MarxMelencio
Contributor
Hi. It's good to be here! Looking forward to learn, share and collaborate on interesting projects!
I'm Marx. I'm an entrepreneur. A marketing communication strategist. A Deep Learning engineer. A disability advocate. A Machine Vision developer. A technical SEO campaign designer. A DIY robotics hobbyist. And I've been totally blind, for the past two decades.
To cut to the quick of it — Here's a brief video outlining the stuff I've been doing after that incident of senseless violence in 2003 (I was 23 then):
•
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIj1M6DWbTQ
And for those who want something to read — Here you go:
My Entrepreneurial Adventures
• A year after total blindness — I gradually built a digital marketing agency from a spare bedroom with dial-up Internet in Manila, starting as a freelance content writer working with independent Web affiliates and content publishers in North America, the EU and ASEANA.
• Barely a year after starting out — I found myself running a 100% remote operation in 2005, managing a team of 140 employees and contractors from all around the Philippines and in other areas in SE Asia.
• And right now, my wife and I are running a 19-year old multimedia marketing, multi-lingual telesales and AI engineering company — Here's a feature story in BBC about us: BBC World Service - Business Daily, The Blind Entrepreneur Building a Call Centre Empire
My Advocacy Work
• Right from business inception — We provided gainful employment opportunities to Filipino PWDs (persons with disability), which we found to be more accessible for them (myself included) because of mobility limitations.
• In 2006 — 80% of our remote and onsite workforce were persons with different mobility impairments.
• From that time up to present — I design and facilitate training workshops on assistive tech, remote employment, business development, ecommerce and digital marketing for PWDs, trying to help out and collaborate in any way that I can with local and international social organizations like Resources for the Blind (PH), Nippon Foundation (JP), ICEVI (EU), USAID and others.
• And our national government gave me the 2008 Most Inspiring Entrepreneur of the Philippines award — Here's my opinion piece in Rappler, a local multimedia news group that's run by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa: [OPINION] My life as a completely blind Filipino entrepreneur and tech developer
My Engineering Work
• In 2016 — I started creating wearable DIY electronics and AI technologies for deaf, blind and visually impaired persons, learning all about Deep Learning, Machine Learning, software programming, electronics and robotics on my own.
• A year thereafter — Our national government's Department of Science & Technology awarded me a 2-year R&D grant for a wearable prototype that I created for blind and visually impaired persons, while my wearable prototype for the deaf also won at an AIM university post graduate thesis competition along with R&D seed funding from a local VC group. Here's a BBC News feature story about this: 'Robbed of sight, I have a vision to help the blind see'
• After the same wearable prototype for blind and visually impaired persons won at international tournaments like Microsoft and Intel's Spatial 3D Competition — I'm now the chief Deep Learning engineer, Machine Vision developer and rapid prototyping specialist of a 5-year old biomed tech company in Sydney. We won as the Technology Company of the Year at last year's Australian Technologies Competition (ATC 2023) — Here's a feature story about our biomed tech company: Bionic glasses ‘seeing’ through sound
My Current Hybrid AI Engineering & Digital Marketing Projects
• Since 2022 — I've been developing hybrid generative AI and pro human workflow pipelines through open source LLMs (large language models), LVLMs (large vision language models) and my business resources, customizing and fine-tuning the entire tech and service stack for each business, target verticals, geos, relevant SEO, marketing and ideal audience profile data for optimum impact.
Thanks for your time!
I'm Marx. I'm an entrepreneur. A marketing communication strategist. A Deep Learning engineer. A disability advocate. A Machine Vision developer. A technical SEO campaign designer. A DIY robotics hobbyist. And I've been totally blind, for the past two decades.
To cut to the quick of it — Here's a brief video outlining the stuff I've been doing after that incident of senseless violence in 2003 (I was 23 then):
•
And for those who want something to read — Here you go:
My Entrepreneurial Adventures
• A year after total blindness — I gradually built a digital marketing agency from a spare bedroom with dial-up Internet in Manila, starting as a freelance content writer working with independent Web affiliates and content publishers in North America, the EU and ASEANA.
• Barely a year after starting out — I found myself running a 100% remote operation in 2005, managing a team of 140 employees and contractors from all around the Philippines and in other areas in SE Asia.
• And right now, my wife and I are running a 19-year old multimedia marketing, multi-lingual telesales and AI engineering company — Here's a feature story in BBC about us: BBC World Service - Business Daily, The Blind Entrepreneur Building a Call Centre Empire
My Advocacy Work
• Right from business inception — We provided gainful employment opportunities to Filipino PWDs (persons with disability), which we found to be more accessible for them (myself included) because of mobility limitations.
• In 2006 — 80% of our remote and onsite workforce were persons with different mobility impairments.
• From that time up to present — I design and facilitate training workshops on assistive tech, remote employment, business development, ecommerce and digital marketing for PWDs, trying to help out and collaborate in any way that I can with local and international social organizations like Resources for the Blind (PH), Nippon Foundation (JP), ICEVI (EU), USAID and others.
• And our national government gave me the 2008 Most Inspiring Entrepreneur of the Philippines award — Here's my opinion piece in Rappler, a local multimedia news group that's run by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Maria Ressa: [OPINION] My life as a completely blind Filipino entrepreneur and tech developer
My Engineering Work
• In 2016 — I started creating wearable DIY electronics and AI technologies for deaf, blind and visually impaired persons, learning all about Deep Learning, Machine Learning, software programming, electronics and robotics on my own.
• A year thereafter — Our national government's Department of Science & Technology awarded me a 2-year R&D grant for a wearable prototype that I created for blind and visually impaired persons, while my wearable prototype for the deaf also won at an AIM university post graduate thesis competition along with R&D seed funding from a local VC group. Here's a BBC News feature story about this: 'Robbed of sight, I have a vision to help the blind see'
• After the same wearable prototype for blind and visually impaired persons won at international tournaments like Microsoft and Intel's Spatial 3D Competition — I'm now the chief Deep Learning engineer, Machine Vision developer and rapid prototyping specialist of a 5-year old biomed tech company in Sydney. We won as the Technology Company of the Year at last year's Australian Technologies Competition (ATC 2023) — Here's a feature story about our biomed tech company: Bionic glasses ‘seeing’ through sound
My Current Hybrid AI Engineering & Digital Marketing Projects
• Since 2022 — I've been developing hybrid generative AI and pro human workflow pipelines through open source LLMs (large language models), LVLMs (large vision language models) and my business resources, customizing and fine-tuning the entire tech and service stack for each business, target verticals, geos, relevant SEO, marketing and ideal audience profile data for optimum impact.
Thanks for your time!
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