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AI Agents. Open Models.Real Problems.Let's Talk

Exploring AI, building with AI agents or open models, or solving a real technical challenge? Whether you're an individual, a team, or an organization, book a discovery call and we'll work through it together.

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AI Advisory and Engineering Services

WHAT PEOPLE SAY AFTER A SESSION

“I had a very positive experience speaking with Mr. Melvin. He was nice, cheerful, and very encouraging throughout the conversation.”

300+trained

50+mentees

Fractional CAIO and
AI Engineering Services

Chief AI Officer & Engineer

Based in Singapore, Southeast Asia's AI hub · Clients worldwide

I provide executive AI advisory/strategy and AI engineering services on a per-need basis.

Many leadership teams know AI is critical, but they are not ready for a full-time hire. They need a senior engineer-executive in the loop who can look at the business strategy and write the code. Working from Singapore, the region's AI innovation hub, I help companies start and steer their AI journey, focusing on priorities, guardrails, buy-vs-build decisions, and shipping real systems, not slide decks.

Capabilities & Focus

Executive AI Strategy: Designing high-ROI roadmaps, setting data guardrails, and navigating compliance.
Hands-on Implementation: Coding and deploying autonomous AI Agents, custom LLM pipelines, and automation workflows.
On-Prem & Open-Source: Specializing in local model architectures that protect proprietary company data.

Start here

Let's talk before you hire.

One hour as Fractional CAIO. We review your AI goals, pressure-test your plan or stack, and lock clear next steps. Bring a short company overview and the decision that's stuck. Prefer to ask questions first? LinkedIn is open.

Book a CAIO advise call Ask questions on LinkedIn Explore CAIO & AI Engineering

Personal AI Agent Setup

Personal AI Agent Setup Service

I set up Hermes, an open-source personal AI agent with its own memory that learns new skills and adapts to you, on the computer you already own. One agent set up directly, or several managed with GAIA, my setup tool. You choose.

Hermes is the agent: it works for you, not just answers questions
GAIA is optional: my tool for running multiple private agents on one computer
Your data stays on your machine, not on someone else's servers
Hands-on setup call — questions first? Message me on LinkedIn

Start here

Your own AI, on your computer.

A hands-on setup call. Hermes on the machine you already own — one agent, or several with GAIA. Your data stays yours. Prefer to ask questions first? LinkedIn is open.

Book a setup call Ask questions on LinkedIn See the Setup Service

Wherever you are with AI, there's a call for you

Every session is 1-on-1 and tailored to you. Book 15, 30, or 60 minutes, whatever your question needs. No question is too small: if it's about AI, it's on the table.

Personal AI

New to AI? Perfect, start here. I'll help you set up your own AI agent for everyday life: notes, research, planning, right inside the chat apps you already use.

See the Setup Service

AI at Work

Learn to get real work done faster with AI: simple tools and workflows you can start using the same day, whatever your job is.

Talk about AI at work

Build & Integrate

Building a product? Get a second brain on what to build, how to add AI to it, and how to go from idea to something real.

Talk through your build

Updated September 17, 2026

Latest AI news for builders and leaders

Fresh artificial intelligence news, model releases, AI agent updates, research, and enterprise AI announcements curated from primary sources.

View all AI news

AgentsSep 17, 2026

Anthropic redesigns Claude Code Projects for parallel agent threads

Anthropic announced (Sept 17) a redesigned Claude Code Projects experience—shifting projects from shared folders to coordinator conversations that scope a goal, spawn parallel threads, review outputs, and assemble results while you steer from desktop or phone (work continues after you step away). Under the hood each thread is a Claude Code cloud session on its own branch/copy of the repo; overlaps resolve as merge conflicts; threads can further split work with subagents, loops, and workflows. Projects share memory, instructions, connectors/plugins, and a library of files/artifacts across threads. Beta starts today for select Claude Pro and Max subscribers using cloud sessions without existing web/desktop projects; expands to more Pro/Max Claude Code users over the coming week, then Team/Enterprise and chat/Cowork. Local tools/code support is coming “very soon”; parallel threads consume usage faster. Distinct from One Claude Docs/Slides, from Zed Delta, and from OpenAI Agents API / Codex multi-agents.

Source: AnthropicRead source

EnterpriseSep 17, 2026

Anthropic opens Life Sciences Verification Program for Mythos biology access

Anthropic launched (Sept 17) the Life Sciences Verification Program (LSVP) in public beta—credentialed life-science teams and institutions get Mythos, Opus, and Sonnet with biology-permissive classifiers for drug discovery, research biology, clinical development, and manufacturing work blocked on generally available Fable models. After credential/security/ethics review, orgs apply for Standard Use (team-wide, annual renewal; Mythos 5.1 / Opus 5 / Sonnet 5 today) or High-risk Use add-ons (project-scoped, six-month renewal; removes life-sciences blocks on Opus 5 and Sonnet 5 today; Mythos high-risk stays limited pending U.S. government coordination). Cyber classifiers remain; enforcement shifts toward offline monitoring with 30-day retention for flagged LSVP traffic (compartmentalized, not used for training). Available on first-party API console plus Claude Team/Enterprise (not individual plans, third-party platforms, or BAA/PHI orgs yet); Anthropic expects hundreds of orgs in week one. Distinct from Claude Fable/Mythos dual-release safeguards, from biomolecular modeling uplift, and from OpenAI Foundation Public Data for Health.

Source: AnthropicRead source

AgentsSep 17, 2026

Figure unveils Helix 2.5 with zero-shot humanoid autonomy across 30 homes

Figure announced (Sept 17) Helix 2.5—its most advanced neural policy yet—demonstrating zero-shot whole-body household autonomy across 30 previously unseen Bay Area homes with no data collection, fine-tuning, or adaptation in those environments or manipulated objects. A single Index-pretrained foundation model was adapted into three long-horizon behaviors (living-room tidy, towel folding, bed making); Index pretraining alone raised zero-shot success from 9% to 56% vs an identical from-scratch baseline, while Helix 2.5 used half as much task-specific data as a comparable Helix 02 behavior and expanded scope ~30×. Figure also reports a human-to-humanoid transfer scaling law (robot-action prediction improving predictably as Index data doubles) and notes Index now generates ~35 minutes of human-experience data per second with $3.5B compute committed to Helix. Distinct from Helix 02 full-body autonomy and from Project Go-Big / Index launch coverage.

Source: FigureRead source

Meet Your Mentor

25+yrs

300+trained

Book an AI Q&A Call Connect on LinkedIn

Melvin Vivas

Engineer, mentor, and your friendly guide to AI

I help everyday people, professionals, and founders make sense of AI, and no question is too basic. Most of my mentees started exactly where you are now.

Behind that is 25 years of engineering across banking, fintech, and enterprise. These days it's hands-on work building AI apps and running my own daily life on a personal AI agent.

Whether you're a student, a working professional, a leader, or a founder, you'll get someone who's done the work and explains it in plain language.

Senior roles at Standard Chartered Bank & Ohmyhome (Nasdaq)

Built AI Dream Photo, an AI photo app used by real customers

Building aibackends.com, free open-source AI tools for developers

Building skillsbento.com, an AI Agent Skills marketplace

Speaker at NTU Singapore, PSIA, and DICT Philippines

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU) Open Mentoring: Connecting Minds

Live & unscripted

Watch my past livestreams

The easiest way to get a feel for how I explain things: watch me build with AI, live. No edits, no script, mistakes and all.

Let's explore ChatGPT / OpenAI APIs

A relaxed walk through the OpenAI platform and APIs, explained from scratch.

Build a React Native ChatGPT app with Cursor, OpenAI, and Expo

A full app built live, from empty folder to working AI chat on a phone.

Enrich your Life and Work with AI

A talk on bringing AI into your everyday life and work, in plain language.

Watch my NTU Singapore workshop demo More livestreams on YouTube

My personal AI

What I actually ask my AI

These are real conversations with my personal AI agent lately:

“Every hour during trading hours, remind me about my stock investments”“Read these screenshots from my kids' school app and remind me of the deadlines”“What happened at the F1 British Grand Prix?”“Any Wimbledon updates?”“Find me a decent monitor to replace my old one”“What Korean drama should I watch next?”“Give me some non-software business ideas”“Summarize this video posted on X”“Make me a video”

Notice anything? None of it is about coding. My AI is a personal agent that helps me run everyday life. You can have one too. I'll set up Hermes on your computer (GAIA is optional if you want multiple agents), around your own routines.

Get your own personal agent Book a call

Invited to speak by these organizations