John is Blackbird’s CSIO and works to strengthen the company’s technology advantage and market position by nurturing a vigorous innovation pipeline, including creating new AI products and services, executing strategic projects with partners, and building a strong IP portfolio. John has over 25 years of experience in engineering management with high-tech enterprises, spanning hardware, software, and algorithmically-intensive data products. He has expertise in AI, machine learning, computer vision, probabilistic modeling, and optimization and has led numerous R&D programs for DARPA and the US Military Services. Most recently, he founded a Boston-based venture, Prism Informatix, developing software systems that embody distributed artificial intelligence designed to learn from dispersed data and self-organize into a virtual network system to make predictions. Dr. Wissinger received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Rice University and his Ph.D. in EECS from MIT.