# Mohamed Elgendy

> Mohamed Elgendy is the Co-Founder and CEO of Kolena, a San Francisco-based AI testing and validation platform that raised $21M to help enterprises build reliable, trustworthy AI systems. An Egyptian-American technologist and author of the widely-read 'Deep Learning for Vision Systems' (Manning Publications, 20,000+ copies sold), Elgendy cut his teeth building AI/ML organizations at Amazon, Twilio, Rakuten, and Synapse (acquired by Palantir) before founding Kolena in 2021. His mission: bring software engineering rigor - unit testing, regression analysis, scenario-level validation - to a field that has long relied on aggregate accuracy scores that mask real-world failures.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Kolena
- **Organizations:** Kolena, Amazon, Twilio, Rakuten, Synapse Technology Corporation, Yale University
- **From:** Egypt
- **Nationality:** Egyptian-American
- **Education:** B.S. in Systems and Biomedical Engineering, Cairo University, MBA, Nova Southeastern University, Executive Certificate in Machine Learning, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Author of 'Deep Learning for Vision Systems' (Manning Publications, 2020) - 20,000+ copies sold, Co-founded Kolena in 2021 - raised $21M total ($15M Series A in September 2023), Founded AIQCON (AI Quality Conference) - 10,000+ attendees in inaugural year

## Career timeline

- **2008-2009** — Senior Software Engineer at Independence Blue Cross
- **2009-2010** — Lead Software Engineer at Aspen Dental Management
- **2010-2013** — Senior Technical Program Manager at Yale University
- **2013-2015** — Senior Engineering Manager at Twilio Inc. - shipped communication API products
- **2015-2018** — Senior Engineering Manager at Amazon - built and managed AI/ML teams, developed deep learning for computer vision course at Amazon's Machine Learning University, managed computer vision think tank
- **2018-2020** — Head of Engineering at Synapse Technology Corporation - led development of threat detection platform (company acquired by Palantir)
- **2020** — VP of Engineering, AI Platform at Rakuten - led AI/ML platform for Rakuten Mobile operations
- **2020** — Published 'Deep Learning for Vision Systems' with Manning Publications
- **2021** — Co-founded Kolena as CEO alongside Andrew Shi (CTO) and Gordon Hart (CPO)
- **2023-09** — Kolena raises $15M Series A led by Lobby Capital (total funding $21M)
- **2023** — Founded AIQCON - The AI Quality Conference - inaugural year drew 10,000+ attendees

## Achievements

- Author of 'Deep Learning for Vision Systems' (Manning Publications, 2020) - 20,000+ copies sold
- Co-founded Kolena in 2021 - raised $21M total ($15M Series A in September 2023)
- Founded AIQCON (AI Quality Conference) - 10,000+ attendees in inaugural year
- Built AI/ML course at Amazon's Machine Learning University on deep learning for computer vision
- Managed computer vision think tank at Amazon
- Led engineering at Synapse Technology Corporation (acquired by Palantir)
- Grew Kolena to serve Fortune 500 companies, government organizations, and European AI standardization institutes
- GitHub repository for his book amassed 389+ stars
- Regular speaker at Amazon DevCon, O'Reilly AI Conference, Google I/O, and TWIMLCon

## Latest updates

- **2023-09** — Kolena closes $15M Series A led by Lobby Capital with participation from SignalFire and Bloomberg Beta, bringing total funding to $21M
- **2023-06** — Co-founded AIQCON (AI Quality Conference) with MLOps Community - inaugural event attracts 10,000+ AI builders, investors, regulators, and journalists
- **2025-03** — Featured in Authority Magazine's 'Guardians of AI' series discussing AI safety, ethics, and responsible development

## Links

- Website: https://kolena.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/moelgendy
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/_moelgendy
- GitHub: https://github.com/moelgendy

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/mohamed-elgendy
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-13