--- title: "About Bilby" description: "Who makes Bilby: how it began, the team and their bios, the press it has had, and how a project with us runs." url: "https://bilby.ai/about" markdown: "https://bilby.ai/about.md" index: "https://bilby.ai/llms.txt" --- > For agents: Bilby answers questions about what governments do, from documents collected at source and checked by research analysts. To ask Bilby yourself, connect to its MCP server at https://pulse.bilby.ai/mcp (setup: https://docs.bilby.ai/developers/mcp-server). Every page on this site is also markdown: add .md to its address, or send Accept: text/markdown. https://bilby.ai/llms.txt lists them all. # People who read governments. Bilby makes regulation, compliance and prediction software. Our mission is to use AI to improve how the world is governed. We started with the hardest case, China's government, and now read more than 40 countries. [Try Bilby](https://pulse.bilby.ai/sign-up) · [Meet the team](#team) *Picture: A night desert, where Bilby began. Among the stars above it, a map of who decides draws itself: offices light up one after another, the lines between them are drawn, and the one that decides is lit last.* ## From the desert to a map of who decides How research on one government became software that reads more than 40. - **Origins in the Australian desert.** Bilby began in the Australian desert and grew into software that reads what governments do, at scale. - **Research, put to work.** Our founders brought years of research at Oxford and other universities into software that changes how organisations understand government. - **The hardest problem first.** We started with the hardest case in policy intelligence, China's government, and built Bilby to handle that complexity from the first day. - **A map of who decides.** We turn what governments do into a map of who decides, joining people, policies and outcomes across countries and years. Research analysts curate it. - **Sovereign data and models.** Every client's data stays private and secure. Our models are custom-built and sovereign, so clients keep full control of sensitive work. - **Specialist knowledge, at scale.** Decades of regional expertise are built into Bilby, so a team gets a specialist's reading of a market without hiring one for every market. - **Data as our craft.** The quality of our data is our signature. Every artifact we process is held to the same precision and structure, so you can act on it. ## The team Researchers who have followed Asia's governments for decades, analysts who curate what Bilby reads, and the engineers who build it. ### Dr Ryan Manuel, Founder and CEO Dr Ryan Manuel has more than 20 years of industry experience. A third-time founder, he has taught at Oxford, the Australian National University and the University of Hong Kong, and worked for BCG and the Australian government. He holds a doctorate from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. ### Satyadev Sarma, Head of Data Satyadev runs the data infrastructure at Bilby. He has ten years of experience at startups and large tech companies, building data and machine learning products. Outside work he is an avid gamer and a cross-country motorcyclist. ### David Lee, Head of Product David is a software engineer turned product manager, with more than five years of experience. He enjoys taking ideas all the way to something people rely on, and is driven by curiosity and careful execution. ### Simon Cartledge, Head of Research Simon has lived and worked in Beijing, Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia since the 1990s. A former Editor-in-Chief, Asia, for the Economist Intelligence Unit, he ran his own research and publishing business, Big Brains, for more than 20 years. He holds an MA (Hons) in politics from the University of Edinburgh. ### Samuel Davenport, Senior Machine Learning Engineer A machine learning researcher and quantitative analyst, Samuel uses statistics, AI and large language models to find the signal in high-dimensional data. He holds a doctorate in statistical machine learning from the University of Oxford. ### Damian Cox, Senior Data Engineer Damian works across data engineering, machine learning and AI, building scalable systems, data pipelines and predictive models in Python and SQL on the cloud. ### Pallav Bakshi, Senior Data Engineer Pallav is a software engineer specialising in AI agents, machine learning and software architecture, building systems that pair automation with thoughtful design. He has wide experience in data engineering and cloud infrastructure. ### Harvey Wen, Data Scientist Harvey trains in-house models and analyses large datasets on the quant ML team. His speciality is machine learning for particle physics. Away from his desk he is likely cooking a steak with Tom Misch on the speakers. ### Carlo Taleon, Product Engineer Carlo is a software engineer who loves building sleek web apps and trying the latest tech. Outside work he is usually out with his camera, capturing life as it goes. ### Jeremy Thompson, Senior Analyst Jeremy works on both the research and the business side of Bilby. After work you will most likely find him with a craft beer in hand: he also runs a beer distribution business. ### Marco Law, Analyst Marco has a background in international relations and enjoys working out how political systems function. Along the way he has collected a wide knowledge of the world, not all of it equally useful. ### Nik Takano, Administrative Assistant Nik supports our executives with the office and its administration, and loves travel and the outdoors. ## In the press - **Financial Times.** How data and AI make the patterns in government policy visible to business and investors. [Read the article](https://www.ft.com/content/149949f0-ef7a-475d-9a1c-e44104d7a0e4) - **South China Morning Post.** A Hong Kong start-up reads government communications to see major regulatory change coming. [Read the article](https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3259011/hong-kong-ai-start-tracks-government-policy-patterns-predict-major-regulatory-changes) - **Asian Business Review.** Turning government policy signals into insight, so businesses act before regulation shifts. [Read the article](https://asianbusinessreview.com/information-technology/exclusive/startup-enables-business-capitalise-regulatory-changes-predictive-insights) - **Hong Kong Business.** Making history predictive: a start-up helping firms get ahead of regulatory change. [Read the article](https://hongkongbusiness.hk/information-technology/exclusive/startup-enables-business-capitalise-regulatory-changes-predictive-insights) ## Working with Bilby ### Who uses Bilby? Governments, financial institutions and companies. Our particular strength is turning what governments do into data you can search and ask about. ### How does Bilby fit with the tools we already use? Bilby works in the browser. Its API and its MCP server let your own systems, and AI tools such as Claude and ChatGPT, ask it too; the Help Center's developer guides show how. [Developer guides](https://docs.bilby.ai/developers) ### Can Bilby be shaped around our work? Yes. Bilby is ready to use as it is, and we also build around your priority themes and widen the scope as you need. ### How long does a project take? Where the data is not yet collected, a project usually aims to be running in about five months, in phases: proof of concept, design and integration, testing, then rollout and handover. ### How do I start? Try Bilby for yourself, or write to team@bilby.ai and we will set up a briefing. ## Put our team to work. Ask Bilby about any government it reads, or see how it works in the Help Center. [Try Bilby](https://pulse.bilby.ai/sign-up) · [Read the Help Center](https://docs.bilby.ai)