Uzair Qidwai
Building agentic AI systems, with fifteen years of production financial infrastructure behind it
Über mich
I build AI systems and help people decide what is worth building. I am completing a Master of Applied Science in Computer Science with an AI concentration at Penn Engineering, where I also teach as a graduate TA across operating systems, algorithms, and machine learning. I hold the CFA charter and an MBA with Distinction from Imperial College London. As a founder I built and shipped three products end to end. DataDex, a data tokenisation platform on Vana, reached nine figures in lifetime volume and was acquired by a strategic buyer. Symmetric, a multi chain DeFi protocol, went live across eight EVM networks and secured ecosystem grants from Balancer, Gnosis, Celo, Telos, and Meter. Cent Finance raised institutional capital and ran a team of fifteen before I wound it down. My current work is agentic systems: agent architecture, tool use and planning loops, Model Context Protocol tooling, and evaluation harnesses that measure whether an agent actually completes what it claims to. That last part is where most AI projects quietly fail. Most people advising on AI have never deployed it. Most people who deploy it cannot explain the commercial case. I do both, and I would rather leave you with one usable decision than an hour of frameworks.
Spezialisierungen
AI Engineering, Strategy and Implementation
Meine Stärken
• Practitioner depth rather than commentary: I write the code, run the evaluations, and ship the systems • Financial rigour from a CFA and MBA background, so I pressure test the business case as hard as the architecture • Fifteen years across finance, protocol engineering, and now AI, including one exit and one clean wind down • Teaching experience with 200 plus graduate engineers, so I explain hard material without condescension • Willing to tell you the honest answer, including when the honest answer is that AI is the wrong tool here
Das nimmst du mit
• A clear read on whether your AI idea is genuinely differentiated or a thin wrapper with good marketing • Architecture direction on agentic systems: planning loops, tool use, retrieval, and how to evaluate reliability • Practical guidance on moving into AI engineering from finance, consulting, or another non technical background • A founder's view on fundraising, grant strategy, and knowing when to stop
Meine Themen
• Agentic AI: agent architecture, tool use, Model Context Protocol, retrieval augmented generation • Evaluation and reliability: how to measure whether an AI system is safe to put in front of users • AI strategy: use case selection, build versus buy, where the margin actually sits • Technical due diligence on AI products and teams • AI career transitions from finance, consulting, or non technical backgrounds • Founding, fundraising, grant strategy, when to exit and winding down cleanly • Graduate study in CS and AI: programme selection, admissions positioning, coursework
Was dich erwartet
Send your question and context ahead of the session and I will come prepared with a view, not a blank page. If you send code, a deck, or a document, I will read it beforehand. Sessions are direct. I will ask what you have already tried, push on assumptions, and end with two or three specific next actions. If your question sits outside what I can genuinely help with, I will say so early and point you elsewhere. Sessions in English. I am based in North America, so European afternoons or evenings work best.
Fragen & Antworten
Three groups. Teams trying to work out whether an AI initiative is real or theatre. Founders who want an honest technical and commercial read on what they are building. And people moving into AI engineering from finance, consulting, or another non technical field.
Closer to sparring. I have built the things I advise on, so I bring a view rather than only questions. You will get disagreement where I think you are wrong, and I will tell you plainly when I do not know.
Very few people hold both a CFA charter and production engineering experience. I have modelled assets institutionally, deployed live systems across eight networks, built an agentic AI system with a working evaluation harness, and taught operating systems and machine learning to graduate engineers. That means I can assess the architecture and the business case in the same hour.
That is the most common conversation I have. We work backwards from the actual bottleneck in your business rather than forwards from the technology. Often a simpler system solves it, and I will say so. When AI genuinely fits, we cover what to build, what to buy, and what it will realistically cost to run and maintain.
I can help you judge whether the move is realistic, work out which of your existing skills transfer and which do not, and stress test how you present yourself. I cannot promise interviews or introductions, and anyone promising those is selling you something else.
That distribution matters more than the product, and that knowing when to stop is a separate skill from knowing how to build. DataDex found a strategic buyer because it solved a real operational problem for someone already in that market. Another venture did not, and I closed it rather than let it drift. I will bring the same honesty to your situation.
A short note on your situation and the specific decision in front of you. The more concrete the input, the less time we spend on background.
Yes, and what stays in the conversation stays in the conversation. Send an agreement ahead of time if you want one signed first.
Anything requiring a licence I do not hold. I am not a financial advisor and will not tell you what to buy or hold. No legal or tax advice. And nothing in the personal or mental health space, where several genuinely qualified people on this platform are the right call instead.
As technical as you want. Model architecture, agent design, evaluation methodology, infrastructure, contract design. I teach for a living, so I can pitch the same material at whatever level is useful to you.
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