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Boulder Tinker
Dr. Nwanua Elumeze is a Senior Firmware Engineer, and has been with Dojo Five since September of 2021. Nwanua is a native New Yorker, but has spent the last 20+ years enjoying the natural beauty and open spaces of Colorado, where he currently resides.
Nwanua first focused on electronics at Brooklyn Tech, a specialized high school that provided hands-on instruction for aspiring scientists and engineers. He started dabbling with programming in the real world when he developed an automated hall pass tracking system, and went full-on embedded on a project with mechanical engineers to build a robot to carry materials from class to class. Needless to say, his most frequented stop on the train ride to and from school was at Radio Shack.
“A lot of people say that they've been an engineer since childhood, and I think that's true.”
Nwanua moved on to the Rochester Institute of Technology, earning a BS in Electrical Engineering. He continued his formal education at the University of Colorado, earning an MS and PhD.
As he wrapped up grad school, Nwanua started Aniomagic, which was fresh on the scene with wearable electronics in 2007. The products included smartphone remote controls and fitness trackers. While the company ultimately shuttered, Nwanua feels appreciative of the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of a startup and the whitespace it provides.
Over the course of his career, Nwanua has pioneered new technologies for smart color-changing ceramic tiles, programmed devices via coded messages sent via visible light., and created a new programming language for ambient programming (based on Lisp/Scheme). But he’s had the most fun making tools and technology easier and more accessible for developers and users.
In addition to the usual tools of the trade in embedded development, Nwanua loves working with Scheme and Forth. He likes crafting with the Arduino and Raspberry Pi and has his eye on the RP2040 for some projects due to its robust feature set - he would really like to see that be successful. He has been working on improvements to the open source Window Maker GUI as well.
His favorite thing about Dojo Five is working with competent folks that are passionate about what they do. It makes work fun, and gives you a chance to thrive when you have a good team.
In his spare time, Nwanua has been developing his own phone with some open source chips. Unfortunately, every time he gets close to finishing, a new G standard comes out and he’s back at it in the lab. When he has time to get outdoors, he enjoys gardening fruits and vegetables, and hiking with his 4 kids.
