Greetings, experts!
I am preparing my application for GTV via the Exceptional Promise (Digital Technology) track, and I’d be quite grateful for thoughts and feedback on this.
My current role is - Member of Technical Staff - on the AI R&D team of a well-funded UK-based startup (open-world physics and narratives) and a scientific advisor (IP and prototyping) to a small venture capital firm also based in UK. A little backdrop from the resume - ex-Valve on the CS:GO/DotA team (as a contract researcher), ex-Ericsson as a research engineer, and graduated through an MS in applied statistics and computer science from Georgia Tech, while simultaneously taking up these (amongst other) roles mentioned and building out a career.
This is my approach:
REFERENCE LETTERS:
- CEO of the deeptech company I work with - he’s a BAFTA judge and producer at a few top gaming companies before.
- Head of the fund I’m an advisor for - he’s a PhD in theoretical physics from Uni of Cambridge and has raised substantial funds seeding 12 deeptech companies.
- Global Director of AI at Sony Ericsson (was my direct mentor and a senior researcher when I worked at Ericsson during the final year of my undergrad studies - still within last five years)
MANDATORY (3 documents):
- IBM Research (Dublin) Fellowship offer letter - I declined this, but have it as evidence
- Centre of Molecular Medicine (CeMM, Austria), Menche Lab Fellowship offer letter (+competitiveness letter, if possible to get corroborated) - I declined this, but have it as evidence
- VC Advisory Role confirmation - accepted and is one of my two current roles.
OPTIONAL (4 documents from 2 categories):
From OC1 - Innovation (2 documents):
- Educational bots developed by me have been used at 3 major universities in Israel and USA (with corroboration from Sense - the company where I developed those bots)
- Current R&D IP contributions and corroborating they increase valuations for the next funding rounds (with VC partner letter)
From OC2 - Recognition Beyond Occupation (2 documents):
- From a CEO (of a well-funded deeptech company) - Letter of Intent - for planning to employ an innovation from a past entrepreneurial endeavour of mine (technical validation)
- ExoMatter (top AI x materials discovery series-stage company in Germany) - Chief AI Engineer offer (senior role recognition)- I declined this, but have it as evidence
EXTRA DOCUMENTS I AM UNSURE OF:
- For my past entrepreneurial venture, I have a term-sheet (such that they’d sign only after I signed - and I did not sign it) from a major VC firm in India, offering $150,000 (with names, amount of money, detailed terms, and signature sections to sign provided) for an investment offer that was sent via docusign to me - the docusign stamp and email record of it being sent is present. The termsheet was after the VC firm had already verbally agreed to invest (carries no weight ofc, unless in written form), and the termsheet says ‘this termsheet is for negotiation purposes’. - I declined to proceed with this due to my views on lack of alignment in vision, but have the negotiation-purpose docusign as evidence
- All my contracts (in AI research and engineering) from the last five years showing salaries (NZD, USD, GBP) above market rate with respect to what they pay in the country the company comes from - this, with the context of me working remotely from India through it all.
- I could write a detailed memo on the technology I have developed within my role at the deeptech venture - the work is such that it presents an approach to NP-complete and NP-hard open-world physics problems, more efficient and creatively solved, across the entire spectrum of such products in the field. I cannot however expose the blow-by-blow algorithmic details of this (only systems level design), because it’s proprietary.
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Now here are my concerns:
IBM Research is well-known company, CeMM is well-known and reputed within the field of biotechnology (I’m hoping they have a field experts reviewing) - and I do have these and other mentioned offers from them as hard evidence on email - HOWEVER, at each of these few junctures, I decided to choose another path, for various reasons. I would like to know if the fact I received these offers (implying that I had to be chosen out of 1000s of competitors), counts as recognition, or was I needed to actually take the offers up and undergo it, as evidence of recognition.
The IP I have advised on has not yet been filed at the VC firm, but the firm has a record of granted IP in the past, companies raising successful next rounds, highly reputed founders being funded, and few exits as well. Is it enough that I show that I was brought in to advise on IP (the Cambridge physicist - head of fund, will be providing evidence of this).
Would any of the alternate documents that I am not using (and I’m unsure of) hold better instead of the ones I chose?
That being said, I am also trying to understand how best to weave all this into presenting my journey - especially the paths earned but not taken.