Hello, I’m Sebastian, a fervent Natural Language Processing (NLP) engineer and an accomplished manager. Beyond my technological acumen, I’m a global explorer, having spent two vibrant years as a digital nomad across 25 diverse nations. Four languages - English, Spanish, French, and German - are effortlessly part of my conversational repertoire, demonstrating my proficiency in thriving amidst diverse cultures.

Despite my professional accomplishments, I believe in maintaining a balanced life. Thus, I devote time to yoga, swimming, hiking, cooking, reading, Pickleball and running. These activities keep me grounded and connect me to nature.

My journey began at Germany’s distinguished University of Bamberg, where I studied Information Systems and bagged both a B.Sc and an M.Sc, graduating with honors. This experience ignited my interest in digital innovation that led to my fruitful two-year stint as a research assistant, collaborating with renowned professors to contribute to the latest research.

Working as the Chief Product Owner for consumer products at Raiffeisen Digital, Austria’s leading bank, I had the opportunity to refine my leadership skills. Guiding various teams through complex projects, from granting of loans, opening of accounts, to qualifying for a credit card taught me to maneuver challenging professional scenarios. However, my thirst for knowledge was far from satisfied.

In pursuit of further mastery in NLP, I took a sabbatical - a bold departure from the comfort of a well-settled managerial role. This led me back to academia, from being a visiting student at the esteemed MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence to my hands-on experience as an NLP Engineer at Narrativa. The journey was enriched by completing certification courses in Machine Learning, Deep Learning in NLP, and Entrepreneurship at Y Combinator’s Startup School.

Now, with over five years of valuable NLP experience, I have become a respected figure in the industry. I take pride in my contributions, particularly in developing and training deep neural networks for NLP tasks.

Presently, I am an integral part of the team at Cordial. Here, I have the opportunity to seamlessly bridge the gap between management and engineering using my unique blend of business acumen and technical expertise. My philosophy of coupling practical knowledge with groundbreaking innovation aims to revolutionize natural language processing. My unique multilingual and multicultural approach empowers me to propel forward in the NLP field, setting new standards in the realm of global technological leadership.

Above is the story for applying for government grants or scholarships. However, I like to also give my personal story. I grew up in a village of 300 people and at the time - they are all gone by now, we had more cows than inhabitants. The village I grew up in is 30 minutes from Wuerzburg in Bavaria and barely anyone went to university or pursued higher education.

I grew up there really safe and happy, always only exposed to German and in a conservative way, joining the local soccer club, helping at the Catholic church service, playing at the local theatre, and living the customs of our little area. Once, you reach the fourth grade of elementary school in Germany, it is time for you to decide which school direction you want to pursue, and as everybody from my family, I was expected to make it into Realschule, the middle tier of German’s school system. However, when they went to my teacher at the time, he insisted that I can try the high tier (“Gymnasium”). He said that I might not be the best but he firmly believes I can make it. Thank you so much for believing in me. After that, I went to Gymnasium Marktbreit and it was fancy to be bad in school, never pay attention or do homework or bully and being bullied. I didn’t like school a lot and my grades weren’t good at all. I guess I tried to fit in. However, there was this guy who switched school to the town of Wuerzburg - Deutschhaus Gymnasium - and he said it was so much better: I could study Spanish and do advanced classes in Sport, if I made the switch.

Fortunately, I did. Our class at Deutschhaus was renowned as being the kindest and most ambitious class, my girlfriend at that high school taught me how to study and that well organized notes make great results. I got curious about life, and with the advanced sport classes, I learnt how important it is to exercise to support being productive and having fun. Finally, we all did our A levels and I got a 2.2 (B) which was good and confirmed what my elementary teacher sought out. Following then the roots of my village, I applied to become an apprentice at a bank - Raiffeisen - and landed the role. Everybody from my family was proud: my mom and dad, my sister, but there was my girlfriend and she said: “I am happy for you but you should really go to university.” All I answered was: “What is university?”. I truly didn’t know, I didn’t know what makes a student, I just had finished the a-levels and I thought I will never have to learn anything by heart ever again, but then this… Gosh, thank you Karoline for pushing me this way.

I went to university of Bamberg, and I studied and worked in a yoghurt factory on the side (for 5 years and 8 months total) to finance what I was doing. At some point, things with Karo faded but my flat mate Tizian was applying for Erasmus - an exchange program. I had no idea, but decided to try, too. Going to Budapest in Hungary and moving in with French and English speakers allowed me to express myself and have conversations beyond superficials in English, and a bit in French. Gosh was I grateful. I met people from all over the world, and studied more and gained so much ambition. I even finished my Bachelor studies in 5.5 out 7 semesters.

Right after, I applied for an internship in Hong Kong and I gained international work experience, and learnt to travel. I visited 10 different countries (Hong Kong, Macao, Phillipines, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Malaysia, China and Japan) in 6 months. I returned home, did my Masters with distinction (1.2, A+), joined the United Nations in New York City, and started a Ph.D. with Tim Weitzel one of the best professors in the world in Information Systems. However, the academic world, all the theoretical suggesting, and the confinement to small towns in southern Germany, made me quit and move to Vienna instead. I loved being back to an international city, and made a career in Finance. However, the daily haggling for resources tired me and I started coding full time on the side.

It wasn’t long until I made it into MIT as a grad researcher at Peter Gloor’s lab at Sloan School of Management, and found myself researching movement of plants and later persuasiveness in messages. Such a fun time, which lead to a few scholarships to pursue my own startup dreams on persuasive message generation. However, we were remote due to Covid and couldn’t really manage to pull into one direction. However, I met Joy - my now wife - we travelled for 11 months, and finally got into the US.

This is all so non-linear and never what I expected. I cannot believe it has happened to me. I want to come back and reiterate on this but this is a brief summary of my life story as I sometimes share it with random people. Thank you world for being an awesome place. Many regards from Seattle, Washington - 5000 miles from where I grew up.