rafan

RAFAN AHMED - incoming applied AI @ Truist , CS Graduate @ UNC Charlotte

Rafan wearing a sensor headset
hellow!! my name is
rafan ahmed (pronounced like “ra-fawn”, get it!?)!

i am a natural lover, i do believe. sometimes i whimsy and frolic a bit too much; sometimes i procure spectacles outside of my control; and sometimes, to put it bluntly, i move like a realpolitik pragmatist.

but, ultimately, i have a love for seeking gnosis. although my perspective on this is highly anthropocentric, i truly believe in, and do my best to, pursue and uphold rigor in the cultivation of knowledge granted to humanity, and in humanity’s capacity to shape that knowledge through the environment around us. whether that is for the betterment of, and connection with, those i love and work with, or alllll the way to the things i build, develop, and scale (like ai! i like ai a lot, it’s what i spend much of my time thinking about and building)!

i do best in contributing to and/or leading spaces through which competence, passion & humility are seen, acknowledged, and loved. for others and myself to be given the opportunity to cultivate and channel knowledge and scaling in ways that are contributory to oneself and, ultimately – hopefully economically (active developments here) – to each other!

i am a lover of building meaningful relationships with one another. i am a lover of learning and implementing things of rigor & meaning, and i try to implement and espouse this with those who i have immense care for and work with.

tl;dr (why didn’t yew read it all mweh ;-;):
i am someone who embodies the fact that knowledge is something humanity cultivates, and that rigor matters in cultivating said knowledge. knowledge gives human beings agency, and that agency should ultimately be directed toward meaningful ends, for oneself and for each other.

it was 2023, graduating early from highschool and moving to japan, when two really, really, really important things happened that changed the trajectory of what i wanted to contribute to and put purpose towards in my work:

Rafan at a Charlotte AI Research table with a mascot and a small robot
  1. gpt 4 released, and its capabilities absolutely fascinated me. it marked my (relatively late) dive into the world of technology, coming from a background of political science and psychology at the time. during the dawn of its release, while at a bar in kobe, a family friend convinced me to dive deep into this new frontier of challenge and opportunity
  2. i wanted to play call of duty black ops 3 without hackers and with access to all of the weapons, and the boiii client, created by momo5502, was available through a $5 sponsor on github. although activision sniped that repo, it remains the first project i ever sponsored on the platform. im unsure why this was so impactful for me then, but i know it somehow became a driver in my journey into technology
Rafan and friends sharing a meal

fast forward, now i am an upcoming computer science graduate this fall (as of 2026), incoming into truist’s technology leadership development program doing applied ai and leading a technical project with students at my university writing kernels for tenstorrent’s ai accelerator card — blackhole p100a — learning alongside them ;)

i love, love, love, love, love writing. i have so many drafts and i take forever to write as well, but i do have a blog!

A bunny standing at a microphone in a silly screenshot
Rafan with two people at a TEDx event
A round bunny with a small smirking face graphic beside it
Rafan with two people wearing Truist shirts

my favorite animals are fawns and bunnies! if you like them too, or you are also interested about my work and ai, feel free to reach out! check out the stuff i have done too

A small fawn being held
Rafan in Times Square

~ rafan >.<