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.

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 August 15, 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

SecurityAug 14, 2026

Anthropic August 2026 risk report raises misalignment to low, shelves Model 2

Anthropic published its Redacted Risk Report: August 2026 (Aug 14; coverage date July 15 under RSP v3.4), raising catastrophic-misalignment risk in high-stakes settings from “very low” to “low” amid uncertainty after cybersecurity-evaluation incident disclosures—while arguing the underlying case still likely supports “very low.” The report discloses unreleased internal Model 2 (somewhat more capable than Mythos 5; heavily used internally for coding/agents; no current external-release plan and incomplete predeployment assessments), notes Claude now authors a large majority of Anthropic’s merged production code with early R&D acceleration short of a 2× factor, and discloses that from May 2025–April 2026 all human-feedback vendor traffic (~50,000 contractors; ~133M exchanges) ran without blocking biological classifiers (since remediated; no CB misuse found). Distinct from the Summer 2026 agentic-misalignment case studies and from Claude text-watermark posts.

Source: AnthropicRead source

ModelsAug 14, 2026

Apple trains China-specific LLM with Alibaba support for Apple Intelligence

Reuters reported (Aug 14) that Apple has trained a proprietary large language model for the China market with Alibaba’s support—a shift from relying mainly on partner models such as Qwen for generative AI on China-sold devices, where U.S. models like ChatGPT and Claude are unavailable. Sources say Apple Intelligence is expected to reach Chinese iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Vision Pro in the coming months after an iOS update, following Cyberspace Administration of China registration of Apple’s on-device generative AI service (reportedly the first foreign proprietary model cleared on the CAC registry). The dual-track approach can still incorporate Alibaba Qwen and Baidu tech alongside Apple’s own China model. Distinct from prior Apple–Alibaba pairing announcements that framed Apple Intelligence China as partner-model powered.

Source: ReutersRead source

SecurityAug 14, 2026

HEIR: Google open-sources compiler for private AI on encrypted data

Google published HEIR (Homomorphic Encryption Intermediate Representation) as an open-source compiler in its Private Computing Toolkit (Aug 14), aimed at converting pre-trained AI models that run on plaintext into ones that operate on encrypted inputs so servers can return encrypted results without seeing underlying data. HEIR partners include Belfort, Niobium, Cornami, and Optalysys; demos cover private recommendations (with Belfort/LG/NYU), credit-card fraud detection, Kitsune encrypted-network anomaly detection, and hotword detection—with single-threaded CPU latency numbers and GitHub source. Distinct from SynthID/C2PA watermarking and from Gemini privacy features; this is cryptographic private inference tooling rather than a new frontier model.

Source: GoogleRead 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