftβs AI for Earth program, and a $10M XPRIZE Rainforest Finalist. We develop technology to tackle the climate and biodiversity crisis. My doctoral dissertation advanced algorithms and applications for machine learning-based data valuation. I also maintain Github's most starred collection on ethical use of AI and I'm one of the co-authors of Tensorflow Models. Previously, I was an engineer in Silicon Valley and a research fellow at Berkeley AI Research (BAIR), Stanford University and at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. I'm a Global Shaper (Davos 50) at World Economic Forum, a Core Member of Climate Change AI, a Climate Leader at Climate Reality Project, a Mentor at Creative Destruction Lab, a United Nations delegate at COP (since COP23 Bonn), and organized conferences with thousands of attendees in in Germany, Silicon Valley, and at Harvard.
Data Markets and Valuation
Data Valuation: How much is your data worth?
Β· Joint project with UC Berkeley
AI Systems to help restore the natural world
Komorebi: Deforestation prediction of the Amazon Rainforest using satellite imagery
Β· 2 x Microsoft AI for Earth Grant Β· Grand Prize UNFCCC Hack4Climate at COP23 Β· Presentation at COP24 Β· Presentation at COP25
ForestBench: A global benchmark for forest carbon stock prediction
Β· Joint project with MIT and TUM
GainForest XPRIZE RainForest: Biodiversity monitoring with satellites, drones and eDNA
Β· Joint project with Stanford
Decentralized Science
Kara: A privacy-preserving tokenized data market for medical data
Β· Joint project with UC Berkeley and Stanford
Piximi: Interactive machine learning for cell biology
Β· Joint project with Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
tldr; Design systems such that society and AI gain from each other.
Here is my mission statement and a timeline.
Almost all of my work is open source
Star Β· Awful-AI
π is a curated list to track current scary usages of AI - hoping to raise awareness
Star Β· Awesome-Deep-Learning π₯ is a
curated list of papers about very deep neural networks
Star Β·
Spatial Transformer π is
part of TensorFlow Models (where I'm co-author)
Star Β· CellProfiler
Analyst π¬ is an adaptive machine learning tool for biologists
Star Β· Green Artificial Intelligence Standard
π± aims to develop a standard and raise awareness for best environmental practices in AI research and development
Star Β· BioJS
π¬ is an interactive visualization ecosystem for life science
I'm grateful to work with my scientific collaborators
Β· Lucas Czech (Carnegie Institution of Science)
Β· Crowther Lab (ETH Zurich)
Β· BjΓΆrn LΓΌtjens (MIT)
Β· Dawn Song (UC Berkeley)
Β· Robert Chang (Stanford Medicine)
Β· Anne Carpenter (MIT Broad Imaging Platform)
Β· Joe Near (University of Vermont)
Β· Yan Meng (Mercedes-Benz Research)
I'm proud of my students
Β· Lasse Wolff Anthony (ETH)
Β· Thomas Huber (Uppsala University)
Β· Nils Lehmann (UvA / Now TUM)
Β· Ghjulia Sialelli (ETH)
Β· Marc Watine (ETH / Went to Harvard)
Β· Gyri Reiersen (TUM / Now CTO Tanso)
Β· Kenza Amara (ETH / Went to Facebook AI)
Β· Simona Santamaria (ETH / Now CTO RYVER.AI)
Β· Iveta Rott (ETH / Went to McKinsey)
Β· Mina Huh (KAIST)
Β· Levin Moser (ETH / Went to MIT)
Β· Catherine Cang (UC Berkeley / Went to AirBnB)
Β· Ming Zhang (ETH / Went to Roche)
Β· Luca Lanzendorfer (ETH / Went to Mercedes-Benz Research)
Β· Florian Chlan (ETH / Went to Amazon)
Β· Nino Weingart (ETH / Went to BSI)
Β· Christopher Friedrich (Reutlingen / Went to MIT)
Proud and active member of the scientific community
Β· Program Comittee NeurIPS Climate Change AI'22
Β· Reviewer for CCAI Innovation Grant (Total value of 1.8 Mio USD)
Β· Organizer CCAI Side Event at COP26 (together with ClimateTRACE and CAIC)
Β· Program Committee NeurIPS Climate Change AI'21
Β· Tutorial KDD Challenges in ML for Sustainable Development'21
Β· Program Committee ICML Climate Change AI'21
Β· Co-Lead Organizer NeurIPS Climate Change AI'20
Β· Organizer ICML Economics of Privacy and Data Labor'20
Β· Co-Organizer ICLR Climate Change AI'20
Β· Program Committee NeurIPS Climate Change AI'19
Β· Reviewer ISC-HPC'15
