Biography
Lifelong Learner, Researcher, Technologist, Teambuilder, and Innovator. Architect and developer of complex systems, and a student of literature, religion, and history.
Irtaza Barlas brings more than 25 years of diverse technology and product development experience to the program. With a passion for innovation, Irtaza has developed strong technology teams in small to medium-sized businesses, co-founded several startups and also served as CTO in three others. He has architected systems for several diverse sectors including agriculture, real estate, textile and fabrics, utilities, and healthcare.
Previously, as the Director of Software Engineering at Nuesoft Technologies/AdvancedMD - Healthcare IT companies, he led a distributed development and QA teams to provide high-availability SaaS solutions. At Impact Technologies, he led the research and development efforts associated with advanced computing, image analysis, and data mining systems for the industry and the US Department of Defense. He was also the architect and Principal Investigator on a multi-year research program on “Self-Aware Processing Systems” for DARPA. His other DoD research programs include data mining and visualization for US Navy, distributed monitoring of Virginia Class Submarine Combat Systems, and Multi-agent Distributed Data Fusion for Unmanned Surface Vehicles for Office of Naval Research.
Irtaza also led the development of several products related to image processing, industrial process monitoring, and automation in the utilities, wire, cable, and textile industries as the principal and Director of Software Development at Atlanta-based Intelligent Automation Systems (IAS).
Irtaza received his MS from California State University, Sacramento where he worked extensively on microprocessors, digital systems, computer networks, and FPGAs. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech., with a thesis on Multi-Agent systems for Diagnostics and Prognostics of complex systems. His other research interests include the design of self-aware processors, integrity verification and the repair of distributed systems, mobile agents, e-publishing, image analysis, data mining, and data visualization.
