NM-1_MISSION▌

Mission NM-1 // Seattle, WA

Nikhil
Mahesh

Software × Hardware × Innovation

Entrepreneur building AI-powered & hardware solutions and leading tech startups from Seattle. Nationally qualified in competitive speaking, with expertise in machine learning, computer vision, robotics, and full-stack development.

7+ Years Building
Intl. CS Research Nominee
Gold TOC Bid + 6x NIETOC Bid
Get in touch ▸

About

From Dallas to Seattle, coding since age 9.

Nikhil Mahesh professional headshot
Name
Nikhil Mahesh
Role
Builder · Founder · Speaker
Origin
Dallas, Texas
Current Base
Seattle, Washington
Education
Eastside Prep · Class of 2027
First Contact
Python, age 9

I was born in Dallas, Texas, and am now living in Seattle, Washington. I started coding at age 9 and haven't stopped building since. Currently a junior at Eastside Preparatory School here in Washington.

You'll find me combining my passion for technology with entrepreneurial drive, focused on building AI-powered solutions that solve real-world problems while maintaining excellence in academics and competitive speech.

It isn't just tech, it isn't just AI, it isn't just ideas. It's how they can build together...

My Journey (so far)

From a random library book to building the future.

2018

The Beginning

I was 9, living in Seattle, when I stumbled across a random Python book at the library. Before that, I had never really thought about coding or interacted with technology. But something about creating things from just text on a screen fascinated me. Then COVID hit, and while quarantine shut real doors, it opened virtual ones. Suddenly, I had endless time to dive deep into this new world: web development, Unity, Python, Arduinos, AWS, circuitry. That same instinct carried into Destination Imagination (2nd in Engineering globally, 2022; Engineering #2 in WA, 2024) where I took those skills and ran with them.

2023

The Spark

Moving to Eastside Prep changed everything. I wasn't just coding for fun anymore; I started seeing real problems everywhere that I had the skills to fix. My first hackathon win with EPCarpool was this "aha!" moment. It wasn't about the trophy; it was realizing that the stuff I built in my bedroom could actually make people's lives better.

2024

The Vision

Speech & Debate competitions taught me how to communicate, not just to yourself, but to the world. It isn't just about knowing; it's about understanding that the best ideas mean nothing if you can't figure out how to present them to the world. It's not just the idea, but the execution that changes everything.

2025

The Mission

Now I'm obsessed with the intersections: where AI meets real human needs, where business logic meets social impact, where crazy technical ideas meet messy real-world problems. HydraSmart isn't just another startup; it's proof that when you combine the right technology with genuine care for people, you can build something that actually matters.

"Innovation doesn't come from just mastery, it comes from being the first to combine two ideas together in a way that resonates with the problem."

— My philosophy on building meaningful technology

Experience

Real-world impact through internships and innovation.

LOG 001 Jun 2025 — Nov 2025 Complete

ML Software Engineer Intern

VoiceGain.AI — Dallas, TX

Embedded on the Machine Learning team developing private, on-premise voice agent systems for enterprise clients. Contributed production-level code alongside full-time engineers on latency-sensitive, customer-facing systems.

Key Achievements

  • Analyzed real-time speech recognition pipelines and identified sources of >20% avoidable latency
  • Led a re-architected structure of the voicebot inference pipeline, reducing per-request compute cost by 73% on healthcare voicebot systems
  • Invited back for extended engagement based on delivered results

Technologies

TensorFlowDockerNLPGCP

LOG 002 Jun 2025 — Aug 2025 Complete

Research Scholar

Pioneer Academics — Computer Vision

Independent research under Prof. Susan Fox on a multimodal approach to allowing machines to understand emotional intent. Evaluation: A+. Selected as a Pioneer International Journal Nominee (top 6% of select Pioneer cohort).

Research Contributions

  • Built MOSAIC-EZ, a multimodal emotion classification pipeline for nonverbal autistic children: ViT facial classification, HuBERT XLarge vocalization modeling, and vision-LLM branches fused through a chain-of-thought reasoning model into actionable Emotion Zones
  • Achieved 63% balanced accuracy on ASD-specific image data and 65% on an 11-class non-verbal vocalization dataset, where standard neurotypical-trained models fall below 30%

Technologies

PyTorchViTHuBERTVLMsChain-of-Thought

LOG 003 Aug 2024 — Present Active

Co-founder & CEO

HydraSmart™

Hydration tracker for pregnant and postpartum women. The puck clips onto 96% of commercially sold bottles (no proprietary bottle, no flat surface required). Piloting with doula networks and Lamaze educators nationwide.

Business Milestones

  • 3rd Place, TYE PNW 2025 (runner-up from global champions)
  • Filed provisional patent pro bono with SeedIP, selected on merit of innovation
  • Validated problem across 600+ women; 75% of pregnant women struggle to stay hydrated despite it being their top health priority
  • Mild dehydration can reduce newborn weight by up to 15%; built to address this directly
  • Piloting with doula networks and Lamaze educators nationwide
  • Led team of 6 developers, designers, and researchers

Technical Specs

  • Passively measures fluid intake; clips onto 96% of commercially sold bottles, no flat surface required
  • 30-day battery, IP67-rated, inductive charging
  • App adapts reminders around activity, weather, and lifestyle, not a static daily target

Press

IoTMachine LearningFlutterFirebaseSwift

LOG 004 Nov 2025 — Apr 2026 Active

Research Team

TheSchoolOf.AI, ERA V4

Long-form technical team training modern deep learning systems end-to-end at dramatically lower cost. Driving the training stack and model growth/expansion.

Key Work

  • Trained deep learning models from scratch: CNNs and Transformers
  • Multi-GPU training of ResNet architectures on the full ImageNet dataset
  • Full Quantization-Aware Training (QAT) beyond LoRA/PEFT
  • Research project: collaborative pretraining and instruction-tuning of LightningLM, a 120B-parameter sparse MoE LLM trained from scratch. Contributed to the training stack and model growth/expansion

Preprint Publications

Press

Technologies

PyTorchDeepSpeedCUDAQATMulti-GPU

LOG 005 2023 — Present Active

Competitive Speaker

Speech & Debate — Extemp & Impromptu

National-circuit extemporaneous speaker. Quarterfinalist at the Cal Invitational (Berkeley) and 4th Place at the National TOC Digital Series #2. TOC Gold Bid, 3x TOC Bid, 6x NIETOC Bid.

Recognition

  • Quarterfinalist, National Circuit Cal Invitational (Berkeley) (Extemp)
  • 4th Place, National TOC Digital Speech & Debate Series #2 (Extemp)
  • TOC Gold Bidder & TOC Qualified ('26): 1st place Mt. Vernon '26 (Extemp & Impromptu)
  • 1st Place, International Extemp, Puget Sound District '26; WA State Championship Finalist
  • 4th Place, WIAA WA State Extemp Championship
  • 6x NIETOC Bid ('24-'26)
  • Top 65 nationally, Big Questions Debate (2025)

Events

ExtemporaneousImpromptuBig Questions

LOG 006 Jun 2024 — Dec 2024 Complete

Software Engineer Intern

ONDC/Bizom — Bangalore, India

Built computer vision and dense object detection system for inventory tracking and automated customer support using AI. Automated 100+ daily customer queries with 96% accuracy on both text and visual feedback.

LOG 007 Jun 2024 — Dec 2024 Complete

Volunteer Software Intern

FAME India — Bangalore, India

Built application for caregivers to collect real-time feedback from student beneficiaries with neurodevelopmental disabilities. Automated parent feedback workflows and developing centralized information system for NDD care resources.

LOG 008 2024 — Present Active

Community Outreach Co-Chair

Eastside Preparatory School

Lead organizer for TEDxEastside Preparatory School, a Youth TEDx event on October 29, 2026. Official TEDx license approved; curating community ideas & talent. Developing a smart scheduling widget for the entire student body to optimize assignment pacing and improve learning rates.

LOG 009 2025 — Present Active

Founder & Organizer

Frontier Cascadia 501(c)(3) ↗

Seattle's high school hackathon for the most technically ambitious builders in the Pacific Northwest. 12 hours to ship something real, judged by engineers, VCs, and university faculty. $10,000+ in prizes, free to enter. Officially registered as a 501(c)(3) public charity. September 19, 2026.

Education

Academic excellence across multiple domains.

Eastside Preparatory School

Class of 2027 GPA 3.98 / 4 (unweighted)

Stanford University Programs

Pre-Collegiate Product Design (2025) · Machine Learning Specialization (2024)

STEP Computer Academy

3-year university-level CS program · Low-level programming & advanced algorithms

Pioneer Academics

Journal Nominee, top 6% of select Pioneer cohort; research detailed in the Mission Log

Skills

Expertise across multiple domains — from AI/ML to full-stack development.

Languages & Utilities

Python
TypeScript & JS
C/C++
Dart
Java
Rust
CAD/Fusion 360
IoT/Circuitry
Figma
Additive Mfg.

AI & Machine Learning

PyTorch
Computer Vision
NLP
TensorFlow
CUDA
LLM Fine-Tuning
Scikit-learn
Pandas
Transformers
Reinforcement Learning

Full-Stack Development

React
Next.js
Flutter
Node.js
Database Design
API Development
API Security
AWS
Linux CLIs
Docker

What's going on right now…

The projects and initiatives I'm actively working on.

Active Development

HydraSmart™ Development

Piloting the puck with doula networks and Lamaze educators nationwide. The device clips onto 96% of commercially sold bottles. App adapts reminders around activity, weather, and lifestyle rather than a fixed target.

Stage: MVP Piloting & Partnership Development

Research

Computer Vision Research

Developing a novel approach to detect micro-expressions and nonverbal cues for autism spectrum support through Pioneer Academics. Using advanced deep learning techniques with PyTorch and OpenCV.

Stage: IRB Approval

Planning

Frontier Cascadia

Seattle's high school hackathon for the Pacific Northwest. 12 hours, real projects, judged by engineers and VCs. $10,000+ in prizes, free to enter. September 19, 2026.

Stage: Registration opens May 1, 2026

Visit frontiercascadia.org →

Featured Projects

Innovation through code — solving real problems. Each world, a shipped idea.

Lingle™

Active Development

Class M // Language World

Writing-first language learning platform with fine-tuned AI models delivering unmatched accuracy. Partnering with regional schools to accelerate learning for all students.

∞Feedback
∞Lessons
4Languages
Download the App ↗ Website ↗

ExtemPT

Model Fine-tuning

Gas Giant // Rhetoric System

Generative AI platform for competitive speech prep with agentic tooling and advanced internet search capabilities. Complete comprehensive website for extemporaneous speech preparation.

250+Speeches
550+Hooks & Intros
94%Success Rate
Try ExtemPT (soon!) Learn More

EPCarpool

🏆 1st Place Winner

Earthlike // Sustainability World

Sustainability platform reducing single-car travel for school events by an order of magnitude. Allows event hosting and carpool registration. 1st Place Hackathon Winner 2023.

26.4kgCO2 Reduced PM
400+Students
50+Events
View Code ↗ Implement at School
Open Star Atlas — all worlds →

Let's Build Something Amazing

Ready to innovate? Let's connect and explore opportunities together.

Uplink established // Relay: Earth // All channels open

Email

nm@nikhilmahesh.com

Primary contact for all inquiries

Ground Station

Seattle, Washington

Available for remote & local opportunities

Available For

Internships, Consulting, Partnerships

Open to innovative projects and collaborations

LinkedIn

linkedin.com/in/nm-nikhil

Professional updates & connections

GitHub

github.com/n-mahesh

Open source projects & code

I typically respond within 24 hours during business days. For urgent matters, please mention "URGENT" in your subject line.