Augustin Chan

I'm the CTO and founder of Digital Rain Technologies. My work asks one question: how do we build AI systems that expand human capability without quietly eroding human agency?

I approach it three ways — enterprise AI architecture, published research on how symbolic frameworks alter model behavior, and surgical software: small, high-leverage tools built to solve exactly one problem well. Read how this introduction came together.

I also produce and co-host the Hong Kong AI Podcast, a conversation series with practitioners building Hong Kong's AI future.

Previously, I was a Development Architect at Informatica, leading enterprise architecture for Fortune 500 customers — a global role with an APAC focus, with a lot of remote support for US customers. Before that, I was a Senior Consultant at Dun & Bradstreet.

I hold a B.S. in Cognitive Science with Specialization in Computation from UC San Diego.

Latest
One Question, Five Minutes
Preparing a five-minute introduction for an enterprise prospect forced me to find the single question behind the papers, the products, and the podcast. The distilled result is now this site's homepage.Jul 2026

Essays

Short posts

Full archive

Research

Building

Enterprise migration & readiness

  • Crawlopen-source
    Migration intelligence — automated discovery, risk scoring, and planning for legacy system modernization.
  • Graftopen-source
    AI-native BI report translation — parses Tableau, JasperReports, and FineReport into a vendor-neutral IR, then analyzes and translates report logic across platforms.
  • ARA Evalopen-source
    Framework for decomposing autonomous AI risk into 7 dimensions, so practitioners can evaluate whether agents can act without human approval.

Symbolic systems & classical computing

  • 8-Bit Oracle
    The I-Ching through the lens of retro computing and science fiction — tech-noir art and commentaries. Presented at Taipei Blockchain Week.
  • Six Lines
    iOS app for learning the I-Ching as literature and philosophy — bilingual hexagram reference with classical commentary and public domain masterwork art.
  • Plum Blossom Computer (GitHub)
    Cosmological computation terminal — I-Ching divination (梅花易數) fused with on-chain commitments and real-time astronomical data. Built at the EasyA x Consensus HK 2026 hackathon.
  • seeded-iching-engine (GitHub)

Research platforms

Podcast

  • Hong Kong AI Podcast15 episodes
    I produce and co-host real conversations with AI practitioners building in Hong Kong — covering research, fintech, robotics, spatial computing, healthcare, culture, and the local AI scene.

Speaking

Consulting

People App, Travelbox