About

About Me Link to heading

I’m Bharat (although I usually go by brtkwr handle on the tinternet). I’ve lived in Bristol since 2012 - a city I love love love!

My family doubled in size with the arrival of twins at the end of 2019. While the pandemic brought many challenges, it helped me find a better work-life balance. Though I miss my commute-time podcasts, I now enjoy them during pram walks with the children.

I’m passionate about:

  • Societal impact of technology
  • Discovering vegan cuisine
  • Exploring coffee shops
  • Attending hackathons and meetups
  • Collaborating on coding projects (e.g. fast.ai, smart contracts, etc.)

Professional Journey Link to heading

  • 2016 - 2017: Research Software Engineer at Airbus. I had the opportunity to apply deep reinforcement learning to optimize interactions between connected autonomous vehicles as part of a Flourish consortium project.
  • 2018 - 2021: Software Engineer at StackHPC where I learnt about open source collaboration and HPC for research computing using OpenStack and Kubernetes.
  • 2021 - Present: Senior Software Engineer at [Two][two], a company with a mission to solve cash flow issues for B2B transactions.

Educational Trajectory Link to heading

  • 2003 - 2007: GCSEs at Carr Hill High School, Kirkham
  • 2007 - 2009: A-levels at Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone
  • 2008 - 2012: Master’s degree in Civil and Architectural Engineering at University of Bath
  • 2012 - 2017: PhD in Engineering at University of Bristol under supervision of Anders Johansson and Filippo Simini with a focus on [mass evacuation modelling][massevac]. My research is available [here][scholar].

Life Adventures Link to heading

  • 2017: Kyla and I embarked on a 6-month journey through Asia, exploring Nepal, Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and China. You can view our adventures in our travel photos.
  • 2023: The four of us went on a 3 month tour of Asia again. Again after a family visit to Nepal for 3 weeks, we stayed in Thailand for 6 weeks (Phuket and Koh Lanta), followed by Kuala Lumpur for a week and Sri Lanka for 6 weeks where we were also joined by family and friends. I also had the chance to work remotely from Thailand and Sri Lanka and the time zone difference worked out really well as I was doing things with the children in the morning and starting work in the afternoon.

Early Life Link to heading

My journey began in Burtibang, western Nepal, where I was born in 1989. As the son of a Brigade of Gurkhas serviceman, my early years were quite mobile:

  • 1991 - 1994: Lived in Hong Kong with my parents (where my brother was born)
  • 1995 - 2003: Resided in Kathmandu Valley, partly with family and later at boarding school
  • 2003 - 2005: Reunited with family in the UK (Blackpool)
  • 2005 - 2008: Lived in Folkestone, Kent
  • 2009 - 2012: Studied in Bath, Somerset
  • 2012 - Present: Moved to Bristol, Avon and stayed put!