hi, i'm lekan. i like building things that only recently became possible.
born in lagos and raised in boston, i earned my first $69 from a youtube channel run on a neighbor's wi-fi. a creative first, i taught myself to code so my technical skills would never limit what i could imagine.
as a teenager, i built voice software for clinical trials at eresearch technology and presented it to the boston mayor's office. since then: award-winning deep-learning research at stanford , including the cornelius g. dyke award ; early gpt-3 work as a microsoft swe + pm intern; and now deep-tech investing at cottonwood.
i'm on leave from pitzer college, exploring a question i can't put down: what could engineers build if physical truth were cheap enough to query continuously, and trustworthy enough to act on?
my best work started when someone very good pointed me at a hard problem. if you point people at hard problems, or work on one, say hello.
linkedin · email · github · scholar · x
On the surface Etching
Drawing
≈ Ink wash≋ Etching≋ Graphite◌ Original
Paper
Line weight Fine
Hairline ripples
Artistic height contours over open water.
Caustic ripplesDraw the caustic shapes as ink, with lighting off
DreamySlower motion, softly diffused ink
SubtleFeatherlight impacts and quieter contrast
Bitmap experiments With caustics
Bitmap layers over the water
Keep all Print experiments off for the original ripple style. These bitmap layers add texture and shading to those ripples and their caustics.
Comic bitmapWater and caustics in dithered shades
Caustic texture revealRefracted light makes faint dots clearer
Water-bent grainA quiet bitmap shifted by the waves
Soft diffusionA little haze around the ink
Tune the bitmap
Bitmap scale 2 px
Tonal steps 5 shades
Bitmap contrast 55%
Diffusion radius 3 px
Caustic ink 150%
Print experiments Mix & match
Bitmap texture experiments
Bitmap ripplesWaves made of printed marks
Texture revealA passing wave brings the print to light
Printed paperA quiet bitmap across the surface
Refract the printThe water gently bends the texture
Comic dots
Stipple
Pixels
Tune the print
Print scale 3.5 px
Wave contrast 70%
Background print 5%
Wave band width 8 px
Texture bend 45%
Caustics
Light & caustics
Caustic appearance and light controls
Projected light falls below the water. Its highlights can sit apart from the ripple crests.
Align glow to ripplesAn artistic glow on the surface
Overhead light
Underwater linesTwo short marks reveal the water’s refraction
Light direction 170°
Light height 90°
Glow strength 200%
Hide reflected sun
Reset to defaults
Gentle rain
Rainfall Light
Touch size Medium
Motion & force
Gentle motionSlower, lighter rain and touch
Dreamy rain speedRain speeds up, then slows. Touch stays at 100%.
Wave speed 100%
Ripple scale 100%
Rain force 100%
Touch force 100%
100% retains the restored speed, size and forces. Dreamy slows motion; Subtle softens impacts. With Dreamy rain speed on, speed controls affect rain while touch stays at 100%.
Repeat a gesture C X /
Same path and timing, every time. Uses your touch settings.
Still the water
Bitmap experiments layer over ordinary water and its projected caustics. Print experiments are a separate treatment. Dreamy and Subtle can be combined. C, X and / replay fixed touch paths.
About this study Simulated water, drawn instead of rendered, seen straight down. The water comes from Evan Wallace's WebGL Water (2010), by way of Yong Su's Three.js port ; Ink Water draws it.
Each impact creates a group of concentric waves that travels outward and fades. Open edges absorb outgoing waves instead of sending them back. Hairline ripples keep complete strokes; switch them off for the artistic contours and bitmap etching texture. Original shows the simulated surface.
The print experiments can be combined. Bitmap ripples and Texture reveal replace the stroke with marks; Printed paper and Refract the print add texture. Switch the experiments off to return to the existing drawing.
Projected caustics are refracted light below the water, so their brightest points need not match the ripple crests. Overhead light reduces the sideways shift. Align glow to ripples is a separate artistic surface effect. Original always uses the projected light. Two faint lines on the floor show the surface bending the view.
A heightfield wave model with refraction and caustics. It does not simulate breaking waves, spray or full fluid flow.
WebGL Water: Evan Wallace, 2010. Three.js port: Yong Su (jeantimex), 2026. Drawing and interaction: Ink Water. MIT license .