Timothy Rost

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Professional Summary

I have over 20 years of experience in software, electronics, and microdisplay systems, and 7 years of experience in general management, within startups and small businesses in the consumer electronics and semiconductor industries.

My career began in semiconductor design services at TestChip Technologies where I led physical verification from 2000 - 2003. I then moved to Scotland and studied Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, specializing in intelligent robotics and learning from data. Read here about my work modeling human visual attention cues with machine learning under the supervision of Dr. Sethu Vijayakumar.

After completing my degree I moved to Tampere, Finland and fell in love with the Finnish people and lifestyle. I continue to visit Finland annually for the Slush startup conference; landing in Helsinki always feels like returning home after too long away.

At the end of 2005 I joined former colleagues at their young LCOS microdisplay startup Syndiant. Over the next 16 years I established and ran software engieering and colorimetry, traveled extensively to support customers and strategic partners, and served as country head General Manager while overseeing technology and product development. My previous research on the human visual system was a solid foundation for the display industry.

  • Senior Software Engineer, 2005 - 2011
  • Director of Software Engineering, 2011 - 2013
  • Director of Algorithm and Software Development, 2013 - 2014
  • General Manager and Vice President of R&D, 2014 - 2021

From there I did something completely different by co-founding Clothe (2021 - 2022) with a partner in Montreal, Québec. Initially we set out to build a social commerce platform for fashion enthusiasts, but pivoted to a fashion e-commerce marketplace concept while participating in Founder Institute. The venture was an invaluable experience and I gained significant expertise in designing and building an event-driven multi-tenant system with AWS serverless resources.

Leveraging this serverless experience, in 2023 I migrated the Christy Rost Productions LLC website to AWS, a business website I have managed since early 2000. The project was completed at breakneck speed aligned to the television premiere of At Home with Christy Rost on Eat This TV.

I additionally served on the industry advisory panel for From Management to Leadership at University of Houston, C.T. Bauer College of Business, from 2020 - 2021.

Education

  • M.Sc. Informatics, University of Edinburgh
  • B.S. Electrical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin
  • B.A. Economics, The University of Texas at Austin