Hello from Kanpur: what I build, and what I'll write about here

On the mic
On the mic

Originally published at https://dev.to/pranjulrathour/hello-from-kanpur-what-i-build-and-what-ill-write-about-here-f2j. That copy is the canonical version and gets updates first.

I'm Pranjul Rathour, a GenAI engineer from Kanpur, India. This is the first post on this blog, so here is who is writing, what I have actually shipped, and what you can expect if you follow along.

What I build

Between February and July 2026, at Next Upgrad Web Solutions, I designed, built and shipped five production AI applications end to end, alone, and deployed all of them with Docker, CI and observability:

  • RAG.NextUpgrad: a retrieval-augmented generation service with hybrid dense plus BM25 retrieval, cross-encoder reranking, streaming cited answers, and a confidence gate that refuses to call the model when the evidence is weak. It runs in about 220 MB of memory, inside a free 512 MB instance.
  • FineTune Studio: fine-tune open models with QLoRA in a browser. Upload a dataset, validate it, train, watch the loss stream live, then compare base and tuned models side by side. Trains Qwen3-1.7B at about 3.2 GB of VRAM. 107 tests pass.
  • FaceVision: face detection, recognition and liveness checks that run entirely in the browser with ONNX Runtime Web. The backend only ever stores embeddings, never images.
  • DocuLens AI: document intelligence for invoices and contracts, with extraction, comparison and deterministic compliance scoring.
  • OCR & Speech Workspace: page-batched PDF OCR, live speech-to-text and document-scoped chat, built on Mistral's models.

Before that, I co-founded SCULT INDIA, where I lead engineering for a 14-member team, built the internal Studio CRM the agency runs on, and shipped 5+ paid client products. I'm finishing a BCA at Dr. Virendra Swarup Institute of Computer Studies, Kanpur.

What I have won

  • 1st prize, Changethon 2025, National Social Summit, IIT Roorkee, with Krishi Gyan, an AI agribot for farmers.
  • 1st prize, Product Genesis, Vividhotsava 2025 at CSJMU Kanpur, for BrandHive, presented by the Vice Chancellor.
  • 1st prize, BYTEBATTLE by MeetKats, with Annapurna, a food-sharing platform for donors, NGOs and volunteers, against 15+ teams.
  • Top 3 at IIT Kanpur's hackathon.

None of those came from knowing the most algorithms. They came from scoping tightly, shipping a working deploy before the demo, and explaining one tradeoff clearly. I'll write about that.

At the VSICS podium, Kanpur
At the VSICS podium, Kanpur

Who I mentor

I founded TechVerse Enclave, a developer community of 500+ members, and have mentored 200+ students in web development, AI and careers. In 2025 I ran two sessions at my own college, VSICS Kanpur: an AI-powered software development session in April, and the BCA induction in July, where I gave 100+ first-year students a three-year roadmap from first project to placement or startup.

What this blog will cover

One long-form piece a week, always from something I actually built or ran:

  1. Production RAG that refuses to hallucinate: retrieval, reranking, confidence gates, citations.
  2. Fine-tuning open models on a student budget: QLoRA, dataset validation, honest evals.
  3. Vision, OCR and speech in real products: privacy-by-design, browser-side inference.
  4. Shipping AI as a small team: the unglamorous parts that keep a service up.
  5. From college hackathons to production: what wins, what gets you hired, portfolio over certificates.
  6. Running a student tech community without burning out.

Short daily takes go out on LinkedIn and Bluesky. Code lives on GitHub.

Trophy and certificate of merit at Vividhotsava 2025
Trophy and certificate of merit at Vividhotsava 2025

Invite me

I run free hands-on sessions for college tech clubs and placement cells, and I'm open to judging hackathons, mentorship sessions and guest talks at IITs, NITs and any campus that wants its students shipping real things. Write to pranjulrathour41@gmail.com or message me on LinkedIn. Full talk menu, past sessions and logistics: https://pranjulrathour.hashnode.dev/pranjul-rathour-genai-engineer-campus-mentor-speaker

If you're a student reading this: pick one problem you have, ship the ugliest working version this week, and write 500 honest words about what broke. That loop is the whole method. See you next week.

Pranjul Rathour · GenAI engineer, 3x hackathon winner, campus mentor. Open for GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks: pranjulrathour41@gmail.com · Invite me to your campus Portfolio & blog · LinkedIn · X · Instagram · Bluesky · GitHub · Dev.to

From my carousels
1,211 Prompts, Every One Stamped
1,211 Prompts, Every One Stamped, slide 11,211 Prompts, Every One Stamped, slide 2
1,211 Prompts, Every One Stamped, slide 31,211 Prompts, Every One Stamped, slide 4
Full carousel on Instagram and LinkedIn.
Pranjul Rathour
Pranjul Rathour
GenAI engineer, Kanpur · 3x first-prize hackathon winner · campus mentor
I ship production RAG pipelines, fine-tune LLMs and build agentic AI products end to end. I lead engineering at SCULT INDIA for a 14-member team and have mentored 200+ students through TechVerse Enclave.
Open to: GenAI roles, hackathon judging, mentorship sessions and guest talks at colleges.
On stage, at hackathons and on campus
Walking a room through evaluation criteria
Walking a room through evaluation criteria
A career session for students
A career session for students
Requirements gathering and user flows, on stage
Requirements gathering and user flows, on stage

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