Daniel Povey is a British researcher in the fields of

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers. It is also ...

and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

. After graduating from

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

, he held research positions at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

and

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

from 2003 to 2012. He worked at

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

as a nontenured associate research professor in the

Whiting School of Engineering The Whiting School of Engineering is the engineering school of the Johns Hopkins University, a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. History The engineering department at Johns Hopkins was originally created in 1913 as an educatio ...

prior to being fired in August 2019. Later in August 2019, after being fired by Johns Hopkins, Povey was slated to begin working for

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

, but he rejected Facebook's conditions of employment just days before he would have begun working for them. He was appointed the chief speech scientist at

Xiaomi Xiaomi (; ) is a Chinese multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Beijing, China. It is best known for consumer electronics software electric vehicles. It is the second-largest manufacturer of smartphones in the worl ...

in November 2019, and continued to hold this position as of October 2020. He is also the primary architect and maintainer of

Kaldi Kaldi was a legendary Ethiopian goatherd who is credited for discovering the coffee plant around 850 CE, according to popular legend, after which such crop entered the Islamic world and then the rest of the world. Analysis The story is prob ...

Johns Hopkins protest

By 8 May 2019, protestors at

had reached day 35 of a sit-in protest of campus militarization and local police agencies in Garland Hall, restricting access to all faculty and students. Garland Hall, Johns Hopkins University's main administrative hall, was the home location of servers Povey was expected to maintain. According to the university, Povey was denied permission into the building several times prior to 8 May. Led by Povey, counter-protestors entered the building and Povey began removing chains from the doors with a set of

bolt cutters A bolt cutter, sometimes called bolt cropper, is a tool used for cutting bolts, chains, padlocks, rebar and wire mesh. It typically has long handles and short blades, with compound hinges to maximize leverage and cutting force. A typical bolt c ...

. During the chain-removal process, cell-phone footage from the sit-in protestors features a melee between Povey and protestors, as they eventually carry Povey out of the building. Although Povey was adamant that he was the one being attacked in the videos, the university stated that a multitude of Povey's actions, such as leading a group of counter-protestors around campus at 12 am with a set of bolt cutters, threatened the safety of the students and university. Povey would be suspended and ultimately terminated from the university by August 2019.

Recognition

* Fellow,

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

(inducted 2023)

References

External links

* * Living people Alumni of the University of Cambridge British artificial intelligence researchers 21st-century British engineers Computer engineers Johns Hopkins University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) {{UK-academic-bio-stub