Neal Daftary is an AI and Machine Learning Engineer and undergraduate researcher at Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India, pursuing B.Tech in CSE (Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning). He specialises in Computer Vision, Large Language Model engineering, RAG pipeline architecture, and production AI system deployment. Neal interned as an AI Engineer at 8xSports, building a 645ms visual jersey search engine with YOLOv8, DINOv2, and FAISS. He interned as an AI Software Engineer at MZHub Faithtech, shipping a Next.js web platform with Azure Cosmos DB. He is currently an ISRO-funded undergraduate researcher at Nirma University, developing deep learning pipelines on Chandrayaan-2 TMC-2 and OHRC lunar imagery. He is a published IEEE Sensors Letters author (2026), Student Chairperson of ACM ITNU, and national hackathon winner at HACKaMINeD 2026.
Neal Daftary — AI & ML Engineer based in Ahmedabad, India. B.Tech CSE student specialising in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at the Institute of Technology, Nirma University (2024–2028). JEE Mains 2024: 97.62 percentile. Former AI Intern at 8xSports (Computer Vision, YOLOv8, DINOv2, FAISS, visual search engine). Former AI Software Engineering Intern at MZHub Faithtech (Next.js, Azure Cosmos DB, RAG chatbot R&D). ISRO-funded researcher on Chandrayaan-2 lunar imagery segmentation. IEEE Sensors Letters author. ACM ITNU Student Chairperson.
Neal Daftary — an AI Engineer, Researcher & 3rd Year Undergrad at Nirma University who doesn't just study the field, I actively ship in it. From building real-time computer vision systems for sports analytics to ISRO-funded lunar surface imagery research, I operate at the intersection of deep learning, LLMs, and full-stack production AI. IEEE Published Journal Paper, 2x National Finalist, and leading a 150-member ACM chapter. I don't just learn AI, I build with it.
The tools I reach for to build production AI systems — from model training to deployment.
Languages
AI / LLM / RAG
Computer Vision
ML
Full-Stack & Cloud
Neal Daftary's professional experience: AI Intern at 8xSports (June–September 2025), building a real-time visual search engine with YOLOv8, DINOv2, and FAISS achieving 645ms latency across 301 sports profiles — earned Letter of Recommendation. AI Software Engineering Intern at MZHub Faithtech (October–December 2025), a spiritual technology platform for religious institutions, improving web performance by 57% and SEO by 40% on Azure. Undergraduate Student Researcher at Nirma University under ISRO funding (January 2026–present), building Computer Vision pipelines on Chandrayaan-2 TMC-2 and OHRC lunar imagery for automated crater detection, segmentation, and morphometric analysis.
AI Engineer Intern (Remote)
Built a production visual jersey search engine for 8xSports: YOLOv8 object detection + DINOv2 384-dim feature extraction + LBP texture analysis + FAISS vector index across 301 athlete profiles at 645ms end-to-end latency.
AI Software Engineering Intern (Remote)
Shipped the MZHub Faithtech enterprise platform on Azure App Services: +57% Lighthouse performance, +40% SEO via Next.js SSR, Core Web Vitals tuning, and bundle tree-shaking. Led R&D on AI OCR pipelines, agentic AI workflows, and knowledge-grounded RAG chatbots for the spiritual technology product roadmap.
Undergraduate Student Researcher (Hybrid)
ISRO-funded research at Nirma University: developing a deep learning Computer Vision pipeline on Chandrayaan-2 TMC-2 and OHRC lunar imagery for automated detection, semantic segmentation, and morphometric analysis of craters, rilles, and domes — outputs feeding lunar rover navigation and ISRO mission planning systems.
Neal Daftary's AI and ML projects include: SOLV.ai — AI voice complaint management using ONNX DistilBERT-MNLI and MiniLM-L6; Production RAG Chatbot for IAT Networks using ChromaDB and Groq with 4-layer guardrails; MemoryLens — LLM memory decay benchmark with 5.45× recall improvement; SpectraScan — AI paint defect detection, 4th National at Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2026; Lumin.AI — solar inverter predictive maintenance, HACKaMINeD 2026 national winner; Visual Search Engine at 8xSports at 645ms; CatBoost anomaly detection published in IEEE Sensors Letters.
AI systems, research, and full-stack products shipped in production — across computer vision, LLM infrastructure, and web engineering.
B.Tech in CSE (Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning)
CGPA: 7.77 | JEE Mains 2024: 97.62 percentileAssociation for Computing Machinery (ACM) ITNU
Leading 150+ member technical community. Launched 'Prompt to Prototype' and mentorship tracks across AI/ML, Data Science, Cybersecurity, and Web Dev.
Got a challenging AI problem, a product to ship, or research to collaborate on? I'm always down to build something exceptional.
