About

I'm Vaibhav, sometimes known as VaiMan online, a final-year Computer Science student at VIT-AP. I've probably learned more by trying to build things than by following any plan to learn them.

It usually starts with a problem. Something I face, something a friend complains about, or something that simply makes me think, "There has to be a better way to do this." Then comes the fun part: trying to build it, breaking it in ways I didn't expect, getting feedback, and going back to the drawing board.

One of the projects that taught me the most was an attempt to build a one-to-one live talking experience shortly after ChatGPT came out. Speech recognition existed, but building a smooth, natural experience wasn't as straightforward as it is today. Somewhere along the way, I found myself thinking about filler words, pauses, and all the messy little things that make human conversation sound human.

I also spend a lot of time teaming up with friends for hackathons and coding events. We've won a few along the way, but honestly, the best part has always been the people I meet, the conversations, the ideas, and yes, the free food. Winning is nice too. That's technically why we're there.

More recently, I completed Google Summer of Code, where I worked on ClassBound, an open-source project for visualizing classification decision boundaries. Right now, I'm exploring problems around elderly care in India, where the ecosystem feels fragmented, while also building an AI inference project from scratch because I wanted to understand what actually happens beneath the abstractions we use every day.

My interest in building things goes back much further than college. When I was around 10, I wanted to make games and used websites like Sploder without really understanding programming yet. I just liked the idea that you could take something from your head and turn it into something other people could interact with.

Outside of building, I enjoy reading about space, psychology, and applied mathematics. I play table tennis when I want some physical competition and solve puzzles when I want the mental kind.

A lot of my curiosity and entrepreneurial spirit comes from my grandfather. He introduced me to different domains of life, encouraged me to stay curious, and taught me to look beyond the obvious. More than anyone else, he shaped the way I think about the world and the possibilities within it.

My friends back in school also influenced me in an important way. They gave me a positive competitive spirit. Being around people who were doing interesting things made me want to push myself further, and hopefully push them further too.

College changed me in other ways as well. I used to lean more toward being an ambivert, but over time I've become much more comfortable meeting new people, being proactive, taking leadership roles, and sharing what I've learned.

And through all of this, there's one question I keep coming back to: what next?

Once I finish something, I usually find myself looking for the next problem to explore, the next thing to learn, or the next idea worth trying. I don't think I'll ever completely run out of things I'm curious about, and honestly, I hope I don't.

If you're reading this, I appreciate you making it this far. And come on, don't be shy to reach out. I'd genuinely appreciate hearing from you. You can find me through any of the links below. Except Instagram :) I'm not active there yet.