About us

At Useful Sensors, we’re passionate about delivering fast, accurate, and lightweight speech-to-text models for edge devices. Our technology enables seamless transcription and voice command processing without relying on the cloud, ensuring faster performance and enhanced privacy. Torre, our standalone translation solution,  offers real-time, private voice translation between English and Spanish. It’s designed for dual-screen devices, providing superior language accuracy and speed—and we’re excited to expand our language offerings soon.

Co-founded by Pete Warden, creator of TinyML, and Manjunath Kudlur, former lead at Nvidia and Cerebras, we bring deep expertise in AI to everything we do. Our team has set new benchmarks in AI model performance, outpacing industry giants. At Useful Sensors, we’re committed to continuous innovation, leading the way in creating smarter, more intuitive devices that are shaping the future of AI-powered technology.

Meet the team.

  • Pete Warden

    Pete Warden

    CEO

    In 2011 Pete co-founded Jetpac, which was sold to Google in 2014.  At Google, he led the development of the TensorFlow Lite machine learning framework for mobile and embedded applications.  He is a leading thinking, innovator and entrepreneur in Visual AI, software and big data. He is the author of 3 O'reilly books, and currently enrolled in a PhD program at Stanford University.

  • Manjunath Kudlur

    Manjunath Kudlur

    CTO

    Manjunath has a PhD from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has a diverse background in technology, having worked on CUDA at NVIDIA, been part of the founding team of TensorFlow at Google, and led the compiler team at Cerebras. His expertise lies in end-to-end training and optimization of models in language, vision, and audio. He focuses on making these models efficient for resource-constrained platforms.

  • Guy Nicholson

    Guy Nicholson

    SENIOR ENGINEER

    Guy has a PhD from the University of Salford (UK) in control systems for acoustics including programming an online learning neural net in assembly language on a DSP in 1992!  He has worked at Nokia, Apple and Google in different executive roles for over 25 years: spanning product and technology engineering and management, technology marketing and product management.  He’s lived in Finland, France, Singapore and now California, USA.  He is focused on hands-on engineering at Useful Sensors and very excited to be part of this great startup team.

  • Evan King

    Evan King

    APPLIED RESEARCH SCIENTIST

    Evan has a PhD from the University of Texas at Austin, where he developed some of the first smart devices and spaces powered by large language models. Prior to joining Useful, Evan held research positions at Toyota and the Air Force Research Labs. He is motivated by technical challenges at the cutting edge of ubiquitous computing, edge AI/ML, and human-computer interaction.

  • James Wang

    James Wang

    MECHATRONICS ENGINEER

    James graduated from Stanford University with bachelors and masters degrees in Mechanical engineering and mechatronics. After taking Pete’s embedded ML class at Stanford, James joined Useful Sensors as the lead hardware engineer. He specializes in mechatronics, electronics design, prototyping, and making spreadsheets for everything. When he’s not working for Useful, James likes to ride motorcycle and fly airplanes.

  • Nat Jeffries

    Nat Jeffries

    FOUNDING ENGINEER

    Nat Jeffries graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 2016 with an undergraduate and masters degree in ECE. He was a founding member of the Tensorflow Lite for Microcontrollers team at Google, and has spoken at Tensorflow World in Sao Paulo Brazil, MLSys 2023, and guest lectured on TinyML at Harvard.

  • Jackie Cervantes

    Jackie Cervantes

    HEAD OF SALES & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

    Jackie holds three degrees from Santa Clara University, where she studied economics, finance, and Spanish literature.  Her background is in technology and venture capital. She has worked in the U.S. and abroad in the U.K., Switzerland, Spain, Russia and Canada.  

  • Khyati Dave

    Khyati Dave

    OFFICE MANAGER

    Khyati is an experienced HR and office management professional with over 19 years in the field. She possesses a strong background in HR operations, employee relations, and office management. She is  known for her leadership abilities, she excels in mentoring, training, and career planning to drive organizational success and growth.