Babak Hodjat ( fa, بابک حجت; born 1967) was the co-founder and CEO of Sentient Technologies and now holds the position of Vice President of Evolutionary AI at

Cognizant Cognizant is an American multinational information technology services and consulting company. It is headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, United States. Cognizant is part of the NASDAQ-100 and trades under CTSH. It was founded as an in-hous ...

. He is a specialist in the field of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Biography

Career in science

Babak Hodjat was born in 1967 in

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

(

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

). He studied at

Sharif University of Technology Sharif University of Technology (SUT; fa, دانشگاه صنعتی شریف) is a public research university in Tehran, Iran. It is widely considered as the nation's most prestigious and leading institution for science, technology, engineering, ...

from 1986 to 1995 and received his

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

degree in

software engineering Software engineering is a systematic engineering approach to software development. A software engineer is a person who applies the principles of software engineering to design, develop, maintain, test, and evaluate computer software. The term '' ...

. In 1994, together with another computer department student Hormoz Shahrzad presented their research titled ''Introducing a dynamic problem solving scheme based on a learning algorithm in artificial life environments'' at the first

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Conference on Computational Intelligence held at

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures rele ...

. Hodjat received a PhD in

machine intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech rec ...

from

Kyushu University , abbreviated to , is a Japanese national university located in Fukuoka, on the island of Kyushu. It was the 4th Imperial University in Japan, ranked as 4th in 2020 Times Higher Education Japan University Rankings, one of the top 10 Design ...

in 2003 During his time there, he published several works on adaptive

agent oriented software Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuranc ...

architecture and

natural language user interface Natural-language user interface (LUI or NLUI) is a type of computer human interface where linguistic phenomena such as verbs, phrases and clauses act as UI controls for creating, selecting and modifying data in software applications. In interface d ...

Career in business

Hodjat moved to

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

in 1998 and founded Dejima Inc. (named after the historic Japanese

Dejima , in the 17th century also called Tsukishima ( 築島, "built island"), was an artificial island off Nagasaki, Japan that served as a trading post for the Portuguese (1570–1639) and subsequently the Dutch (1641–1854). For 220 years, it ...

artificial island An artificial island is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure to those tha ...

). The firm was based on a patented adaptive agent-oriented software engineering platform developed by Hodjat, Christopher Savoie and Makoto Amamiya. Hodjat served as the CTO and as the

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

for 9 months from October 2000. By 2000 the company had offices in San Jose,

and

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

. In 2002, the company developed a voice control Natural Interaction Platform (NPI) in collaboration with the

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

's research group Archimedes Project. During these years Hodjat continued his research on agent oriented software architecture and natural language user interfaces. In July 2003, Dejima got funding from

SRI International SRI International (SRI) is an American nonprofit scientific research institute and organization headquartered in Menlo Park, California. The trustees of Stanford University established SRI in 1946 as a center of innovation to support economic d ...

within the Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes (

CALO Calo, Caló, or Calò may refer to: * Caló language, the language of the Iberian Romani ** Iberian Kale (''calé''): *** Romani people in Spain, more frequently called ''gitanos'' *** Romani people in Portugal, more frequently called ''ciganos' ...

) project of

DARPA The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Adv ...

and worked on a Perceptive Assistant that Learns (PAL) initiative. Hodjat was the primary inventor of the firm's agent-oriented technology applied to intelligent interfaces for mobile and enterprise computing – a technology that eventually led to Siri. In April 2004, Dejima was acquired by

Sybase iAnywhere Sybase iAnywhere, is a subsidiary of Sybase specializing in mobile computing, management and security and enterprise database software. SQL Anywhere, formerly known as SQL Anywhere Studio or Adaptive Server Anywhere (ASA), is the company's flag ...

. Hodjat served as Senior Director of Engineering at Sybase iAnywhere from 2004 to 2008, where he developed AvantGo Platform, and Answers Anywhere. In 2006, he co-founded MobileVerbs Inc., a mobile marketing service company, which was acquired by in February 2010. In 2007, he teamed with Antoine Blondeau (former CEO of Dejima) and

Adam Cheyer Adam Cheyer (born c. 1966) is a co-founder of Siri Inc. and formerly a director of engineering in the iPhone group at Apple. Early life and education Cheyer attended Sharon High School, in Sharon, Massachusetts. After graduating in 1984, Cheyer ...

(Dejima's vice president and Chief Architect of the

project) to establish Genetic Finance Holding Ltd. (where he began as CTO). In 2014 the firm became Sentient Technologies. Hodjat was joined by his long-time research fellow Hormoz Shahrzad who became Principal Scientist, while Hodjat held the position of Chief Scientist. In the following years Hodjat has worked on developing massively distributed computing technology and improving machine-learning technique known as

evolutionary algorithm In computational intelligence (CI), an evolutionary algorithm (EA) is a subset of evolutionary computation, a generic population-based metaheuristic optimization algorithm. An EA uses mechanisms inspired by biological evolution, such as reproduc ...

s. One area that gained special attention from the press was applying Sentient Technologies algorithms to a stock market trading through specially created Sentient Investment Management

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as sho ...

. Following the management change within Sentient Technologies, Hodjat became the company's CEO in February 2017. He continues his business and educational projects (he was on the jury of

IBM Watson IBM Watson is a question-answering computer system capable of answering questions posed in natural language, developed in IBM's DeepQA project by a research team led by principal investigator David Ferrucci. Watson was named after IBM's founder ...

AI XPRIZE and the Merit Awards committee for the ISAL Award).

Writing

Hodjat is the author of ''The Konar and the Apple: Fun, Beauty, and Dread--From Ahwaz to California'' (January 2022; ). An eight-year-old boy assigned the task of throwing flowers during the Shah's visit. A teenager in boot camp eager to catch episodes of a popular Japanese TV show. An adult coming to the United States, ready to make his mark in the tech world. These are just some of the personal experiences shaping Hodjat's intimate narrative of a boy growing up in post-revolutionary Iran. The stories paint a picture of a middle-class, westernized boy experiencing all the common—and uncommon—adventures of childhood and self-discovery. Blending both humor and insight, ''The Konar and the Apple'' transcends culture to celebrate the fun, innocence, and anticipation of growing up that unite us all. Hodjat has also written a science-fiction novella, "The Narrator" (March 2023; ). Set in the near future, "The Narrator" is about an app that creates a story based on one’s life, complete with genres and characters to choose from. Fraught with suspense, The Narrator is a foreboding of the power of technology, and asks the urgent question: How much of our lives is guided by free will and can we get back control before it’s too late?

Selected publications

* * * * * * *

Patents

Babak Hodjat holds 21 patents in the fields of

agent-oriented programming Agent-oriented programming (AOP) is a programming paradigm where the construction of the software is centered on the concept of software agents. In contrast to object-oriented programming which has objects (providing methods with variable paramet ...

natural language In neuropsychology, linguistics, and philosophy of language, a natural language or ordinary language is any language that has evolved naturally in humans through use and repetition without conscious planning or premeditation. Natural languages ...

decision engines, distributed

s for

asset management Asset management is a systematic approach to the governance and realization of value from the things that a group or entity is responsible for, over their whole life cycles. It may apply both to tangible assets (physical objects such as buildings ...

and

trading Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exchan ...

and data mining.

References

External links

Babak Hodjat profile at Sentient Technology website

Babak Hodjat Twitter profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hodjat, Babak Living people Artificial intelligence researchers American technology chief executives Businesspeople in software 21st-century American businesspeople Sharif University of Technology alumni 1967 births American computer scientists Iranian computer scientists American technology company founders Kyushu University alumni Machine learning researchers People from Wimbledon, London