Nicholas Pilkington
CTO And Founder at DroneDeploy
San Francisco, California, United States
Summary
👤
Senior🎓
Top SchoolNicholas Pilkington is a seasoned founder and CTO with 13 years of experience building robotics, computer vision, and ML-driven products from concept to global deployment. He founded DroneDeploy, a leading reality-capture platform used across construction, mining, agriculture and energy, and earlier co-founded Luno, one of the first BTC/ZAR exchanges. With a PhD and Master's in Machine Learning from the University of Cambridge and early engineering experience at NVIDIA, he combines deep academic rigor with hands-on systems and kernel-level debugging experience. Based in San Francisco, he also scouts for Sequoia, investing in early-stage ML and vision startups across the U.S. and South Africa, reflecting a rare blend of operator, researcher, and investor perspectives. An active writer on algorithms and problem solving, he brings a pragmatic, research-informed approach to scaling complex robotics and data pipelines.
13 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
PhD (Machine Learning) Computer Science, PhD (Machine Learning) Computer Science at University of CambridgeBSc Hons. Applied Mathematics Computer Science Information Systems, BSc Hons. Applied Mathematics Computer Science Information Systems at Rhodes University
English
Stackoverflow
1reputation
0reached
0answers
0questions
Github Skills (200)
transformers10
python10
rover10
deep-learning10
computer-graphics10
gpu10
imagery10
3d10
arm10
cpp10
cudnn10
ros10
mesh-processing10
robotics10
autopilot10
Programming languages (11)
Github contributions (5)
dronedeploy/dd-ml-segmentation-benchmark
Sep 2019 - Oct 2019
DroneDeploy Machine Learning Segmentation Benchmark
Contributions:43 commits, 2 PRs, 4 pushes in 1 month
pytorchvisiondeep-learningobject-detectionmachine-learning
nickponline/dd-nerf-dataset
May 2022 - Sep 2022
Contributions:9 commits, 27 pushes, 1 branch in 4 months
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