Kevin Emba
Founder at SHACK15 Ventures
Oakland, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolKevin Emba is a founder and technologist with 14 years of cross-disciplinary experience building hardware-software systems in robotics, wearables, autonomous vehicles and embedded IoT. He holds a PhD from UC Berkeley and has led teams at Fitbit, iRobot, Omron and Embark, shipping production-grade algorithms in heart-rate sensing, SLAM and perception stacks. Kevin blends deep low-level embedded firmware expertise—evident from OpenWSN firmware contributions—with higher-level ML and system design, routinely translating research into productized solutions. As CEO of Think Circuits and founder of an AI-focused stealth startup, he combines hands-on engineering with business strategy and cross-functional collaboration. A pragmatic inventor who teaches and markets educational electronics, he often approaches problems by applying techniques across domains (e.g., digital communications to mechanical systems) to find unconventional, high-impact solutions.
14 years of coding experience
14 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Electrical and Electronics Engineering at University of California, BerkeleyExecutive MBA Business Administration and Management General, Executive MBA Business Administration and Management General at Quantic School of Business and TechnologyBachelor of Science (B.S.) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas
Github Skills (14)
c1710
freertos10
firmware10
rt10
embedded10
rtos10
c1110
sys10
ws10
hal9
abstraction-layer9
openal9
interrupt-handling8
interrupt8
Programming languages (2)
Github contributions (5)
openwsn-berkeley/openwsn-fw
Feb 2012 - Aug 2013
OpenWSN firmware: stuff that runs on a mote
Role in this project:
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT Developer
Embedded Systems Engineer / IoT DeveloperContributions:43 commits in 1 year 6 months
Contributions summary:Kevin primarily contributed to the firmware for an OpenWSN project, focusing on low-level hardware interaction and real-time operating system (RTOS) integration. They added and modified FreeRTOS porting components, including MPU library adaptations and configuration. Furthermore, the user modified OpenAL components and expanded interrupt and pin configuration functionality. They demonstrate deep knowledge of embedded systems by adding and modifying hardware definition files, and the use of HDLC.
firmwaremoteruns
kweekly/sensezilla-hardware
Jul 2012 - Nov 2013
Contributions:51 commits in 1 year 4 months
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