We make communities cleaner, safer, and more equitable through real-time verification, automated ingestion, and secure analysis of private data
GITEC nominates VIA and DIU for outstanding achievement in “Advancing Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics” for the federal government
GITEC nominates VIA and DIU for outstanding achievement in “Advancing Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics” for the federal government
Whether it’s experience growing startups, implementing brand new technologies, or working with complex power systems, collectively our team has what it takes to make VIA stand out in the crowd.
As VIA’s CEO, Colin Gounden leads VIA’s technology roadmap into Web3. This includes the development of VIA’s blockchain in 2017 and the commercial application of zero-knowledge proofs in 2022. VIA is a climate solutions provider on a mission to make communities cleaner, safer, and more equitable. After co-founding VIA, Colin secured several of the world’s leading energy and mobility companies and the U.S. Department of Defense as customers.
Colin began his career with IBM in Europe, the U.S., and Mexico, before co-founding a technology services firm that he grew and sold for $98M in 1999. In the early 2000s, he was a partner and elected board director at a top-five global strategy consulting and $2Bn private equity firm.
In 2006, Colin founded Grail Research, where, as CEO, he grew the company to a global analytics firm serving sophisticated companies, including Microsoft, Google, and Apple. Colin sold Grail and became the president of the acquiring company overseeing 2,000 people across 18 locations. From 2012 to 2016, Colin was the first investor and co-founder of three MIT spinouts and one Harvard spinout, two of which became profitable in their first year of operations.
Colin graduated from Harvard University and is a co-inventor of multiple VIA patents.
As a co-founder, Kate established VIA’s client service program to make the company’s technologies more accessible to a broader group, beyond artificial intelligence (AI) specialists and mathematicians.
She has been certified by FERC as an expert in AI. Kate’s previous experience with smart grid technology is the reason why VIA is providing solutions to the energy industry.
Before VIA, Kate was with Grail Research, where she oversaw 10 to 20 clients per year and grew select accounts to multi-year, million-dollar per year contracts. She joined the company in its first year of operation and helped build the firm’s marketing, finance, and account management functions. Prior to joining Grail Research, Kate worked with one of the world’s leading public relations firms, Weber Shandwick.
Kate graduated summa cum laude from Northeastern University with a degree in organizational communication.
As co-founder and CSO, Jeremy monitors state-of-the-art research developments in AI and machine learning to help benefit VIA’s energy clients.
Jeremy’s recent research includes topics in explainable and interpretable AI, causal inference, distributed learning, and privacy-conserving machine learning.
Jeremy has been founder or first-hire in multiple startups, all centered around commercializing machine learning and simulation technologies. He has a long track record of solving difficult problems in computational science, including his role as CTO at Atomistix, where he developed and provided simulation tools to the R&D labs of the world’s leading electronic manufacturers.
Jeremy received his Ph.D. in physics from McGill University and has held research positions at the Technical University of Denmark and the Canadian Centre for Magnetic Fusion, located at Hydro-Québec’s IREQ campus.
Joe brings more than twenty years of experience consulting with companies on their corporate strategies, including product launches, enhancing brand image, and integrating both teams and products across a wide variety of industries like software and electricity.
His primary focus at VIA is stewarding client relationships from first introductions through product implementations. He plays a major role in gathering feedback and understanding market needs across stakeholders in the energy industry. Joe is also VIA’s primary representative at industry gatherings.
Before VIA, Joe was a partner and practice leader at several leading global strategy consulting firms and a senior advisor to government, industry, and civic leaders on technology and innovation strategies for improving global competitiveness.
Joe graduated from MIT with a degree in electrical engineering and computer science, and from the London School of Economics with a master’s degree in political economics.
Jesus is responsible for the technical roadmap, architectural design, and integration for all of VIA’s products. He provides oversight on technical development at VIA to ensure high quality product delivery for customers. In addition, he led the architectural design of VIA’s Web3 platform.
Before joining VIA, Jesus was with TandemLaunch, a venture capital firm specializing in the commercialization of early-stage technologies. He held several roles there: a technologist in residence and later a software architect and founding member of Sensaura, an emotion tracking technology. Jesus created a strategy for the architecture of Sensaura’s platform, taking into account the adaptability of devices to the system and use cases. He also developed applications to demo Sensaura’s technology at events including CES Las Vegas. In addition, he developed the real-time emotion recognition API.
Jesus earned his bachelor’s degree in industrial electronics and automatic engineering and his master’s degree in automatic and robotic from the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid.
Ashley is focused on application development at VIA, where she helps teams build on VIA’s core platform to create secure data analytics applications. She led the architectural design and initial development of the GDAC™ pilot program, SWEET™, and JARVIS™ applications.
Prior to VIA, Ashley worked as a researcher in theoretical physics, building models and simulations to describe physical phenomena, where she gained experience with data analytics and high performance computation. She also volunteered leading initiatives to support individuals from underrepresented groups in physics and technology, including the initiation of a grant program for professional networking and mentoring programs.
Ashley has a Ph.D. in physics from the Pennsylvania State University and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a minor in Mathematics.
Emma is responsible for cultivating VIA’s high-performance workplace and leads all aspects of hiring, retaining, and developing top talent. Emma worked with leading Harvard academics and Apple University veterans to develop and rollout VIA’s feedback and mentoring programs and wider organizational design strategy. She also led the selection and buildout of VIA’s new Montreal office. Emma has been instrumental in maintaining high employee engagement, morale, and wellness in VIA’s transition to remote working during COVID-19.
Prior to joining VIA, Emma was the founding member of a Berlin-based tech startup. As People Ops & Engagement Manager, Emma grew the team from 20 to 80 employees.
Emma graduated from Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand with bachelor’s degrees in Commerce and Arts, and majored in Human Resources and Industrial Relations, Management, and Media Studies.
Kristen brings nearly twenty years of client management experience to her role, and has led several high-stakes projects since joining in 2017 including predictive maintenance on 10,000 miles of transmission line data and contingency planning to restore power after multiple simultaneous switch failures.
Before VIA, Kristen was co-founder and head of client services at Fuld Omniscope where she led an array of projects, including leading a workshop focused on the utilities sector alongside one of their largest clients. Prior to Fuld, Kristen was with Grail Research where she was responsible for business development, account planning, and project delivery for some of their most important accounts. She was a senior consultant at the Monitor Group and a member of the leadership team within the Monitor Software business unit, where she specialized in data visualization and analytics, decision support models, dashboards, and forecasting tools.
Kristen graduated from Cornell University with a degree in chemical engineering.
John is focused on implementing best practices for software development at VIA. He co-invented VIA’s core platform and currently develops, integrates, and quality assurance tests the platform for VIA’s applications.
Before VIA, John was a freelance consultant at the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG), where he focused on updating their Python Library. Prior to this position, he was a technical sales support engineer at NAG in Oxford, where he developed technical marketing material and provided pre-sales assistance. John was awarded the best thesis in gravitation physics in 2016 by the Institute of Physics (IOP). His research focused on developing new numerical methods that capture the physical behavior of fluid interfaces permeated by high magnetic fields while taking into account relativistic effects.
John earned his master’s degree in physics and his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Southampton.
