Timestamps:

1:53 - Accidentally inventing neural networks

7:19 - What does “manukai” mean?

19:44 - Competition in the AI industry

27:35 - Fundraising for AI

32:34 - Does being a spin-off pay off?

This episode was produced in collaboration with startup days, taking place next year on May 14th 2025. Click ⁠here⁠ to purchase your ticket.

About Pascal Weber:

Pascal Weber is the co-founder and CEO of Manukai, an ETH spin-off automating repetitive programming tasks by leveraging available production data. He holds a PhD in Computational Science and Engineering from ETH and worked at Harvard and the ETH AI Center before starting Manukai in 2023.

The Manukai name comes from the agglutination of “manu”, short for “manufacturing”, and “kaizen”, a Japanese term often used to refer to the principle of continuous improvement in manufacturing. Manukai’s goal is to take each and every task that a polymechanic may be responsible for and automate them, while still requiring confirmation from the technician — think of it like AI playing autocomplete, and you telling it “yes” or “no”. This technology will help improve quality in these processes and increase their speed. It will also free the polymechanic to spend more of his or her time doing creative work, instead of repetitive, manual drudgery.

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