Hardware Internship Program

**About the Hardware Team**

**Areas of Internship Focus**:

- ** 3D Biometric Imaging & Reconstruction**: Research and develop computer vision techniques for low cost 3D biometric reconstruction to improve matching accuracy and spoof detection.
- ** Privacy-Preserving CNN Improvement**: Develop continual learning methods to adapt CNNs for biometric verification without storing raw data. Use flow or score-matching models to generate privacy-safe synthetic data, enabling on-device or TEE-contained updates without degrading accuracy.
- ** TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) Integration**: Implement secure pipelines where camera capture, CNN inference, encryption, and attestation all occur inside a TEE for maximum security.
- ** Presentation Attack Defence**: Designing and testing methods to identify attempts to fool our biometric system.
- ** Next-Generation Imaging Methods**: Explore alternative imaging approaches to reduce power consumption, enable device miniaturisation, and enhance image quality.
- ** Tamper Prevention**: Designing hardware and manufacturing methods to ensure robustness against physical tampering or counterfeiting.
- ** Manufacturing Optimisation**: Reviewing form factor, component selection, assembly, and test fixture processes to reduce overall cost and improve user experience.
- ** Applied Cryptography**: Working with the research team to incorporate MPC (Multi-Party Computation) and ZKP (Zero-Knowledge Proof) protocols to enhance biometric data security.

**Diverse Skills You Can Learn and Use**
- ** Biometric Image Processing & ML**: Build and train models for biometric feature extraction, matching, 3D reconstruction, and anti-spoofing.
- ** Machine Learning Pipeline Research**: Explore privacy-preserving ML flows for improving CNNs in production without storing training data.
- ** Electronics & Sensor Engineering**: Work on tamper prevention, modular component design, power optimisation, and miniaturisation for biometric devices.
- ** Secure Cryptographic Protocols**: Implement MPC, ZKP, and TEE-based processing to ensure biometric data never leaves the secure environment in raw form.
- ** Embedded Systems & Firmware**: Develop firmware to integrate sensors, cryptographic modules, embedded deployment (Yokto) and secure data pipelines.
- ** Imaging System Innovation**: Research and test imaging methods that reduce power draw while enhancing accuracy and reliability.
- ** Product Prototyping & Testing**: Design, build, and evaluate hardware prototypes for accuracy, reliability, and security.

**We Are Looking For**
- ** Machine Learning Engineers** with expertise in computer vision, biometric recognition, 3D reconstruction, or anti-spoofing techniques.
- ** Embedded developers** experienced with Yocto, deploying on embedded systems, or working with Trusted Execution Environments
- ** Electronics Engineers** experienced with either sensor systems, power optimisation, PCB design, tamper prevention, penetration testing.
- ** Manufacturing Engineers** with knowledge of secure manufacturing processes, or experience in component sourcing.
- ** MPC & ZKP Engineers** skilled in designing privacy-preserving protocols for biometric verification or secure enclave integration.
- ** Optical Engineers** with experience in advanced imaging methods, preferably with biometric experience.

**Helpful Experience Includes**:

- Biometric data acquisition and processing
- Applied cryptography for secure hardware
- Industrial design with a security focus
- Hardware security evaluation and testing

**If you’re passionate about biometric hardware, cryptography, and building secure systems that work in the real world, we’d love to hear from you.