Who is Ricardo?

My name is Ricardo Kawase, I am currently a Data Scientist at mobile.de GmbH, the leading online automotive marketplace in Germany which operates as a subsidiary of eBay Inc..

In total, I have over 10 years of experience working on information retrieval, data analysis and building data-driven product solutions.

I hold a Ph.D in Computer Science (Doctor rerum naturalium, Dr. rer. nat.) from the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany. During the course of my Ph.D, I have been a researcher at the L3S Research center in Hannover where my research interests included data mining, machine learning, information retrieval, web annotations, folksonomies, semantic web, e-learning, social networks, crowdsourcing and Web science in general.

I have written, collaborated with, and published over 50 peer reviewed academic articles and journals. As a researcher, I have traveled over the globe several times to present my work in front of large international academic audiences. I am still supporting academia by guiding and collaborating with young researchers, co-organizing workshops, and serving as a reviewer in top tier computer science conferences. My main research publications are here:
http://dblp.uni-trier.de/pers/hd/k/Kawase:Ricardo.html

For me, computer engineering is a passion more than just a professional field that I practice for living. I am much motivated by the challenge of taking an idea, overcome any problem and make it work. In fact, if there is one thing that I’ve learnt over the years is how to solve problems. I believe that there’s nothing that I don’t know or that I cannot learn. Smart thinking and hard work can solve most of problems. Besides the challenges, the outcomes are also a motivation for me. I’ve found out that it is incredibly rewarding when you create something that is appreciated by others.

I am an enthusiastic, creative, perfectionist and an artistic computer engineer. If I have an idea, I take my free time and I try it. My latest and yet more success pastime is the FireMe! web site, which tagline is “Trying to to get people aware of the risks of Social Media.” #FireMe!. What started as a “fun” garage project, hit the media and became huge. It granted me the delightful experience of actually influence people’s lives. This is the publication. And here is a fun summary featuring on CNN: