Daniel Genkin

I am passionate about Software Development & Computer Design. My passion started at a young age when my father introduced me to coding. Since that moment, I have founded and participated in several startups, worked in a range of companies from medium sized to some of the largest tech companies, met some extremely talented and interesting people, and helped to develop/improve/maintain some very important and influential software products. I am always open to learning new things and having new experiences.

Projects

GreenAR

An Augmented Reality platform for Android, iOS and Web built with Java, XML, Swift, C#, Objective C, VueJS (JavaScript), OpenCV, Unity3D. The platform consists of a frontend, which use AR to superimpose videos, images, websites, and other digital media on top of physical print media, and a backend which allowed content owners to setup the AR experiences. I pitched this to educators and businesses as a means for adding interactivity and boosting engagement with educational and promotional materials. For example, bring equations or other mathematical problems to life with a live and interactive graphical representation to help students understand math. In the context of business, an example would be adding actionable buttons (such as buy now) to business cards or adding 3d models to magazines so potential customers can better visualize products.

Connect Conference award winner

All-in-one augmented reality platform

Open Source (eventually when the MVP is ready)

Learn More

Work Experience

Software Engineer

Microsoft Corp.

September 2023 - Ongoing

Full-time position working on the Azure Core Files team using C/C++, XML, JSON. My team is responsible for geo-redundancy and replication for business recovery and data restoration. My work affects all layers of the tech stack, ranging from the SMB, NFS, and REST APIs down to the data storage layer.

Software Engineer Intern

Amazon Inc.

September 2022 - December 2022

12-week internship. My project improved advertisement second-price auction latency on the Amazon.com Ads team by > 25% and resulted in estimated savings of ~14 million dollars per year in compute resources. This team primarily used Java.

2x Software Engineer Intern

Microsoft Corp.

May 2021 & 2022 - August 2021 & 2022

Two 12-week internships. The first was working on adding NodeJS support to the C# Mono WebAssembly project (WASM). The second was adding WebTransport support to the ASP.NET Kestrel webserver. Both projects are open source and were motivated by community requests. These internships used a combination of C#, TypeScript (TS), XML, and other languages.

Software Engineer Intern

TeamViewer Ambgh.

August 2021 - February 2022

Part-time internship following a sale of the LifeAR brand. I worked on integrating the ASSIMP open-source library in the lifeAR and assistAR products to enable greater 3D model rendering support. This project acted as a bridge between the ASSIMP C++ source code and the assistAR Kotlin source code. I implemented all the components necessary to load and display the models and ultimately greatly improved both the fidelity and performance of the models that assistAR was able to load and display.

Explore Intern

Microsoft Corp.

May 2020 - August 2020

12-week internship. Working on researching and implementing a new UI for Visual Studio. This internship involved project management (PM), software development (SWE) and testing. The software development was implemented in the C#, C++, XML languages.

Research Assistant/Developer

Fyelabs

March 2020 - August 2022

Completed several frontend and backend projects using several languages, frameworks, and tools including Python, C++, JavaScript, TypeScript, HTML, CSS, SCSS, VueJS, React, React Native, and Docker.

Founder, Developer, and Designer

DGApps

September 2015 - September 2023

My personal projects are grouped under this brand. Throughout high school (2015 - 2019), I worked as a freelancer for implementing various web and mobile applications. Throughout university (2019 - 2023), I worked on the GreenAR and Project GamePlan projects.

Patents

Boosting User Productivity Of Productivity Platforms By Leveraging Gamification

US 20240296410 A1

This patent describes a productivity software solution that boosts user engagement and motivation by associating the value of tasks/jobs assigned to users with rewards. Users of the solution can complete tasks to earn points, then redeem the points for physical (e.g., merchandise) or virtual rewards. Virtual rewards can be used to customize components of user profiles (e.g., mascots or profile images) to allow the user to personalize their experience. Simultaneously, the productivity software solution keeps track of the completed tasks and assigns users a level/rank which they can use to compete against other users on leaderboards. Overall, this results in a gamified experience for the software users that provides instant rewards and boosts motivation for task completion, increases engagement of users with their tasks/jobs and yields a more enjoyable and productive experience.

2023

Education

2015 - 2019

  • Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School
  • Brock University Undergraduate AP Courses

2019 - 2023

  • McMaster University Bachelors of Applied Science an Computer Science CO-OP Honours program
  • McMaster University Business minor

Awards

Graduation with Honours and Distinction

McMaster University

2023

McMaster Big Ideas Entrance Scholarship

McMaster University

2019

Gene Luczkiw Spirit of Enterprise Scholarship

Niagara Entrepreneur of the Year Awards

2019

*This list only includes academic and other non-project-specific awards. Project specific awards are listed in the dedicated project detail pages.

Entrepreneurship

Between 2015 and 2023, I founded and participated in several start-up ventures centered around using technology to solve every-day problems. The most notable of these ventures, DGApps, was founded in 2015 as a portfolio to publish all my projects. Some of these projects included:

  • LifeAR (rebranded as GreenAR) - A universal augmented reality mobile application that allows for embedding digital content on physical real-world objects to improve engagement and communication effectiveness. For example, using LifeAR, content owners would be able to link a standard small business card to display a video (of any length) when the app is used to scan the card. Then, after the user is done watching the video, they could click a button and be navigated to a corresponding website to take some action (such as buying a product). The platform consisted of the mobile app viewer client as well as a full content management backend platform which allowed paying users to update their content in real-time.

  • HandTrack - A mobile application that used the device's built-in accelerometer sensors or a virtual joystick to move the mouse pointer on the screen of one or more connected computers over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth which could enable a new method for people with various limiting physical conditions to use a computer in a more natural three-dimensional space.

  • Several others including some utility applications to implement some new functionality (such as theft detection or in-pocket detection) to mobile devices and some games (such as Slappy Sandwhich).

Unfortunately, most of the projects are not maintained anymore due to lack of time. However more information can be found on the archived DGApps website.


DGApps also provided freelance services and built several websites including the Science Education and Local Communities website and a personal website for Dolana Mogadime.


Aside from DGApps, I participated in several business incubator programs and joined or assisted in the development of some startups in areas such as: augmented and virtual reality (AR and VR respectively), social media / match making, fitness, and education. Most of these startups are no longer operating. However, they have all been fantastic opportunities to learn, grow, and develop my skills.