Alireza Kenarsari
CEO at Picovoice
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolAlireza Kenarsari is a founder and CEO with 8+ years building scalable, privacy-first on-device voice AI and ML systems, currently leading Picovoice to embed ambient voice intelligence into products. With an M.A.Sc. in ECE and a background spanning research, DSP, and embedded software, he blends deep math and engineering chops with product-led entrepreneurship. He previously built a fraud-detection platform at Amazon that delivered over $50M ROI in its first year and invented keyword-spotting and beamforming algorithms that led to licensed patents. A hands-on engineer, he contributes cross-platform code (Python SDKs, iOS bindings, Android/C demos) to open-source projects like Picovoice and Porcupine, demonstrating both full-stack and mobile proficiency in deep-learning-driven audio. He hires globally for speech/NLU roles and quietly pairs academic rigor with practical, production-grade software delivery.
8 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
M.A.Sc. Electrical and Computer Engineering, M.A.Sc. Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of British ColumbiaB.Sc. Electrical Engineering, B.Sc. Electrical Engineering at University of Tehran
Github Skills (8)
swift10
ios10
sdk10
python10
android10
c119
avfoundation9
c179
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
Picovoice/porcupine
Mar 2018 - Dec 2022
On-device wake word detection powered by deep learning
Role in this project:
Mobile Developer (iOS)
Mobile Developer (iOS)Contributions:10 releases, 32 reviews, 256 commits in 4 years 9 months
Contributions summary:Alireza was responsible for developing and integrating the iOS binding and demo app for wake word detection within the Porcupine library. This included creating the core iOS binding in Swift, implementing the demo app to showcase wake word functionality, and modifying the required files to reflect the updated functionality for the use case of a single keyword and multiple keywords. The user's work focused on enabling the usage of Porcupine wake word engine on iOS platforms.
trigger-word-detectionwakeon-devicedeep-learninghandsfree
Picovoice/picovoice
Sep 2020 - Jan 2023
On-device voice assistant platform powered by deep learning
Role in this project:Full-stack Developer
Full-stack DeveloperContributions:2 releases, 13 reviews, 61 commits in 2 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Alireza contributed extensively to the Python SDK, introducing core functionality to the Picovoice platform, by defining classes and methods for the project's core functionality. The user also integrated Android, iOS, and C demos and updated pip packages and python version to ensure compatibility. Their contributions span multiple platforms, showcasing a broad understanding of the Picovoice platform and its integration across different environments.
natural-language-understandingnluspeech-recoginitionvoice-recognitionwake-word-detection
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