I grew up in Vilnius, the capital city of Lithuania. When I was eight, I started playing basketball, and it quickly became one of my biggest passions in life. After playing in Lithuania for almost a decade, in 2009, I got a basketball scholarship to attend Marianapolis Prep School in the United States. After a successful season there, I received an offer to study and play Division I basketball at Dartmouth College, where I got my bachelor's degree and became interested in computer vision and machine learning. After Dartmouth, I stopped playing competitive basketball and decided to focus on a research career in AI. However, I am still deeply passionate about basketball, and I am always looking for ways how to incorporate it into my research.

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Before coming to the United States, I also represented Lithuanian U-16, U-18, and U-19 national basketball teams in various FIBA European/World Championships. In 2008, we won silver medals at the FIBA U-18 European Championship.