Hi, my name's
Jacques Amsel

About me

My bio

I'm a second-year student at Stellenbosch University studying BEng Electical and Electronic Engineering (with Data Engineering) and a member of Simonsberg Men's Residence. Hopefully, I will graduate in 2026. 😉 I have a keen interest in the environment, specifically, statistical optimisation of processes to decrease their impact on Earth.

Experience

  • 1 month
    During my 1-month internship, I completed four key projects that enhanced Plentify's smart water heating solution (HotBot):
    • Developed an unsupervised model to calculate standing heat loss in geysers, improving energy efficiency assessments, and quantified its precision, with unknown true values, and with extremely noisy data.
    • Created models for water flow patterns, enabling personalised recommendations to customers for optimal usage periods.
    • Engineered a model to predict inlet water temperature for geysers, contributing to more accurate heating control and energy savings.
    • Implemented monitoring systems for AWS Lambda functions, strengthening the reliability of cloud-based operations.
    These projects allowed me to apply data science techniques to real-world energy efficiency challenges, while gaining valuable experience in cloud computing, and predictive modelling, in IoT applications.
  • 1 month
    Internship at a company which finances solar systems and cellphones for individuals in Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia during my Matric holiday before leaving for university. During my time there, I...
    • designed, implemented & deployed (via AWS Fargate) a tool which grades & corrects machine language translations from Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI's GPT Davinci model between English and various African languages. The tool is used to augment & accelerate human translation of agent training documents and to improve communication with agents.
    • implemented a payment history view in the customer app
    • redesigned & improved the customer app login & signup flow (Flutter)
    • fetched water bottles for meetings ;)
  • 1 year

    Teaching primary & secondary school children coding & robotics.

  • 4 months

    Security analysis and improvement. Drawing together a consistent user experience by designing and implementing a functional user interface in VueJS.

My awards

SAPO Bronze (2021)
Placed top 6 in the South African Programming Olympiad
ZAF IOI Reserve (2020)
Selected to represent South Africa at the International Olympiad in Informatics as a reserve
SAPO Bronze (2020)
Placed top 6 in the South African Programming Olympiad
SAPO finalist (2019)
Placed top 19 in the South African Programming Olympiad
FLL ZAF National Tournament (2015)
Invited to compete in the South African National First Lego League Tournament after placing in the Cape Town Tournament
SAPO Bronze (2021)
Placed top 6 in the South African Programming Olympiad
ZAF IOI Reserve (2020)
Selected to represent South Africa at the International Olympiad in Informatics as a reserve
SAPO Bronze (2020)
Placed top 6 in the South African Programming Olympiad
SAPO finalist (2019)
Placed top 19 in the South African Programming Olympiad
FLL ZAF National Tournament (2015)
Invited to compete in the South African National First Lego League Tournament after placing in the Cape Town Tournament
SAPO Bronze (2021)
Placed top 6 in the South African Programming Olympiad
ZAF IOI Reserve (2020)
Selected to represent South Africa at the International Olympiad in Informatics as a reserve
SAPO Bronze (2020)
Placed top 6 in the South African Programming Olympiad
SAPO finalist (2019)
Placed top 19 in the South African Programming Olympiad
FLL ZAF National Tournament (2015)
Invited to compete in the South African National First Lego League Tournament after placing in the Cape Town Tournament
SAPO Bronze (2021)
Placed top 6 in the South African Programming Olympiad
ZAF IOI Reserve (2020)
Selected to represent South Africa at the International Olympiad in Informatics as a reserve
SAPO Bronze (2020)
Placed top 6 in the South African Programming Olympiad
SAPO finalist (2019)
Placed top 19 in the South African Programming Olympiad
FLL ZAF National Tournament (2015)
Invited to compete in the South African National First Lego League Tournament after placing in the Cape Town Tournament
...and more