Hello! I'm Daniel, born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. My journey into the professional world started with various odd jobs, but eventually, I began working with my dad as a real estate analyst. From 2001, and formally in 2003, I was deeply involved in assessing current market trends and identifying profitable properties or deals. This was during the advent of new e-commerce sites like tucasa.com, which provided a wealth of data that I could scrape and analyze, combined with our personal data on closed deals, to make data-informed decisions.

Alongside my real estate work, I had the unique opportunity to work with Fun Race 4x4, a 4WD rally event developed by Toyota Venezuela. This event, held five times a year, was aimed at brand advertisement. My role involved creating competitor navigation routes and coordinating competition checkpoint locations. This involved extensive fieldwork in remote areas without regular services. My responsibilities also included tracking participant locations during the event and assisting with recovery and rescue operations post-deadline, as well as supporting the mechanical staff.

Upon moving to the United States, I had to rebuild my career from scratch. A friend's advice to "learn to do something extremely hard or impossible to replicate" resonated with me. This led me to blend my expertise in real estate, science, and architecture, starting my educational journey at San Diego Mesa College with a focus on Architecture and Science, and later transitioning to Mechanical Engineering at University of California, Berkeley.

My journey in the United States led me to Neocis, where I worked under the guidance of Mauro Fittipaldi, Alon Mozes (CEO), and Dennis Moses (VP of Engineering). At Neocis, I was involved in leading and supporting multiple product launches, managing animal cadaveric laboratories, and participating in human cadaveric laboratories. My work here was directly related to patient interface devices like the Chairside Patient Splint (CPS) and Edentulous Patient Splint (EPS). I took the CCPS from ideation to a mass-produced product, leading to a successful FDA 510(k) submission and patent (WO2021/205291 A1 Splint Device for Guided Surgical Robot).

My final project at Neocis involved redesigning the Tracker End Effector (TEE). I analyzed data from three different alternative designs to simulate and estimate distributions for accepted/rejected TEEs. This analysis aimed to identify the most cost-effective design for implementation in the manufacturing process. My collaboration with Jai Agarwal, who introduced me to machine learning clustering algorithms, sparked my interest in integrating machine learning into my design skill set.

Driven by this newfound passion, I pursued a Master's in Engineering at UC Berkeley, concentrating in Biomechanics while focusing on data analysis and machine learning. Additionally, I earned a Tech+PLUS Certificate in Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship Strategy (IPES), blending my interest in financial markets and entrepreneurial strategy.