DAV Insider: Tal Ater, CTO and Co-Founder
In the DAV spirit of full transparency we’ll be sharing a behind the scenes look at some of our team members over the next few weeks. It’s called DAV Insider and in this series you’ll learn about all the exciting things our individual team members are doing at DAV and some other fun facts along the way. Today we kickoff with our Co-founder and CTO Tal Ater.
- What’s your role at the DAV Foundation?
I am the CTO, and one of the founders of the DAV Foundation.
- What does your average workday look like?
I usually like to start my day by going over the latest open source contributions from our developer community and merging them back to our codebase. As an open source nut, that really is a great way to start my day right. I then like to look at a high-level at our various priorities and plan my day accordingly, so that I focus on the things that matter most.
With my daily priorities set, I am ready to record a DailyDAV video. Being on camera isn’t something that comes naturally to me, but being a part of a project that exercises extreme transparency has really been a great way to be more comfortable in front of the camera (and live audiences).
The rest of my day can involve anything from coding smart contracts to flying to Russia to fly drones. No two days are alike…I have the best job in the world!
- What do you feel are your greatest challenges in your role?
Response from our partners has been outstanding, and we are working on projects in the air, land, and sea. Finding enough hours in the day to fit everything in is my main challenge. Did I mention we are hiring?
- Tell us a funny, quirky or strange story from work.
At the end of one of our DAV community events, Noam, our CEO, Eyal, the founder of Bancor, and John, one of the chief crypto minds in Israel, all broke out in an impromptu jam session on piano, bass, and electric guitar playing George Michael, followed by Guns N’ Roses. And that’s just me thinking of a quirky story from the past two hours. The rest of the time it’s just the usual drones, robots, and astronauts day at the office.
- Who’s your favourite superhero or fictional character, and why?
Batman…because he’s Batman. Although as someone that values pragmatism, it is a love-hate relationship. I find it hard to reconcile his need to never hurt anyone (to protect his own morals and self-image), with the eventual harm to innocents that it often causes.
- What gets you excited about DAV?
Two and a half years ago, I quit a management position so I could focus more on being a creator. A month later I was telling my story on The Changelog Podcast and used the slogan: “I quit my job for open-source”. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what that meant at the time. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that I would be building the infrastructure for tomorrow’s transportation, connecting drones, autonomous cars, boats, robots, and all of it would be 100% open-source. I am so excited for the future, and what DAV will bring.
