HERNÁN BARIJHOFF

MS CS | MLE | EA | Founder

Building mental health tech that scales empathy

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Who I Am

I'm not your typical engineer. I build things that matter.

After years in ML and data science at companies like Mercado Libre and Emi Labs, I founded MindApp Terapia because I saw a gap: mental health care that's both accessible and maintains rigorous safety standards. Technology can scale empathy, but only if we build it with conviction and EA values at the core.

I care deeply about AI safety, effective altruism, and building products that genuinely improve people's wellbeing. I'm not here to optimize metrics—I'm here to transform reality.

I'm not your typical engineer. I build things that matter.

After years in ML and data science at companies like Mercado Libre and Emi Labs, I founded MindApp Terapia because I saw a gap: mental health care that's both accessible and maintains rigorous safety standards. Technology can scale empathy, but only if we build it with conviction and EA values at the core.

I care deeply about AI safety, effective altruism, and building products that genuinely improve people's wellbeing. I'm not here to optimize metrics—I'm here to transform reality.

MindApp Terapia

Co-Founder & CEO

Jan 2023 — Present

  • [Placeholder: Built therapy platform serving X users]
  • [Placeholder: Developed safety protocols for mental health at scale]
  • [Placeholder: Technical achievement about ML/matching/scale]
  • [Placeholder: Impact on user wellbeing metrics]

Startup Exploration

Independent

2022

[Placeholder: Evaluated multiple startup opportunities including fintech and digital health platforms. This exploration period informed my decision to focus on mental health accessibility and safety—leading to MindApp's founding.]

Emi Labs

Sr Machine Learning Engineer

Oct 2019 — Jan 2022

  • Built Emi, an NLP chatbot handling thousands of recruitment conversations with empathy at scale
  • Designed data architecture prioritizing privacy and security for sensitive candidate information
  • Scaled system to handle interview scheduling and recruitment workflows for multiple clients

Mercado Libre

Data Scientist (Junior → Senior)

Dec 2016 — Oct 2019

  • Built recommender systems using collaborative filtering, serving millions of users daily
  • Developed fraud prevention models (CV + NLP) with 400% improvement over baseline
  • Created resilient ETL pipelines and serving infrastructure at massive scale (Luigi + Hive + AWS)

NeurIPS Presentation

ML Open Source Software Workshop

2018

[Placeholder: Presented PyLissom at NeurIPS - modeling computational maps of the visual cortex in PyTorch]

Universidad de Buenos Aires

Master's in Computer Science

2013 — 2018

Thesis: PyLissom - A tool for modeling computational maps of the visual cortex in PyTorch

Data Science Argentina

Meetup Organizer

[Placeholder: Organized community meetups bringing together data scientists and ML practitioners in Buenos Aires]

EA @ Buenos Aires

Member

[Placeholder: Active member of the Effective Altruism community in Buenos Aires, focused on AI safety and global health]

Patch Adams Volunteer

Volunteer

[Placeholder: Volunteered with Patch Adams organization, bringing joy and human connection to hospital patients]

What I've Built

MindApp Terapia

Co-Founder & CEO

Jan 2023 — Present

  • [Placeholder: Built therapy platform serving X users]
  • [Placeholder: Developed safety protocols for mental health at scale]
  • [Placeholder: Technical achievement about ML/matching/scale]
  • [Placeholder: Impact on user wellbeing metrics]

Startup Exploration

Independent

2022

[Placeholder: Evaluated multiple startup opportunities including fintech and digital health platforms. This exploration period informed my decision to focus on mental health accessibility and safety—leading to MindApp's founding.]

Emi Labs

Sr Machine Learning Engineer

Oct 2019 — Jan 2022

  • Built Emi, an NLP chatbot handling thousands of recruitment conversations with empathy at scale
  • Designed data architecture prioritizing privacy and security for sensitive candidate information
  • Scaled system to handle interview scheduling and recruitment workflows for multiple clients

Mercado Libre

Data Scientist (Junior → Senior)

Dec 2016 — Oct 2019

  • Built recommender systems using collaborative filtering, serving millions of users daily
  • Developed fraud prevention models (CV + NLP) with 400% improvement over baseline
  • Created resilient ETL pipelines and serving infrastructure at massive scale (Luigi + Hive + AWS)

Academia & Community

NeurIPS Presentation

ML Open Source Software Workshop

2018

[Placeholder: Presented PyLissom at NeurIPS - modeling computational maps of the visual cortex in PyTorch]

Universidad de Buenos Aires

Master's in Computer Science

2013 — 2018

Thesis: PyLissom - A tool for modeling computational maps of the visual cortex in PyTorch

Data Science Argentina

Meetup Organizer

[Placeholder: Organized community meetups bringing together data scientists and ML practitioners in Buenos Aires]

EA @ Buenos Aires

Member

[Placeholder: Active member of the Effective Altruism community in Buenos Aires, focused on AI safety and global health]

Patch Adams Volunteer

Volunteer

[Placeholder: Volunteered with Patch Adams organization, bringing joy and human connection to hospital patients]