Mr. Lim Jing Yee is behind much of Google’s success. He created one in every of the best technological inventions, Gmail, which is now synonymous with the corporate he worked for for nearly 15 years.
The webmail service, for which the Singaporean holds 16 patents, has greater than a billion energetic users worldwide.
Now he has a brand new mission: to enable people to seek advice from a pc as in the event that they were having a natural conversation with an actual person.
With a bunch of engineers here and in Mountain View, California, his goal is to develop higher algorithms for Google Assistant, its virtual personal assistant.
Mr. Lim pioneered the concept of grouping emails from the identical thread right into a conversation, a groundbreaking solution that makes it easier for users to search out their emails.
This feature, referred to as “conversation view” (patent pending in his U.S. name), was introduced with the launch of Gmail in April 2004, when he was living in Mountain View.
Gmail then offered users a generous 1GB of free cupboard space, while its rival Hotmail provided only 2MB totally free.
“The e-mail offering wasn’t very interesting at that time,” he said.
Today, nevertheless, Google Assistant faces major rivals like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa, in addition to recent players like Little Fish from Chinese search giant Baidu.
Still, Mr Lim isn’t any newcomer to challenges, having needed to contend with regional differences in addressing and road naming in 2008 when he helped launch Google Maps in Southeast Asia.
For example, in India and Japan some roads haven’t any names, and the numbers in addresses can’t be arranged in sequence.
To make it easier for users to get from point A to point B, Google Maps must use landmarks in navigation.
That same yr, he returned to Singapore together with his wife, who was expecting their third child, and their two young children – after spending nearly 20 years in Silicon Valley.
“When the opportunity arose to launch Google Maps for the Singapore region, I jumped at the chance,” he said, noting he needed “better childcare support” from his parents and in-laws.
Before becoming “Googler” in 2002, he worked at consumer electronics company Thomson Electronics and search engine company Excite in Silicon Valley.
He is inspired by the changing attitude towards engineering as a profession, as evidenced by giants similar to Google and Amazon which can be hiring within the country.
Despite every thing, he advises young people to not take a job simply because it pays well.
“No matter what career path you choose, you should follow your passion.”
Source : Strait Times
