Mike Ward mikeward.dev

Reference page — a fact sheet of the products I've built and shipped independently, with public-source citations and GitHub links. The full story is on the homepage.

Independent Builds

Mike Ward · Shaka · Yield-API · ApneaWatch · Monk

What are you building outside professional work?

I like solving problems with tools people are excited to use. Remaining a builder (software, hardware, metalworking, woodworking) keeps me busy outside my professional work. Four shipped products so far — Shaka, Yield-API, ApneaWatch, and Monk. You can test some of these yourself and follow my latest work on GitHub.

Shaka — the ocean, calibrated.

Forecasting · Harmonic analysis · iOS & Android

Shaka lets you drop a pin anywhere in the ocean — and briefs your dive before you leave home: water clarity from satellite images,[1] swell, current, wind, tide, and more. Around the globe — Shaka shares regulations and licensing requirements for each spot.[2] Briefing an arbitrary lat/long with a 5 day forecast is Shaka's secret. Global forecasts predict open water behavior, but the best dives can be sheltered by reef or land. Shaka casts directions around spots to understand sheltered water behavior,[3] while sharing pinpoint accuracy on the variables that change over small distances — like tide.[3] Shaka is live in beta — with pro divers and captains testing globally.

Yield-API — DeFi yield at scale.

Developer platform · Stablecoin yield · Web & REST

Stablecoin balances sit idle even though onchain lending can pay 3–8%,[4] and 2025's stablecoin laws in the US and EU bar issuers from paying interest directly.[5] This is the API for Neobanks and Fintechs in the middle: fine-grained onchain investment controls behind a single API engineers can quickly integrate and understand. No blockchain expertise required. It ships with a developer platform: mint a sandbox key in under a minute,[6] docs with live playgrounds and SDKs,[6] signed webhooks with retries,[6] access management for any complex business, and investment levers controlling yield for each customer. Yield-API was built as an open sourced proof of concept to demonstrate the future of stablecoin investing.

ApneaWatch — $35 sleep lab.

Health monitoring · Hardware · iOS, Android & web

Obstructive sleep apnea affects 1 – 5% of children, with the diagnosis often missed.[7] A sleep study means a night in a hospital bed sometimes exceeding $10,000.[8] ApneaWatch lets anybody purchase a $35 pulse oximeter[9] — and turn this device into an overnight monitor. When the morning comes, ~1M datapoints are ingested, evaluated to age-appropriate calibrations cited to published clinical literature,[10] and summarized. ApneaWatch tracks sleep trends including oxygen desaturation events — and distills weeks of sleep into a one-pager a clinician can quickly review. Any device with an internet connection can show realtime vitals — even a grandparent's phone across the globe.

Monk — focus app gone private.

Messaging · Zero-knowledge by design · Android

What if you could stay focused, reply across your messaging apps, and keep each message private? Monk does exactly this, and nothing else. Tap the orb and 15 messaging apps go quiet; anyone reaching out gets a reply you craft. Monk ships without the internet permission 83% of Android apps request.[11] Your conversations never reach Monk servers.[12] Messages are answered in the moment, never stored — the entire app is 1.4 MB of open-source code,[12] smaller than a single photo, with nothing hiding inside.

Record

Shaka
Ocean dive briefings for any pin — live in beta, pro divers and captains testing globally · github.com/mikewards/shaka
Yield-API
Stablecoin yield developer platform — open-source proof of concept · live demo · github.com/mikewards/yield-api-dev-platform
ApneaWatch
$35 overnight pulse-oximetry monitor with clinician one-pager reports — access by request (email)
Monk
1.4 MB offline auto-reply focus app for Android · github.com/mikewards/monk-android

Sources

  1. Docs Copernicus Marine — Global Ocean Colour, L3 NRT “Chlorophyll-a (CHL) … Suspended Matter (SPM), Secchi Transparency Depth (ZSD)” — daily, 4 km, global, from “SeaWiFS, MODIS, MERIS, VIIRS-SNPP & JPSS1, OLCI-S3A & S3B.”
  2. Product ProtectedSeas — Navigator “Navigator is the most comprehensive global map of marine life protections, with regulatory information for all but four coastal states worldwide, and the high seas.”
  3. From the build GitHub — mikewards/shaka Exposure profiling ray-casts 16 compass directions at 1, 2, and 5 km rings; a four-stage attenuation model bends the open-ocean forecast around the shelter profile. The tide curve is computed for the exact pin from FES2022 harmonics rather than the nearest gauge — see also the AVISO+ FES2022 global tide model.
  4. Product Aave — Markets (live dashboard) Aave v3 USDC supply ≈3.3% on a $179M pool; Morpho's curated USDC vaults ≈4.4–7.4% — as of August 2026; rates move with the market.
  5. US Law GENIUS Act — Public Law 119-27, July 2025 §4(a)(11): “No permitted payment stablecoin issuer … shall pay the holder of any payment stablecoin any form of interest or yield.” The EU's MiCA carries an equivalent bar.
  6. From the build GitHub — mikewards/yield-api-dev-platform Self-serve account, application, and API key in under a minute; every endpoint gets an interactive documentation page with a live environment-aware example; webhooks console with endpoints, subscriptions, and deliveries running live against the sandbox.
  7. Research American Academy of Pediatrics — Pediatrics, 2012 Clinical practice guideline (Marcus et al.): childhood OSA prevalence of 1.2–5.7% in level I–II studies — “the diagnosis, however, often is missed.”
  8. Research Sleep Foundation — Sleep Study Cost Guide The medically reviewed guide reports an average in-lab price of $3,000, with prices ranging from $1,000 to more than $10,000.
  9. Product Amazon — Innovo iP900BP-B Bluetooth Pulse Oximeter $35.99, 4.5★ across 7,087 ratings, with a “Wireless Bluetooth Connection” — the type of device ApneaWatch pairs with over BLE.
  10. Research Ong et al. — Archives of Disease in Childhood, 2021 2021;106(6):583–586: “we define normality of the 3% oxygen desaturation index as <7” — one of the published thresholds behind the app's age-appropriate calibrations.
  11. Research Pew Research Center — Apps Permissions in the Google Play Store Analysis of 1,041,336 Play Store apps: 83% requested the “full network access” permission.
  12. From the build GitHub — mikewards/monk-android No INTERNET permission in the manifest; allowBackup=false; release builds strip every log line. The release APK measures 1,403,895 bytes.

More

Full career record: mikeward.dev · GitHub: github.com/mikewards · Beta access for Shaka: [email protected]