# Muhammad Fahreza Alghifari

AI Engineer Lead · Graduate Researcher · Open Source Developer · Kendoka

Muhammad Fahreza Alghifari is an AI Engineer Lead at XpressAI, where since 2023 he has led AI projects end to end, from stakeholder planning and system architecture to shipping agentic RAG systems and full-stack apps to production; before that he was AI Systems Engineer Lead at Skymind (2020–2023). He has also been the lead developer of Xircuits, an open-source visual programming platform for AI workflows, since 2021. He has applied AI across very different fields: an AI-assisted accreditation system for Malaysia's higher-education quality agency (MQA) at IIUM, edge-AI depression screening for community clinics, crowd monitoring for a national railway agency, financial forecasting for a financial institution, dental X-ray diagnosis and Islamic knowledge retrieval. He speaks and teaches for very different audiences, from integrating AI into students' academic projects (IEEE IIUM Student Branch) and AI in dentistry (Skymind AI Lecture Series) to AI agents for business (SG Academy × USAII), and runs hands-on workshops such as video creation with generative AI at IIUM. He holds an M.Sc. in Computer & Information Engineering from the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) and is completing a second master's there, in Computer Science and Information Technology, with research in agentic LLMs and speech machine learning. His projects have won awards at national competitions and exhibitions: his team was champion of the Alliance Bank Eco-Biz Dream Project 2017 (RM 10,000 prize) with Eco Paddy Planter; EMOS, his speech emotion and depression detection system, won the Regional Winner and best project of the region awards and 1st Runner Up in the Grand Final of the Google-track Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2018, and gold at PECIPTA 2019; and D'AI, his agentic AI framework, won silver at the IIUM Festival of Ideas 2025. Outside work, he trains in kendo at AI Kendo Club, where he holds 1st kyu.

Hi! I'm Fahreza. I was training neural networks back when "AI" still mostly meant a robot in a movie, starting with speech emotion recognition for my final-year project. These days I lead AI projects end to end: sitting down with stakeholders, planning and architecting the system, then building and shipping it, from agentic RAG with LLM-as-judge evaluation to full-stack apps in production. 6+ years in industry, published research in speech ML, a postgraduate researcher at IIUM, and a kendoka (1st Kyu) at AI Kendo Club. Always happy to chat about AI, open source, or anything in between.

- Website: https://fahreza.dev
- https://github.com/MFA-X-AI
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/m-fahreza-alghifari/
- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Muhammad-Alghifari-2
- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-gc9YzEAAAAJ&hl=en
- https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Xb1sDLsAAAAJ
- Years in AI: 7+ · Publications: 13 · Citations: 181 · h-index: 7
- Kendo: 1st Kyu, AI Kendo Club · Languages: English, Indonesian, Bahasa Melayu, Japanese (JLPT N5)

## Experience

### AI Engineering Lead, XpressAI

Mar 2023 — Present

- Lead projects end to end with clients: gathering requirements, scoping and planning, architecting the solution, then building, shipping and documenting it.
- Lead developer of Xircuits, the open-source visual AI workflow platform (103 stars): 1,244 commits and 167 merged pull requests.
- Contributor to Xaibo, the company's agent framework (15 merged PRs, including AG-UI structured response events and streaming through the observability proxy), and to xpressclaw, its coding-agent control plane.
- Maintain the Vecto Python SDK (125 commits) and build search applications on Vecto, the company's vector database.
- Active in community initiatives such as hackathons and community calls, fostering open-source collaborative AI development.

Tech: Xircuits, Xaibo, Vecto, Python, TypeScript, React

### AI Software Expert, IIUM

Apr 2026 — Present (alongside the role above)

- Forward-deployed AI engineer, and the sole developer: gathered requirements with MQA assessors and academic staff, planned and architected the system, and delivered a working prototype within a month.
- COPPA: turns MQA's accreditation (COPPA ODL) assessment into a web app: multi-assessor rating of 96 standards across 7 areas, an AI chat over MQA documents with cited answers, evidence upload with classification and OCR, automatic evidence-to-standard matching, and a bilingual writing assistant.
- Section-aware retrieval (an LLM router over each document's structure plus BM25 keyword search, with a grader that prunes before answering). On a 106-question test set judged by an LLM, answer correctness rose from 3.31 to 3.69 (out of 4) across iterations; a model swap reached a 95% judge pass rate at $0.0044 per case.
- Research project: Human Factors in AI-Assisted Accreditation: Exploring Trust, Cognitive Impact, and Usability.

Tech: Next.js, React, TypeScript, FastAPI, Supabase, OpenRouter LLMs, RAG, LLM-as-judge, Cloudflare

### Research Officer, IIUM

Dec 2025 — Present (alongside the role above)

- Full-time research officer on the Low-Cost Edge-AI Prototype for Speech-Based Depression Screening in Community Healthcare, funded by the Prototype Development Research Grant Scheme (PRGS25-029-0073), Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.
- The prototype won a Gold Award at KERICE 2026.

Tech: Edge AI, Speech Processing, Raspberry Pi

### AI Systems Engineer Lead, Skymind

Jul 2020 — Mar 2023

- Progressed from Data Science Intern to AI Engineer and ultimately to AI Systems Engineer Lead.
- Directed product development and managed AI/data engineering projects, accelerating timelines through comprehensive planning, coding, testing, automation, and documentation.
- Mentored new apprentices and represented the company in multiple online webinars and talks.

Tech: Python, Deep Learning, Data Engineering, CI/CD

### Graduate Research Assistant, IIUM

Jan 2019 — Nov 2020

- Conducted deep learning research for an FRGS-funded project, handling data collection, model development, testing & deployment, and contributing to publications and exhibitions.

Tech: Deep Learning, Research, FRGS

### PCH SOC Intern, Intel

Jun 2017 — Aug 2017

- Developed testing and software solutions using Perl and Python in a Linux environment under the guidance of a validation engineer.

Tech: Perl, Python, Linux

## Highlights

### Eco Paddy Planter

- **Alliance Bank Eco-Biz Dream Project 2** (5 Dec 2017 · Alliance Bank): Champion

### Project MyEMOS

- **Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2018** (13 May 2018 · Universiti Teknologi MARA · DreamCatcher · Google Track): Grand Final: 1st Runner Up; Central Region: Regional Winner; Central Region: Regional Excellence Award (best project of the region)
- **PECIPTA 2019** (22–23 Sep 2019 · Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Batu Pahat · International Conference and Exposition on Inventions by Institutions of Higher Learning): Gold Award

### D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework

- **IIUM Festival of Ideas 2025** (11–14 Aug 2025 · IIUM Cultural Centre (ICC), IIUM Gombak · IIUM · TAKRIM 2025): Silver: Innovation and Excellence Product (Science and Technology)

### Edge-AI Depression Screening

- **KERICE 2026** (7 Oct 2026 · IIUM · Kulliyyah of Engineering Research, Innovation and Commercialisation Exhibition): Gold Award

### Academic and speaking

- **34th IIUM Convocation** (10–13 Nov 2018 · International Islamic University Malaysia): Best Student: Bachelor of Engineering (Electronic Computer and Information); Rector's List (CGPA 3.81)
- **ICODS 2025** (18 Dec 2025 · STAI Darul Hikmah Aceh Barat, Aceh, Indonesia · 5th International Conference on Dayah Studies): Best Presenter; Presenter

## Education

- **Master in Computer Science and Information Technology**, IIUM, Kulliyyah of ICT (Mar 2025 — Present). Research: Agentic AI Framework Based on Islamic Epistemology (D'AI)
- **M.Sc. in Computer & Information Engineering**, IIUM, Kulliyyah of Engineering (Aug 2018 — Nov 2021). Thesis: SER and Depression Prediction Using DNNs
- **B.Eng. (Hons) in Electronic — Computer & Information Engineering**, International Islamic University Malaysia (2014 — 2018). CGPA: 3.81 | Best Student ECE | IEEE SPS Best FYP

## Projects

### D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework

Research · Best Presenter — ICODS 2025

Agentic AI framework operationalizing tawhidic epistemology for Islamic knowledge retrieval, with multi-layer knowledge bases (SQL + vector + knowledge graph).

Impact: Master's research, designed and built end to end. A 6,236-verse Qur'anic benchmark evaluating 15 LLMs: the agentic approach raises exact-match accuracy from 31–69% to 80–99.6% while cutting cost 167x. On the QRCD question-answering benchmark, prompt routing reaches pAP@10 70.45%, 6.7 points above the published state of the art (63.7%). Silver at the IIUM Festival of Ideas 2025, and selected to represent IIUM at the Festival of Ideas Selangor.

Tech: LLMs, RAG, Knowledge Graph, SQL, Vector DB

### COPPA: AI-Assisted Accreditation

Featured

AI-assisted accreditation web app for Malaysia's higher-education quality agency (MQA). Assessors rate all 96 COPPA ODL standards across 7 areas, ask an AI that answers with citations from MQA documents, and match uploaded evidence to standards, in English or Bahasa Malaysia.

Impact: Forward-deployed AI Software Expert at IIUM and sole developer since March 2026, working with MQA assessors across requirements, architecture, the AI pipeline and the full-stack app. Working prototype in one month, now in pilot with assessors. The AI works over 78 MQA documents (about 6,200 pages in English and Bahasa Malaysia) indexed into 1,634 sections, where a human assessor reads roughly 400–650 pages per discipline. On a 106-question test set, answer correctness rose from 2.45 to 4.63 out of 5 with no hallucinations, and the chosen model costs $0.0044 per question.

Tech: 

### Xircuits

Open source · https://xircuits.io

Open-source visual programming platform for building AI workflows, built on React TypeScript + JupyterLab. Supports TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Spark.

Impact: Lead developer since 2021, first at Skymind and then at XpressAI: 1,244 commits and 167 merged pull requests on a 103-star project.

Tech: React, TypeScript, JupyterLab, PyTorch, TensorFlow

### Kendo Nexus

Featured · https://kendonexus.com

Multi-tenant community management platform for kendo clubs and their national association, with a companion Android app.

Impact: Sole developer, for the Malaysia Kendo Association (MKA). A full-stack web platform and Android app covering a member portal with training diary and stats, club management (roster, attendance, billing, gradings), tournaments with registration, brackets and a live shiai scorekeeper, and role-based access for clubs, tournaments and national bodies. 117 pages and 52 API routes over 26 database tables, with a Flutter app on the same backend. In development.

Tech: Next.js, TypeScript, Firebase Data Connect, GraphQL, Flutter

### Edge-AI Depression Screening

Research · https://kerice.fahreza.dev

Offline, bilingual depression screening device using speech biomarkers on edge hardware, for underserved Malaysian community clinics.

Impact: Full-time research officer on this MOHE PRGS-funded project. Gold Award, KERICE 2026. A 33-parameter classifier (3.6 KB) scores an 11-minute interview in 11.7 s on a Raspberry Pi 5, at 0.74 AUROC cross-validated on DAIC-WOZ (189 participants), on under $300 of hardware. Modernized the legacy training pipeline, ported models across frameworks, and built a full-stack recording system (Next.js + FastAPI) for structured field data collection.

Tech: TFLite, ONNX, Next.js, FastAPI, Raspberry Pi

### AI-Driven Financial Forecasting

Featured

End-to-end ETL and ML pipelines for financial forecasting at a financial institution, on AWS Glue, with GenAI via Bedrock.

Impact: AI engineer, building the pipelines end to end on AWS Glue. Across key benchmarks, core report pipelines ran up to 95% faster while scaling to 100-million-row datasets.

Tech: AWS Glue, S3, Bedrock, Python, Spark

### Crowd Monitoring System

Featured

Real-time CCTV crowd-density monitoring for a national railway agency, running entirely inside the operator's own network.

Impact: AI engineer on the team. A secure, air-gapped computer vision system delivering real-time crowd-density analytics and dashboards to the operations control centre, entirely inside the operator's firewall with no internet connection, built within tight hardware limits and government security requirements.

Tech: Svelte, Gunicorn, PostgreSQL, Computer Vision

### Project MyEMOS

Research · Best Project of the Region — Innovate Malaysia 2018 (Google Track)

Speech emotion recognition and depression detection research, carried from undergraduate final-year project to M.Sc. thesis.

Impact: Lead researcher, from final-year project to M.Sc. thesis. Regional Winner, best project of the region and Grand Final 1st Runner Up at the Google-track Innovate Malaysia 2018; Gold at PECIPTA 2019. Led to the FRGS and PRGS national research grants. Created the Sorrow Analysis Dataset (SAD, on IEEE DataPort); 8+ publications.

Tech: PyTorch, TensorFlow, Librosa, MFCC

### AIDENTALE

Research

Medical AI for dental disease diagnosis: Mask R-CNN segmentation of dental X-rays, with a cross-platform viewer.

Impact: AI engineer. Built the cross-platform Kivy app that visualizes the Mask R-CNN segmentation of dental X-rays.

Tech: TensorFlow, MaskRCNN, Kivy, Python

### pyvoicebox

Open source · https://github.com/MFA-X-AI/pyvoicebox

A full Python port of VOICEBOX, Imperial College London's speech-processing toolbox for MATLAB.

Impact: Side project. A typed Python port of the toolbox (280+ functions), checked against the MATLAB original with 500+ tests; on PyPI as pyvoicebox-sap.

Tech: Python, NumPy, SciPy, Speech DSP, PyPI

## Publications (13 papers, 181 citations, h-index 7)

- **When Algorithms Pretend to Issue Fatwas: Why AI Cannot Replace The Genuine Mufti**. MF Alghifari, M bin Artalim Zaim, M Kartiwi, DOD Handayani. *Islam Universalia*, 2026.
  Why LLM chatbots cannot act as muftis: an eight-domain framework of what a mufti has and AI lacks, and a test of six AI platforms on tayammum across the four Sunni schools, in which every system, Islamic-specific ones included, made errors.
- **Tawhidic Epistemology in Artificial Intelligence: A Practical Implementation By Agentic Design**. MF Alghifari, M Kartiwi, MA Zaim, DOD Handayani. *IIUM PG Colloquium*, 2026.
  Applies Prof. Osman Bakar's tawhidic epistemology framework to agentic AI design, with a case study in which the system stayed robust against adversarial questions that fooled state-of-the-art LLMs.
- **Mitigating LLM Hallucinations in Quranic Content: An Agentic Approach Using Deployable Language Models**. MF Alghifari, M Kartiwi, MBA Zaim, DOD Handayani. *ICT4M*, 2025. 1 citations. https://doi.org/10.1109/ict4m68001.2025.11363493
  A benchmark of LLM hallucinations on Qur'anic verses (exact match below 1% for most small open models, up to 69% for the best commercial ones), and an agentic framework that answers from external knowledge tools instead of model memory.
- **Fikr: AI Chatbot Powered with Vector Search**. SR Nurfikri, D Handayani, AM Fahreza, D Almadani, Z Suryady, et al.. *ICCED*, 2024. 2 citations. https://doi.org/10.1109/icced64257.2024.10983626
  A chatbot for Islamic knowledge that answers with citations from Hadith and the Qur'an, using vector search over a cleaned corpus with GPT-3.5 (Streamlit, Flask, Firebase).
- **Development of Sorrow Analysis Dataset for Speech Depression Prediction**. MF Alghifari, TS Gunawan, M Kartiwi. *IEEE I2MTC*, 2023. 12 citations. https://doi.org/10.1109/i2mtc53148.2023.10176040
  A new English speech-depression dataset of 64 recordings, with 1D-CNN, 2D-CNN and BiLSTM baselines; the 1D-CNN reached 97% average accuracy under 5-fold validation.
- **On the Effect of Feature Compression on Speech Emotion Recognition Across Multiple Languages**. MF Alghifari, TS Gunawan, NNWN Hashim, MAW Nordin, M Kartiwi. *Springer LNEE*, 2021. 2 citations. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4597-3_63
- **On the Optimum Speech Segment Length for Depression Detection**. MF Alghifari, TS Gunawan, MAW Nordin, M Kartiwi, L Borhan. *IEEE ICSIMA*, 2019. 10 citations. https://doi.org/10.1109/icsima47653.2019.9057319
  How long a speech segment needs to be for fast, accurate depression detection: an artificial neural network on averaged MFCCs, trained and tested on the DAIC-WOZ interviews.
- **Comparative Analysis of Gender Identification using Speech Analysis and Higher Order Statistics**. SAA Qadri, TS Gunawan, T Wani, MF Alghifari, H Mansor, M Kartiwi. *IEEE ICSIMA*, 2019. 4 citations. https://doi.org/10.1109/icsima47653.2019.9057296
  Gender identification from speech using spectral descriptors and higher-order statistics such as spectral centroid, entropy and kurtosis.
- **On the Use of Voice Activity Detection in Speech Emotion Recognition**. MF Alghifari, TS Gunawan, SAA Qadri, M Kartiwi, Z Janin. *BEEI*, 2019. 27 citations. https://doi.org/10.11591/eei.v8i4.1646
  Voice activity detection before feature extraction raised the recognition rate of five emotions by 3.7% on clean speech (EMO-DB and a custom dataset, MFCC + DNN).
- **A Critical Insight into Multi-Languages Speech Emotion Databases**. SAA Qadri, TS Gunawan, MF Alghifari, H Mansor, M Kartiwi, Z Janin. *BEEI*, 2019. 14 citations. https://doi.org/10.11591/eei.v8i4.1645
  A survey of speech emotion databases across languages, and how differences such as data collection methods shape emotion recognition research.
- **The Disruptometer: An Artificial Intelligence Algorithm for Market Insights**. D Vedenyapin, MF Alghifari, TS Gunawan. *BEEI*, 2019. 8 citations. https://doi.org/10.11591/eei.v8i2.1494
  Mines Twitter by keyword to score a brand's Product-to-Market Fit and Disruption Quotient; in 3 of 4 brand cases it matched the analysts' own studies.
- **Speech Emotion Recognition Using Deep Feedforward Neural Network**. MF Alghifari, TS Gunawan, M Kartiwi. *IJEECS*, 2018. 57 citations. https://doi.org/10.11591/ijeecs.v10.i2.pp554-561
  Speech emotion recognition with MFCC features and a deep feedforward network, tuning features, neurons and layers, and validating a new custom-made database.
- **A Review on Emotion Recognition Algorithms Using Speech Analysis**. TS Gunawan, MF Alghifari, MA Morshidi, M Kartiwi. *IJEEI*, 2018. 44 citations. https://doi.org/10.52549/ijeei.v6i1.409
  A review of speech emotion recognition: audio features (LPCC, MFCC, Teager energy), classifiers (HMM, GMM, VQ, ANN, DNN) and emotion databases.

## Achievements (32 events, 49 awards and certificates)

- **KERICE 2026** (7 Oct 2026 · IIUM · Kulliyyah of Engineering Research, Innovation and Commercialisation Exhibition): Gold Award. Project: Low-Cost Edge-AI Prototype for Speech-Based Depression Screening in Community Healthcare
- **IIUM Khair Award** (Feb 2026 · IIUM Centre for Postgraduate Studies): Postgraduate scholarship
- **ICODS 2025** (18 Dec 2025 · STAI Darul Hikmah Aceh Barat, Aceh, Indonesia · 5th International Conference on Dayah Studies): Best Presenter; Presenter
- **ICT4M 2025** (26–27 Nov 2025 · Kulliyyah of ICT, IIUM, Kuala Lumpur · 10th International Conference on Information & Communication Technology for the Muslim World): Paper presenter; Reviewer; Participation (with co-authors). Project: Mitigating LLM Hallucinations in Quranic Content: An Agentic Approach Using Deployable Language Models
- **Demystifying AI** (14 Nov 2025 · IIUM · IEEE IIUM Student Branch): Speaker. Project: Understanding and Integrating AI in Your Project
- **Festival of Ideas @ Selangor** (25–26 Oct 2025 · DATC, UiTM Shah Alam · UiTM): Exhibitor. Project: D'AI: IIUM's Islamic Agentic AI
- **IIUM Postgraduate Colloquium 2025** (23 Oct 2025 · Kulliyyah of Engineering, IIUM · IIUM Centre for Postgraduate Studies): Presenter. Project: Tawhidic Epistemology in Artificial Intelligence: A Practical Implementation By Agentic Design
- **10th Japanese Ambassador's Cup** (30 Aug 2025 · Kendo): Fighting Spirit medal (first official tournament)
- **IIUM Festival of Ideas 2025** (11–14 Aug 2025 · IIUM Cultural Centre (ICC), IIUM Gombak · IIUM · TAKRIM 2025): Silver: Innovation and Excellence Product (Science and Technology). Project: D'AI: IIUM's Islamic Agentic AI
- **IESCO–Hidayat Nur Wahid financial aid** (18 Mar 2021 · IIUM · PPI IIUM): Student financial aid
- **IIUM Sejahtera Award** (Aug 2020 · IIUM Centre for Postgraduate Studies): Postgraduate scholarship
- **A Day in the Life of a Data Scientist** (20 May 2020 · Forward School): Certificate of Completion
- **CertifAI certifications** (1 May – 5 Jun 2020 · CertifAI Sdn. Bhd.): Certified Engineer in Computer Vision; Literacy in Artificial Intelligence; Anatomy of an A.I. Project
- **Malaysia Technology Expo 2020** (20–22 Feb 2020 · World Trade Centre, Kuala Lumpur · 19th International Expo on Inventions and Innovations): Silver Award, Invention and Innovation Awards; International Award of Merit, Malaysia–Croatia Technology Exchange 2020. Project: Speech Emotion System for Customer Service
- **NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute** (2020 · NVIDIA): Fundamentals of Deep Learning for Computer Vision
- **IIUM Sejahtera Profiling Web-Apps** (2020 · IIUM Counseling and Career Services Centre): Certificate of Appreciation
- **PECIPTA 2019** (22–23 Sep 2019 · Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Batu Pahat · International Conference and Exposition on Inventions by Institutions of Higher Learning): Gold Award. Project: Speech Emotion Recognition and Depression Detection for Suicide Prevention using Deep Learning Algorithms (EMOS)
- **KERICE 2019** (18 Sep 2019 · IIUM · Kulliyyah of Engineering Research, Innovation and Commercialisation Exhibition): Affordable Healthcare Award, "Align Your Research!" competition. Project: Speech Emotion Recognition and Depression Detection for Suicide Prevention Hotlines (EMOS)
- **IEEE SPS Summer School 2019** (14–31 Jul 2019 · Xi'an, China · Intelligent Signal and Information Processing): Certificate of Participation
- **Workshop on Data Science with Python** (2–3 Mar 2019 · Software Engineering Research Group (SERG), IIUM): Certificate of Participation
- **IIUM Student Activity Awards 2018** (6 Dec 2018 · International Islamic University Malaysia): Special Recognition Award
- **34th IIUM Convocation** (10–13 Nov 2018 · International Islamic University Malaysia): Best Student: Bachelor of Engineering (Electronic Computer and Information); Rector's List (CGPA 3.81)
- **Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2018** (13 May 2018 · Universiti Teknologi MARA · DreamCatcher · Google Track): Grand Final: 1st Runner Up; Central Region: Regional Winner; Central Region: Regional Excellence Award (best project of the region). Project: Project MyEMOS
- **IEEE SPS Best Final Year Project** (18 Jan 2018 · Kulliyyah of Engineering, IIUM · IEEE Signal Processing Society, Malaysia Chapter · Final Year Project 2 Seminar): Certificate of Excellence. Project: Speech Emotion Recognition Using Deep Neural Network
- **Alliance Bank Eco-Biz Dream Project 2** (5 Dec 2017 · Alliance Bank): Champion. Project: Eco Paddy Planter
- **Malaysia Software Hackathon 2017** (Apr 2017 · DreamCatcher): Top 20, Round 1 (representing IIUM)
- **Dean's List ceremony** (3 Mar 2017 · Kulliyyah of Engineering, IIUM): Semester 1, 2016/2017
- **Workshops 2017** (2017): Web Programming with PHP (SERG, IIUM); Internet of Things (IoT) Hands On Workshop (Cytron Technologies); Adobe Illustrator Workshop (ENGINIUS XXIII)
- **General Discussion: Collaboration of International and Local Students** (4 Nov 2016 · Engineering Students' Society International Bureau (ENGINIUS XXII)): Motivational Speaker; Lead Designer
- **Workshops 2016** (Nov 2016): Web Development Workshop (Front-End); Object Oriented Programming with ASP.NET C# Workshop
- **SPARKTECH Team** (2016 · Engineering Students' Society (ENGINIUS) · Kulliyyah of Engineering, IIUM): Most Pro Active New Member Award; Instructor in Robotics; Instructor, Arduino Communication Workshop 2016; Trainer, Arduino for Beginner Workshop; Participant, Arduino Workshop 2016
- **Academic Excellence Award Scholarship** (2014 · IIUM): Undergraduate scholarship

## Talks, workshops and appearances

- **Smart Video Creation with Generative AI** (Instructor · AI Research Methodology Workshop Series No. 8/2026 · Computer Lab Abu Bakar & Umar, Level 2, M. Kamal Hassan Library, IIUM · 2026-10-16)
- **KERICE 2026** (Exhibitor · Kulliyyah of Engineering Research, Innovation and Commercialisation Exhibition · IIUM · 2026-10-07): Low-Cost Edge-AI Prototype for Speech-Based Depression Screening · Gold Award
- **Demystifying AI** (Speaker · IEEE IIUM Student Branch · IIUM · 2025-11-14): Understanding and Integrating AI in Your Academic Project
- **Empowered by AI** (Guest speaker · SG Academy × USAII · SG Academy · 2025-07-12): AI agents · Build. Brand. Automate.
- **Artificial Intelligence: A New Frontier in Dentistry** (Speaker · Skymind Education Group · AI Lecture Series · 2021-10-21)
- **Show & Tell AI Series** (Speaker · Skymind Education Group × Skymind · 2021-10-02): A deep learning project at Skymind
- **EcoBiz Dream Project 3 Opening Ceremony** (Speaker · Alliance Bank · InterContinental Kuala Lumpur · 2018-09-18): Testimonial speech for the winning IIUM EcoPaddy team
- **Reben Hijau: Eco-Biz Dream Project** (On TV · Berita RTM · 2017-12-14): Eco-Biz Dream Project: the Eco Paddy team on national TV news
- **Intel Kulim Internship Experience Sharing** (Speaker · Intel × IIUM · IIUM · 2017-11-17): Internship experience sharing
- **Arduino for Beginner Workshop** (Instructor · SPARKTECH Team × ENGINIUS XXII · Kulliyyah of Engineering, IIUM · 2016-11-19): Trainer at the beginner Arduino workshop
- **Arduino Communication Workshop 2016** (Instructor · ENGINIUS XXI × SPARKTECH Team · IIUM · 2016-04-16): Instructor at the Arduino communication workshop

## Skills

### AI / ML

- LLMs & Agents: proven by D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework
- Machine Learning: proven by AIDENTALE, Project MyEMOS, Xircuits
- Speech & Audio: proven by Project MyEMOS, pyvoicebox
- Computer Vision: proven by AIDENTALE, Crowd Monitoring System
- Edge AI & Embedded: proven by Crowd Monitoring System, Edge-AI Depression Screening
- Agents & tools: proven by D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework
- Retrieval & Evaluation: proven by D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework
- PyTorch: proven by Project MyEMOS, Xircuits
- Speech SSL models (wav2vec 2.0, HuBERT, WavLM)
- TensorFlow: proven by AIDENTALE, Project MyEMOS, Xircuits
- LoRA fine-tuning
- Scikit-learn
- Speech DSP & VAD: proven by Project MyEMOS, pyvoicebox
- ONNX Runtime & INT8 quantization: proven by Edge-AI Depression Screening
- Speech emotion recognition: proven by Project MyEMOS
- TFLite: proven by Edge-AI Depression Screening
- Raspberry Pi deployment: proven by Edge-AI Depression Screening
- Arduino
- Object detection: proven by Crowd Monitoring System
- Segmentation (Mask R-CNN): proven by AIDENTALE
- Agentic RAG: proven by D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework
- Multi-agent orchestration (Xaibo)
- Tool use & MCP
- AG-UI streaming
- Structured outputs
- OpenAI / Anthropic / OpenRouter APIs
- Hybrid retrieval (BM25 + embeddings)
- Reranking & relevance grading
- LLM-as-judge
- RAGAS
- Benchmark design
- Knowledge graphs + SQL + vector stores: proven by D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework
- Cost / latency model selection

### Software

- Frontend: proven by Crowd Monitoring System, Edge-AI Depression Screening, Kendo Nexus, Xircuits
- Mobile: proven by AIDENTALE, Kendo Nexus
- Backend: proven by AIDENTALE, Crowd Monitoring System, Edge-AI Depression Screening, pyvoicebox, Xircuits
- Databases: proven by Crowd Monitoring System, D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework, Kendo Nexus
- DevOps & Cloud
- Testing
- Python: proven by AIDENTALE, pyvoicebox, Xircuits
- TypeScript: proven by Kendo Nexus, Xircuits
- Next.js & React: proven by Edge-AI Depression Screening, Kendo Nexus, Xircuits
- FastAPI: proven by Edge-AI Depression Screening
- PostgreSQL & Supabase: proven by Crowd Monitoring System
- Firebase: proven by Kendo Nexus
- Flutter: proven by Kendo Nexus
- Playwright & pytest
- Flask
- Vector DB: proven by D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework
- Docker
- Linux, systemd & nginx
- Cloudflare
- GitHub Actions
- AWS (Glue, S3, Bedrock)

### Kendo

- Practice & grading

### People

- Client Delivery (Forward-Deployed)
- Technical Leadership: proven by Xircuits
- Speaking & Pitching
- Teaching & Mentoring
- Languages
- Requirements gathering
- Client & stakeholder workshops
- Solution architecture
- Project planning
- Forward-deployed delivery
- Mentoring
- Client-facing scoping
- Documentation & handover
- Open-source lead (Xircuits): proven by Xircuits
- Developer community
- Project leadership
- Conference presenting
- Invited talks
- Competition pitching & exhibitions
- Workshop instruction
- English
- Indonesian
- Bahasa Melayu
- Japanese (JLPT N5)

### Research

- Speech: proven by Edge-AI Depression Screening, Project MyEMOS
- AI: proven by D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework
- Emotion recognition (SER): proven by Project MyEMOS
- Depression detection: proven by Edge-AI Depression Screening
- Sorrow Analysis Dataset (SAD)
- D'AI agentic framework: proven by D'AI: Islamic Agentic AI Framework
- Qur'anic hallucination mitigation
- Qur'anic benchmark (6,236 verses)

## Memories

- **Dean's List ceremony** (3 Mar 2017): Dean's List, Semester 1 2016/2017.
- **Malaysia Software Hackathon 2017** (Apr 2017): IIUM ECE Representatives to Dreamcatcher's Software Hackathon 2017.
- **Intel internship** (Jun–Aug 2017): Even though I'm just a humble intern, I received a welcoming package all the way from the US. Interning in Intel isn't just about learning but also giving back to the community.
- **TADHack KL 2017** (Sep 2017): My team from IIUM Computer Engineering to TADHack KL 2017! Glad our emotion recognition application brought a bit of interest to some of the teams.
- **Intel Kulim Internship Experience Sharing** (17 Nov 2017): An internship sharing session at IIUM. Very proud to share my pride and joy of being an intern at Intel Corporation Kulim, Malaysia.
- **Alliance Bank Eco-Biz Dream Project 2** (5 Dec 2017): Shortlisted as the Top 10, coached by Leaderonomics and GreenTech Malaysia, then the champions of EcoBiz Dream Project 2: team Eco Paddy 4.0. Proud to represent IIUM and bring home the trophy.
- **IEEE SPS Best Final Year Project** (18 Jan 2018): My final year project, "Speech Emotion Recognition using Deep Neural Network", won the IEEE Signal Processing Track: Best FYP Award!
- **Google Cloud OnBoard Kuala Lumpur 2018** (11 Apr 2018): From data scientists to researchers to R&D engineers, hundreds gathered at Nexus Event Centre for Google Cloud OnBoard Kuala Lumpur 2018.
- **Innovate Malaysia Design Competition 2018** (13 May 2018): IIUM brings another championship win! My partner Wildan Zulfikar and I competed with 300++ students / 200++ teams, and brought home both the Google Track Regional Winner & Regional Excellence Award.
- **EcoBiz Dream Project 3 Opening Ceremony** (18 Sep 2018): I was privileged to give the testimonial speech on behalf of our IIUM EcoPaddy Team, who was victorious last year.
- **IIUM Student Activity Awards 2018** (6 Dec 2018): Received the Special Recognition Award for Student Activity Awards 2018.
- **IEEE SPS Summer School 2019** (14–31 Jul 2019): IEEE SPS Summer School on Intelligent Signal and Information Processing, organized by Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an. Fortunate to be taught and mentored by great professors from around the world.
- **IEEE ICSIMA 2019** (Aug 2019): My first conference! Presented 2 papers on behalf of our research group.
- **KERICE 2019** (18 Sep 2019): Our EMOS project won the Affordable Healthcare Award in the "Align Your Research!" Competition, KERICE2019.
- **PECIPTA 2019** (22–23 Sep 2019): The EMOS project was awarded gold! IIUM brought home a total of 2 gold, 2 silver, and 6 bronze awards at PECIPTA 2019.
- **IEEE Malaysia Student Congress 2019** (Oct 2019): Representing our IEEE IIUM Student Branch at the IEEE Malaysia Student Congress 2019 at MaGIC Cyberjaya.
- **Sejahtera web app, presented to the Rector** (26 Dec 2019): Meeting our rector, Prof Tan Sri Dzulkifli Abdul Razak. The Career and Counseling Service Centre presented the year's work, including a webapp that I collaborated in making.
- **CertifAI certifications** (1 May – 5 Jun 2020): Completed the "Advanced Computer Vision with Deep Learning" training program with Skymind CERTIFAI!
- **Show & Tell AI Series** (2 Oct 2021): A speaker talking about one of our cool deep learning projects in Skymind, at the Show & Tell AI Series.
- **Artificial Intelligence: A New Frontier in Dentistry** (21 Oct 2021): Talking about AI in Dentistry for the Skymind Education Group AI Lecture Series, from the basics, so AI enthusiasts and dentists alike are welcome.
- **JLPT N5** (20 Mar 2023): It was a challenge juggling work and language learning for months, but Alhamdulillah I've achieved a personal milestone by passing the JLPT N5 examination!
- **Mount Fuji** (25 Aug 2023): Reached the peak of Mount Fuji. 🗻
- **Kendo 4th Kyu grading** (16 Feb 2025): Passed the 4th Kyu grading.
- **Empowered by AI** (12 Jul 2025): I had the privilege of volunteering as a guest speaker, sharing insights on AI agents, a field that XpressAI and my master's research are working on.
- **IIUM Festival of Ideas 2025** (11–14 Aug 2025): IIUM Cultural Centre, Gombak.
- **10th Japanese Ambassador's Cup** (30 Aug 2025): My first kendo tournament! Didn't manage to get to the semis, but I was honored to receive one of the fighting spirit medals.
- **Festival of Ideas @ Selangor** (25–26 Oct 2025): My master's project, Project D'AI, was selected to represent IIUM at the state-level Festival of Ideas Selangor.
- **Demystifying AI** (14 Nov 2025): Invited by the IEEE IIUM Student Branch to deliver a talk: a simple mental model of how AI works under the hood, and insights from five years in the AI industry.
- **ICT4M 2025** (26–27 Nov 2025): Presented my paper at IEEE ICT4M: "Mitigating LLM Hallucinations in Quranic Content: An Agentic Approach Using Deployable Language Models."
- **AI Kendo Championship 2026** (18 Apr 2026)