Alex Afonso
Talk-Titel
My Assistant is an Algorithm
Über den Talk
We find algorithms in almost any place we visit on the internet. They are the ones who decide the content we consume and what side of social media we see. Most people don't know how the TikTok algorithm works. Me included. TikTok tries to hide it as well as possible, since the more is known about it, the easier it is to find exploits. But if I wanted to learn about it, if I wanted to better understand it, how would I do it? I think the best way to analyze an algorithm is to create another algorithm to do the job. In my talk I want to share my journey of how I tried to better understand TikTok.
Biografie
Alex started his career as a computer science engineer at 16 and at the age of 20. He supported a pioneering project with Sonova Group as part of the IT infrastructure team at the Wireless Competence Center in Murten - the world’s first generation of carbon-neutral buildings. He then decided to pursue his dream of becoming a creator, worked as a parttime journalist while studying at Zurich University of the Arts in 2021, and continued to dive into the art space himself as a freelance photographer with his productions at verfluecht.ch.
Since 2022, he is the Creative Tech Lead at ZEAM, a one-of-a-kind Gen Z consulting firm that went viral with its business model and manages some of the biggest TikTok Accounts in Switzerland.