I am Tarek Hoteit, principal technology consultant and founder of INFOCOMET LLC (formerly known as INFOCOM AI LLC), a technology consultancy company located in the United States Pacific Northwest region. So what is this consultancy all about, and what is my purpose? It is a story that takes me back to my early years, programming computers since childhood, obsessed with communication and information technologies during my career, and deeply immersed in problem-solving video game puzzles to this day.
I am originally from Lebanon and immigrated to the United States in 2001. I grew up in a culture that took knowledge very seriously. My father was a journalist. Books and magazines were all over the house. Whether on television, radio or in newspapers, the news media is part of our daily lives. My parents got me a Commodore Vic-20 when I was seven years old. That was in 1981. I got hooked on computers ever since. Like many computer geeks in the 80s and 90s, I was into text-based adventure games (and later point-and-click games), Star Wars, Arcades, the movie War Games, and other sci-fi. As a teenager first, then as a young adult, and now in my middle age, computers, information, and communication media have always been integral to my life. More importantly, I always kept myself up to speed with the leading edge of technology innovation in information and communication technologies.
My Ph.D. and academic background in management and technologies, including computer science, business management, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, sentiment analysis, and information retrieval, have been instrumental in my ability to innovate and drive enterprise solutions at various Fortune 500 companies in the United States, including startups. Along with over 30 years of experience successfully leading software solutions with teams ranging from a few to hundreds globally, I have built solid expertise in information and communication technologies. These include enabling artificial intelligence into existing products, building communication platforms to foster human (and machine) collaborations, detecting and preventing fraudulent transactions through data intelligence, and bridging between human intuition and machine learning to solve multi-facets of technology-related problems. The depth and breadth of expertise throughout the years in these fields led me to realize that my call to action was just the same as when I was a kid programming or playing video games: “If there is a problem at hand, let’s leverage the technology we have to help solve it. If no technology can help fix it, let’s find ways to innovate and build something new to solve it.”
My proficiency is in finding solutions using artificial intelligence as the assisting tool to solve problems in the information and communication field. With INFOCOMET, I will provide my customers with technology consultancy and contracts on building solutions, which may include subcontracting additional talent when necessary.