Andrew Milne

Welcome to yubik.com, the home website for Andrew Milne. Inventor, engineer, writer, speaker and consultant in technology and business planning. Discovery through creation is a central theme in my work.

I believe that we improve our knowledge of Nature by creating things, including algorithms that express our knowledge in abstract ways. We improve our knowledge of ourselves and each other by sharing our ideas through Art and Science.

Let’s work on something together!

Most of my time now is spent on writing projects, but work with others is always rewarding. Here are some places we can start:

Andrew Milne on Google Scholar (20+ patents and publications, 400+ citations). Read my original work in algorithmic and software engineering. We can build on these ideas.
Andrew Milne on LinkedIn (practical accomplishments at 1QBit, CME Group, Sony, CBC and other great places). Take advantage of my experience. Remember that for every success there are hundreds of failures and wrong turnings, which no one puts on their resume or brags about online. Avoid failure by reviewing your plans with someone who has been there.
Andrew Milne on Substack. Original essays, commentary, pictures, poetry and excerpts from larger works in progress, published every few months or so. Let’s compare our thoughts. You don’t have to subscribe to read the latest articles, like Anger against war, or Shakespeare and AI. Subscriptions are free, however, and welcome as a sign of your continuing interest.
Drawing Legs on a Snake. Join a collaborative writing project led by myself and former colleagues from 1QBit. Our goal is to create a resource for people who want to start a Sun Tzu Reading Project in their own organizations. We look for ways to apply The Art of War and other classic texts to modern conflicts in business and politics. New readers and writers are welcome. I host the project on Substack, along with the yubik.com strategic engineering newsletter.
Andrew Milne on ResearchGate. Download some of my unpublished research notes. There are many techniques just waiting to be applied, such as using Fourier analysis to estimate Power Usage Efficiency (PUE) at a data center. ResearchGate requires a login now, but it’s still free.
Just ask! Send me an e-mail. A lot of my work has not been published, and many of my NDA’s and non-competes have expired.

My core skills are in applied science, but my core values are in rational inquiry and respect for evidence and logic. I’m open to any kind of project that puts these to good use.

Help us develop our Art of War strategy workshops

Drawing Legs on a Snake is looking for “beta participants” to help us in developing our strategy workshops. Our goal is to help people set up their own discussion groups and contribute to the larger project (an open source model). However, each business has its own way of connecting Sun Tzu’s world with its own. We’d like to learn more about these. Please contact me for details.

Andrew Milne Online Resume

Thought leader in applied math and physics. Experienced manager of research and development. A creative problem-solver committed to the success of everyone on the team.

EXPERIENCE

Senior Lead, Optimization Solutions (Finance Products), 1QB Information Technologies (1QBit)

October 2015 to November 2022

1QBit was founded in 2012 to develop software for quantum computing and machine learning. The company was privately held by a group of strategic investors, including Accenture, Allianz, CME Group, Fujitsu, NatWest and the Siam Commercial Bank.

Responsible for product strategy, marketing, sales, and general operations in finance products, as well as for ongoing R&D.
Created 1QBit’s first commercial product, the CME Market Sentiment Meter, in collaboration with CME Group Chief Economist Blu Putnam. A 100% cloud-native predictive modeling data service sold through CME DataMine, for NYMEX energies, S&P 500 -e-minis (ES), Treasuries, gold, corn, soybeans and bitcoin (BTC) futures.
Created the 1QBit Academic Collaboration Program in Finance, the company’s most successful market development initiative for quantum computing. Supervised 1QBit staff analysts in their guidance of students in classical and quantum projects at University College London, the University of California Berkeley, the Stevens Institute, and other top universities. Eight dissertations in 2 years of operation.

Senior Director, Technology Specialist, CME Group

August 2008 to August 2015

CME Group is the world’s leading derivatives marketplace. It operates the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), COMEX and NYMEX.

Held positions of increasing responsibility in Match Engine Development, Trading and Business Systems, Enterprise Architecture, and Emerging Technology.
Provided the CME Strategic Investment Group with technical due diligence, leading to an early-stage investment in 1QB Information Technologies (1QBit), Vancouver-based startup focused on quantum computing and machine learning. I subsequently joined 1QBit as a subject matter expert in finance technology.
Initiated a new R&D relationship between the CME Group Foundation and the Graduate Program in Financial Engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken.
Expanded Match Engine R&D into collaborative projects with Business Intelligence and Research & Product Development, e.g. to study how implied markets could be used to improve liquidity in corn futures at middle and distant expiries.
Developed new correlation techniques for Match Engine logs and FIX message time-of-flight measurements made with Corvil fiber taps, leading to new efficiencies in the Globex match engine code.
Managed the development of new 3D interactive visualization tools for market supervision and compliance. Introduced a novel InfoSec architecture (based on anonymized data sculptures) that made the tools widely deployable.
Created and ran the CME Group’s in-house Algo Trading Game, a training project for the HR Department’s Talent Exchange program. Over 50 participants from across the company learned how to write players for my simulated trading system, and competed as trading teams in weekly online tournaments.

Director of Algorithmic Engineering and Advanced Technology, New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX)

December 2004 to August 2008

NYMEX is a commodities exchange most known for energy futures trading, specifically crude oil and natural gas. It was acquired by CME Group in 2008.

Led the design, development, and testing of an order matching engine using highly-parallel graph theory algorithms. Ultimately awarded 20+ U.S. Patents, most as sole or lead inventor.
The rights to my engine design enabled NYMEX to compete successfully as an exchange services provider e.g. to the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME). Other exchanges (including CME at the time) were licensees of other IP holders and could not negotiate joint ventures as easily.
Developed new zero-defect design techniques (the NYMEX Match Engine Modeling Language and its applications are covered by U.S. patents 8,595,119 and 10,740,840).

Manager, Business Planning; Manager, Technology, Sony Corporation of America (SCA)

February 2002 to June 2004

Manager of Business Planning, e-Platform Technologies, the New York branch of Sony’s Network Applications and Content Services Group in Tokyo.
- Brought together Memory Stick, Vaio, Clié (handhelds), Sony Music, Sony Pictures and others for the development of synergy product concepts. Performed market analysis for SCA Corporate Development.
Manager of Technology (digital rights management architect) for a new payment system planned as a joint venture with a major U.S. financial services partner and scoped at $500M.
- Enabling technologies included PKI, biometric (fingerprint) authentication and FIPS-140 compliant devices with cryptographic tokens.

Director, E-Commerce, Digital Media, Reciprocal (formerly AT&T a2b music)

March 1999 to July 2001

Reciprocal provided content delivery and e-commerce services for 120 major media clients in 7 digital rights management systems, including InterTrust and Windows Media.

Director, E-Commerce for the Entertainment Division and the International Business Development team, reporting to the SVP Marketing and Product Strategy.

Directed e-commerce implementation and managed technical relationships with key clients such as BMG (Digital World Services), TVT Records, Sony Music, and Sony Marketing Asia Pacific (Singapore). Architected Sony Music’s first online content store.
Created Reciprocal’s promotional download service for music and video, enabling the sales team to engage clients more quickly. First service to surpass 1,000,000 downloads in Windows Media with DRM. First service with silent key delivery.
Built the cross-divisional Entertainment Promotions Team that ultimately brought in 15% of the company’s revenue from free-to-consumer downloads.

Senior Researcher and Developer for Audio/Media, N2K Entertainment, Advanced Creative Technology Group

January 1997 to May 1999

N2K was the leading Internet music company of the late nineties. Its operations included the Music Boulevard e-commerce site, the N2K Encoded Music label, music portals and individual artist sites for Leonard Bernstein, Miles Davis, David Bowie, and many others.

Built and ran e-mod, the Internet’s first commercial music download service, which figured prominently in N2K’s pre-IPO publicity and mention in 30% of N2K’s media coverage overall.
E-mod introduced online music features that have now been universally adopted, including real-time credit card processing, an online music library, and the $0.99 pricing for online singles.

Senior Engineer, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)

August 1988 to December 1996

CBC is Canada’s public broadcaster, with an annual budget (at the time) of $1.3 billion. CBC Engineering managed $40+ million in studio equipment procurement and delivered $10+ million in engineering services.

Senior Engineer, Production Systems Development.
- Thought leader and technical architect for CBC’s transition to computer-based broadcasting. Managed suppliers and consulted on all computer-related projects for over six years, including Desktop Radio and Desktop Television for journalists.
- Managed the evaluation lab and the national engineering test equipment pool.
- Prepared strategic briefings (in English and French) for senior engineering management.
Engineer, Strategic Engineering, Capital Projects
- Developed automated test procedures for audio compression algorithms.
- Represented CBC on standards bodies.
- Sessional Instructor in the McGill University Graduate Program in Sound Recording.
- Expert listener for MPEG. Expert witness for Apple Computer (2009).

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS:

M.A.Sc. Engineering Physics, University of British Columbia, Canada
B.A.Sc. Electrical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Canada
Professional Engineer (non-practicing), APEGBC Registration #52873.
Diploma in Television Studio Production (Toronto Metropolitan University)
Proficient in French. Ingénieur (Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec), 1992-2021
Studied Japanese to the 2nd year college level (Université de Montréal).

For a complete list of my patents and publications, see Andrew Milne on Google Scholar.

Some of my unpublished material is available on ResearchGate, including a tutorial on Granger Causation with Python code to replicate the examples. Granger Causation is a great technique, but it doesn’t work the way that most people think it does.

My focus is always on connecting people with systems, a concept that I recently wrote about on Substack. I believe strongly that inclusive team building and agile methodologies are big part of this, and over the years they have brought me good results.

TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES RECENTLY USED:

Most of my work involves communicating with other people. However, I frequently act as a resource on my own projects, and this has given me first-hand experience with the software listed below:

1QBit (Python focus): Amazon Web Services (AWS), Apache Airflow, Astronomer Cloud, AWS Secrets, C++, Confluence, Docker, D-Wave Quantum Annealer, Eclipse, Excel, FFMPEG, Fujitsu Digital Annealer (FPGA), Git, GitHub Actions, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Grasshopper, Jenkins, Jira, Jupyter (iPython), Kubernetes, Latex, Lattice, Linux, Mathematica, matplotlib, Microsoft Azure Quantum (to access IonQ, Honeywell, IBM, and 1QBit simulators), Microsoft Project, paramiko, PowerPoint, PyCharm, PyDev, PyUnit, pysftp, Quay, Scikit-learn, statsmodels, Travis, VS Code, Word, Zendesk.
CME Group & NYMEX (Java focus): Ant, Apptio, Bamboo, C++, ClearCase, Confluence, Corvil, Cucumber, Eclipse, Excel, FIX Protocol, Git, IntelliJ, Java, Linux, Mathematica. Maven, Maxeler FPGA, MediaWiki, Nexus, PowerPoint, Selenium, SharePoint, Sonic MQ, Spring, Splunk, SQL, Virgo (OSGi), Visio, Visual Studio, VMware, WebGL, Windows Server, Word, XML Spy, Xerces.

You can reach me by message on LinkedIn, or by e-mail at andrew@yubik.com

You can also follow me on Bluesky (although it’s mostly cat pictures).

If you’ve reached this point and want to know more about what it’s like to work with me, please take a look at How we invented the Helios Match Engine for the New York Mercantile Exchange. Most of the people on the project team are still accessible through LinkedIn.

If you’re from Chicago, you might enjoy my Soliloquy in the Palmer House Hotel Bar. The paired statues of Romeo and Juliet are worth looking at more closely (high-contrast image settings bring out more of Romeo’s expression).

If you’re looking for Merlin (our family cat), he’s here and here, one step ahead of Schrödinger.