Quick Links
Relevant Work Experience
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Center for Humane Technology (San Francisco, CA)
Co-Founder (Current)
Co-Founder & Executive Director (July 2020 - July 2022)
Co-Founder & COO (July 2017 - July 2020)
CHT's team of former tech insiders and cross-disciplinary experts understands how social media platforms are causing widespread harm. We address this by raising awareness for millions of people while mobilizing technologists, executives, investors, and political leaders to create a world where technology supports our shared well-being, sense-making, democracy, and ability to tackle complex global challenges.
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Spirit Rock Meditation Center (Woodacre, CA)
Board Member
Dec 2019 - Present
For 26 years, Spirit Rock has led the development and practice of Insight meditation in the United States. Through both deep training and broad education, Spirit Rock brings timeless teachings of wisdom, compassion, and liberation directly to practitioners' lives. Reaching more than 50,000 people each year, Spirit Rock is seeding a culture of non-harming and transforming entire fields of practice in the world.
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Mindful Schools (Emeryville, CA)
Executive Director (2012 - 2017)
Co-Executive Director (2010 - 2012)
Mindful Schools has provided mindfulness training to over 50,000 educators across 50 U.S. states and 100+ countries, reaching more than 3 million children worldwide.
As ED, I guided the organization to 100x growth in impact (reaching nearly a million children) and 10x growth in budget (to ~$4 million) over 7 consecutive profitable fiscal years.
This included multiple business model changes, reaching over 90% earned income, growing staff from 4 to 20 people, and building a Facebook following of nearly 300,000 people—all with a strong reputation for integrity and quality (98% of course graduates recommended the courses, Mindful Schools was rated 4.7/5.0 stars on Facebook with 481 reviews, and the org was covered by TIME Magazine, The Atlantic, NPR, Education Week, and more).
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Mindful Schools (Oakland, CA)
Director of Operations
Jul 2009 - Jun 2010
Responsible for business strategy, marketing, technology, messaging, task organization, and organizational structure.
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NVIDIA (Santa Clara, CA)
Developer Tools Product Manager
Sep 2005 - Jul 2009
NVIDIA is the worldwide leader in visual computing. A Fortune 500 company founded in 1999, NVIDIA invented the programmable graphics processor and evolved it to drive virtual reality, high-performance computing, and artificial intelligence.
I was responsible for managing, defining, marketing, and distributing award-winning content-creation and performance optimization tools to help graphics developers create compelling
applications. These products included PerfHUD, FX Composer, ShaderPerf, Texture Tools, Shader Library, and Shader Debugger.
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NVIDIA (Santa Clara, CA)
Manager of Developer Education
Mar 2002 - Sep 2005
I managed three different award-winning book projects: The Cg Tutorial (as co-author) [2002], GPU Gems (as editor) [2003], and GPU Gems 2 [as series editor) [2004]. Managed each book project (including schedule, diagrams, review process, and communication) on a very tight timelines, never missing a publication deadline. Each GPU Gems book had over 100 people involved, both inside and outside NVIDIA.
I was responsible for one-to-many efforts to educate graphics developers how to fully utilize the features and performance of the latest graphics processors), including content and logistics for educational sessions at SIGGRAPH 2003 and SIGGRAPH 2004 that were attended by approximately 1,000 people each year.
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IBM (Cambridge, MA)
Intern, Inaugural Extreme Blue Program
Summer 1999
Developed a Java bean called WebExtractor that extracts information from dynamically changing web pages. Was mentioned in an article in Wired magazine.
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Silicon Graphics (Mountain View, CA)
Intern, Advanced Graphics Division
Summer 1998
Worked on SGI's next-generation high-end graphics architecture (included micro-code as well as OpenGL pipeline work and testing).
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Education
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Residential Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship (Feb 2017)
Stanford University Graduate School of Business (Stanford, CA)
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Masters Degree in Computer Graphics (Mar 2002)
Cornell University Program of Computer Graphics (Ithaca, NY)
GPA: 4.10 (A = 4.00)
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Bachelors Degree in Computer Science (Jan 2000)
Cornell University (Ithaca, NY)
GPA: 3.92 (A = 4.00)
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Selected Publications
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Mindfulness Training and Classroom Behavior Among Lower-Income and Ethnic Minority Elementary School Children
David S. Black, PhD and Randima Fernando, MS
Oct 2013
This field intervention trial evaluated a 5-week mindfulness-based curriculum on teacher-ratings of 409 students' behavior at a Richmond, CA public elementary school. Teachers reported improved classroom behavior of their students (i.e., paying attention, self-control, participation in activities, and caring/respect for others) that lasted up to 7 weeks post-intervention. |
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Measuring the Efficacy and Sustainability of a Mindfulness-Based In-Class Intervention
Randima Fernando
Feb 2013
In the 2011-12 school year, Mindful Schools partnered with the University of California, Davis to conduct one of the largest randomized-controlled studies to date on mindfulness and children, involving 937 children and 47 teachers in 3 Oakland public elementary schools. The Mindful Schools curriculum produced statistically significant improvements in paying attention and participation in class activities versus the control group with just 4 hours of mindfulness instruction for the students – a very small, low-cost dose. |
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GPU Gems 2:
Programming Techniques for High-Performance Graphics and General-Purpose
Computation
Edited by Matt Pharr, Randima Fernando (Series Editor)
Mar 2005
GPU Gems 2 was the best-selling book at the Game Developers Conference 2005 as well as SIGGRAPH 2005. It covers advanced graphics programming techniques as well as how to use the massive computational power of GPUs for other applications such as scientific computing and finance. GPU Gems 2 was a Game Developer Magazine Front Line Award finalist in 2005, and has been translated into Japanese and Chinese. |
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GPU Gems: Programming Techniques, Tips, and Tricks for Programmable
Graphics
Edited by Randima Fernando
Mar 2004
GPU Gems was the best-selling book at the Game Developers Conference 2004 as well as SIGGRAPH 2004. It covers advanced computer graphics for real-time applications using GPUs. GPU Gems won a
Game Developer Magazine Front Line Award in 2004, and has been translated into Japanese and Chinese. |
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The Cg Tutorial: The Definitive Guide to Programmable Real-Time
Graphics
Randima Fernando and Mark J. Kilgard
Mar 2003
The Cg Tutorial was the best-selling book at the Game Developer Conference in 2003 as well as SIGGRAPH 2003. It held the top spot in Barnes & Noble's "Computer Graphics" rankings for most of 2003. It has been used by many universities around the world and has been translated into Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Polish.
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Integrating Realistic Soft Shadows into Your Game Engine
Kevin Myers, Randima Fernando, and Louis Bavoil
NVIDIA Whitepaper - Dec 2007
This whitepaper explains how to easily integrate an efficient method for creating realistic soft
shadows on DirectX 10 and high-end DirectX 9 GPUs. The technique is used in many shipping games, such as Hellgate: London. |
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Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows
Randima Fernando - Aug 2005
SIGGRAPH 2005 Sketch
This sketch presents Percentage-Closer Soft Shadows (PCSS), a new method for generating perceptually accurate soft shadows. It requires no pre- or post-processing, nor additional geometry. PCSS seamlessly replaces a
traditional shadow map query (embodying the same advantages: independent of scene complexity, works with alpha testing, displacement mapping, and so on). It runs fast on recent GPUs, and is used by many shipping games. |
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The GeForce 6 Series
Architecture
Emmett Kilgariff and Randima Fernando
GPU Gems 2, Chapter 30
This chapter describes the architecture of the GeForce 6 Series GPUs from NVIDIA. We start with a general overview of where the GPU fits into the overall computer system, and then we describe the architecture along with details of specific features and performance characteristics. |
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Adaptive Shadow Maps
Randima Fernando et al.
SIGGRAPH 2001 Paper
This paper introduces the Adaptive Shadow Map (ASM) as a solution to shadow map aliasing. An ASM resolves pixel size mismatches between the eye view and the light source view by creating higher-resolution pieces of the shadow map as needed. ASMs enable dramatic improvements in shadow quality while maintaining interactive frame rates. |
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Masters Thesis
Randima Fernando
This thesis presents two adaptive, GPU-accelerated algorithms for shadow generation. The
first algorithm, called Adaptive Shadow Maps, removes aliasing artifacts that typically result when using shadow maps. The second algorithm, called Adaptive Soft Shadows, attempts to generate soft shadows efficiently by varying the number of light samples used for different regions of the scene.
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Volunteer Activities
I've explored a number of different volunteer activities to learn first-hand about the amazing work that's being done to help people in need, as well as to contribute in my own small way. Here are some of the activities I've tried:
NVIDIA Foundation: Served on Board of Directors (Dec. 2007 - Jul. 2009). Helped build the Foundation from the ground up, including charter, goals, as well as program development. The Foundation is responsible for NVIDIA's charitable and community activities.
Mindful Schools: volunteered for over a year before leaving Silicon Valley to join Mindful Schools
Integrated the book What Matters into the curriculum at Overfelt High School in San Jose
Second Harvest Food Bank, Loaves & Fishes Family Kitchen in San Jose
The Role Model Program: taught 7th grade kids career planning as a Role Model over 8 weeks
Insight Meditation Center: set up equipment and updated processes for recording/editing weekly talks
Crisis counseling training for dealing with suicide, alcohol & drug abuse, child abuse
Holiday gift sorting for kids
Hobbies & Interests
In my spare time, I enjoy sports (primarily tennis and table tennis, but also a little basketball, golf, and billiards when I get the chance), playing quick online chess games, studying and practicing Buddhist philosophy, painting, playing the piano and guitar, composing music, driving on fun roads, cooking, and spending time with my wonderful wife.
References available upon request.
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