About Me

Gero Embser

About Me

Last updated on

Hi, I'm Gero.

Gero at computer

This is my best approximation of a LinkedIn profile (here you can read why).

Technically, I'm still enrolled in the computer science master's program at ETH, but I'm currently focusing more on my startup, tutor.new.

Education

ETH Zurich

I originally came to ETH to focus on theoretical computer science. But then I met Friedrich and somehow ChatGPT happened. And then came tutor.new.

Technical University of Berlin

Graduated 2021

I paused my study for 1.5 years after the outbreak of COVID-19 to found and voluntarily work full time for Corona School e.V. For my work at Corona School e.V., see below

I received a good education and upbringing there. And I still appreciate that. The Christian view of humanity and faith mean a lot to me today.

Experience

tutor.new provides children with an immersive AI learning experience. In this virtual world, children can interact with an AI companion and learn a variety of school subjects. It's as immersive as Minecraft and as helpful as ChatGPT. Learn more on tutor.new!

The SwipeMath App was an initial prototype that I built together with Friedrich. After the public release of GPT 3.5, we wanted to figure out what we could do with it when it comes to education. But reality set in and we realized that the LLMs were not yet ready for this (aka not much high quality training data available). But it was an important step towards founding tutor.new.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools and universities in Germany were closed in 2020. Together with a high school friend, I founded “Corona School”. I took the lead in developing the online platform where we brought students together for free in 1:1 video calls. Through this platform, university students were able to help school students with their learning, simulating the experience of closed schools quite well. We also offered online courses in science and personal development via the platform.

In total, we had over 30,000 users.

The non-profit association is still active today and is now called “Lern-Fair e.V.”

Find out more about Lern-Fair on their website.

Awards/Prizes

Received the Apple WWDC Scholarship to attend the Worldwide Developers Conference in Cupertino, California. The scholarship was awarded based on a Swift Playground app submission demonstrating creative use of Apple technologies. Fun fact: I had already attended WWDC in 2016 as a minor, with my mum as chaperone 😅

Won multiple 1st prizes at regional and state-level competitions in Germany's most prestigious youth science competition with projects in the computer science category. Jugend Forscht has been encouraging young people to pursue STEM fields since 1965.