When he was an MIT Media Lab researcher, Birago built a social media content moderation model that didn’t work because it couldn’t understand slang. Birago had the epiphany that models need to be trained by domain experts (in this case, teens!) not AI experts. From there, he founded the no-code LLM training platform Pienso, and broadcast giant Sky + the U.S. government are among its customers. Birago raised a $10M Series A (making him one of the few Black founders to reach this milestone) and researchers use his technology to do everything from monitoring human trafficking, weapons sales and misinformation online.