Clarksville, TN – Founder & CEO Christian Perez’s Altivum Inc. was just named the Clarksville Area Chamber of Commerce Veteran’s Business of the Month. Perez is using AI (artificial intelligence) to help Veterans make the most of their transition from the military into civilian careers.
“Our goal is to provide small businesses and Veterans with easier cloud migration as well as artificial intelligence. As companies are able to migrate it makes AI technology infinitely more available. I work with AWS (Amazon Web Services), Google, and IBM, and the goal is to help small businesses migrate to the cloud, leverage AI, and provide Veterans with education on these subjects.”
Perez is currently working with APSU, building a software program called VetROI, which, utilizing AI, will help Veterans transition from the military to the civilian sector.
“I got out in 2022,” Perez said. “I was 18, Delta Special Forces. I deployed to Afghanistan in 2019-20. I was in the Army for ten years.” Perez was born in Guatemala and grew up in Boston. He joined the Army in 2012 and spent time in GA, NC, and WA.
“My wife is still active duty,” Perez said. “We were stationed in Miami, and from there we came to Clarksville. We love Clarksville. It has been fantastic. Our goal is to stay here. We are looking at a minimum of another four years here. We’re settling in and establishing ourselves. We have a 2-year-old, and Clarksville has been a great town for us.”
Perez says that his niche has always been science and math, so when he started hearing about AI he had to look into it. “The challenge is to stay away from the hype and the social media stuff,” Perez said. “I made it an active effort to educate myself. I spent a lot of time with AWS’s skills builder, got my certifications, and learned more about the business network that exists within these larger entities. That’s how I was able to partner with these institutions, which allows me to leverage their technology more readily.”
Learning through their systems has ensured Perez that everything he builds is basically to their standard. “For example, VetROI was submitted to AWS,” Perez said. “They are doing the foundational technical review to make sure it abides to their standards. Learning that system has helped me a lot.
“Leveraging the AI side is a whole different ballgame. That involved signing up for every newsletter that’s out there. That has opened my eyes to Anthropic’s Claude to Open AI’s Chat GPT, Perplexity AI, Google Gemini, all these different large language models. They all have their own sort of niche offerings. It has been a great learning experience.”
The intent for APSU is for Veteran students to use the software. Perez says that with AI, the more context you provide, the better information you get. “This will let users enter their Veteran information, service, MOS, state, etc,” Perez said. “That allows them to use U.S. Dept. of Labor data that will help them access so much information that will help them see ways to explore their career options further.
“They can add their DD-214 and their resume, and the AI will allow the system to tailor its responses and career advice to them specifically. It’s essentially a career counselor specific to every single Veteran. It’s very streamlined. They log in, and it guides them through. For example, they can access NACE competencies (National Association of Colleges and Employers), that career counselors are using to gauge how ready they are to endeavor the big world of actually pursuing a great career.“Typically, all these things are siloed. We’re collecting all the data in one centralized database, using AI to generate career-specific advice tailored to that Veteran, based on their service history, resume, and personality, and helping them find the answers. And, it offers 24/7 access.”
To find out more or contact Christian Perez, go to www.altivum.ai
