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"If you are capable of acquiring knowledge, of applying the knowledge, and you like it, you can succeed. It doesn't matter what it is."
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, we delve into Stavros Papadopoulos' transformative journey from Greece to Hong Kong, exploring his experiences as a PhD student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Stavros shares how a chance encounter on a bus and his professor's last-minute recommendation led him to pursue his doctorate in Hong Kong, a decision that would shape his career and personal life.
Stavros describes Hong Kong as the "best city in the world," highlighting the perfect balance between intense academic rigor and vibrant city life. He explains how the university's unique environment, with students working late into the night and a campus integrated into the natural landscape, fostered both hard work and adventure. Stavros also touches on his research focus, which evolved from spatiotemporal databases to data security and cryptography, and how he learned valuable skills that continue to shape his career to this day.
Key topics covered:
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Spatiotemporal Databases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatiotemporal_database
Data Security and Cryptography in Database Management: https://datastackshow.com/podcast/what-is-a-universal-database-featuring-stavros-papadopoulos-of-tiledb-inc/
MIT CSAIL: https://www.csail.mit.edu/
TileDB Universal Database: https://docs.tiledb.com/cloud/concepts/universal-data-management
Genomics Data Management: https://tiledb.com/blog/population-genomics-is-a-data-management-problem
LiDAR Data Processing: https://tiledb.com/blog/analyzing-lidar-and-sar-data-with-capella-space-and-tiledb
Big Data in Telecommunications: https://startups.epam.com/blog/big-data-analytics-for-telecommunications
Venture Capital Funding for Tech Startups: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/venturecapital.asp
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology: https://hkust.edu.hk/
TileDB: https://tiledb.com/
HKUST: https://iau-hesd.net/university/hong-kong-university-science-and-technology
MIT: https://www.mit.edu/
Intel: https://www.intel.com/
Dimitris Papadias: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimitris-papadias-8429b423a
Yanis Manolopoulos: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yannis-manolopoulos-47989514/?originalSubdomain=gr
Stavros Papadopoulos is the founder and CEO of TileDB—foundational software designed by scientists for scientific discovery. TileDB structures all data types, including data that does not fit into relational databases built for structured tabular data. Used by big pharma and biotechs to power their multiomic FAIR data platforms, TileDB is the destination for scientific breakthroughs where frontier multimodal data is driving drug and target discovery.
Before founding TileDB, Stavros was a Senior Research Scientist at Intel’s Parallel Computing Lab, a member of the Intel Science and Technology Center for Big Data at MIT’s CSAIL, and a visiting scientist at MIT and the Broad Institute. He also served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he earned his PhD in Computer Science.
