Let's build GPT: from scratch, in code, spelled out
A two-hour walk through building a GPT language model from an empty file, explaining attention and transformers line by line.
Watch on YouTube
Ahmet Ruçhan Avcı
Research Assistant - Data Scientist - AI/ML Engineer
Download CV"One awake enough to awaken all sleepers. Think different"
About
First and foremost, I am a leader and entrepreneur. I am also a computer engineer. Still ongoing, throughout my entire learning life, I have always been and continue to be intertwined with technology and its derivatives.
I thrive creating scalable engineering environments and processes with strong vision and solid fundamentals to enable businesses and fuel innovation.
Research Assistant at Boğaziçi University's Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Co-Founder & CTO of Ablacım, and an M.S. student in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at Boğaziçi University.
My research focuses on Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Reinforcement Learning, and Computer Vision. I also build AI-powered product platforms and previously developed clinical automation systems using FastAPI, OCR, Speech-to-Text, and RAG.
Graduated 1st in class from Beykent University Computer Engineering. Former TÜBİTAK intern, Aikido black belt, and competitive robotics participant (TEKNOFEST, European Rover Challenge).
Location: Istanbul · Available for: open source, collaborations
Experience
Sep 2026 – Present
Research Assistant
Boğaziçi University · Freelance · Bebek, Istanbul, Türkiye · On-site
Working as a research assistant at the Computer Laboratory of the Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, focusing on Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Reinforcement Learning, and Computer Vision.
2025 – Present
Co-Founder & CTO
Ablacım · Istanbul, Turkey
I built Turkey's first AI-powered palm reading platform from the ground up — users hold their hand to the camera and receive a 3,000+ word personalized life reading within minutes. I designed and deployed the full backend architecture using a vision-capable LLM, MongoDB Atlas vector search, and a LangGraph multi-node pipeline, alongside a custom “Abla” AI persona with a prompt engineering framework and a multi-layer guardrail system. I architected the payment-based SaaS model and reduced per-user API costs by ~70% through vision report caching. Targeting Turkey's 35M+ active astrology and mystical content users.
Jul 2025 – Sep 2026
Jr. AI Engineer
Hisar Hospital Intercontinental · Üsküdar, Istanbul
Design and delivery of production AI features. OCR pipeline (≥300 docs/day), Speech-to-Text workflow (≥5 doctors/day), end-to-end RAG system (LangChain/LangGraph, Vector DB). Backend with PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis. Containerized deployment on Kubernetes.
Jun – Sep 2023
ML Engineer Intern
TÜBİTAK BİLGEM · Gebze, Kocaeli
B3LAB (Cloud Computing & Big Data Research Lab). Contributed to EU-funded STORAIGE project. Built anomaly detection systems (supervised + unsupervised). Processed 10,000+ datasets. Achieved 15% error reduction, 25% operational efficiency improvement.
Education
Jul 2026 – Present
M.S. in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence
Boğaziçi University · İstanbul, Türkiye
A thesis-based M.S. program grounded in Data Science, Machine Learning, and research in AI.
Nov 2020 – Jun 2024
Computer Engineering
Beykent University, Faculty of Engineering · İstanbul, Türkiye
Cumulative GPA: 3.64 / 4.0. Graduated at the pinnacle of class achievement within a competitive computer engineering curriculum, recognized with valedictorian honors while maintaining an average GPA above 3.64 across all semesters.
Oct 2015 – Jul 2019
Mathematics Science
Adile Mermerci High School · İstanbul, Türkiye
Projects
Trace Research Paper Studio
AI Research Tool · Open Source
Turns research papers into source-linked, interactive learning experiences. Page-level evidence, visual explanations, equation playgrounds, and portable web stories.
GitHub
DetectHub
Computer Vision Platform
Object detection platform for researchers and developers. Supports custom model training, dataset management, and inference APIs.
GitHub
Ablacım
AI Product · Co-Founder & CTO
Turkish AI-powered personal discovery platform. Multimodal vision analysis, RAG-based knowledge generation, payment integration.
Website
Dikte
Speech-to-Text Service
FastAPI-based STT backend for clinical use. SMB network share integration, async audio processing, deployed on Kubernetes.
GitHub
OCR Pipeline
Clinical Automation
Document processing system for Turkish medical records. ≥300 docs/day, insurance detection, Redis/ARQ async queuing.
GitHub
Autonomous Rover
Robotics · TEKNOFEST
Self-navigating robotic vehicle built for competitive robotics. ROS-based, deployed on Jetson hardware.
GitHub
ML-Core
ML Engineering Framework
Modular and extensible framework designed to accelerate ML and Deep Learning development. Reusable components for model training, evaluation, optimization, and data preprocessing.
GitHub
How to Learn
The hardest part of learning is rarely the material itself. It is knowing where to start and what to skip. This section is a curated, growing map of the videos and papers I found genuinely worth the time across machine learning, deep learning, data science, artificial intelligence, neural networks, computer vision, computer science, engineering, and programming. Everything is tagged by topic so you can follow a path instead of wandering.
Videos
Machine Learning Crash Course
Google's free, hands-on introduction to machine learning with short videos, interactive visualizations, and exercises. A solid first course.
Open the coursePapers
Attention Is All You Need
The paper that introduced the Transformer. It replaced recurrence with self-attention and became the foundation of modern language models.
Read on arXivEnglish Reading
Books worth reading in English, with a line or two on what each one is about. The list is here to help you pick your next book, not to be finished in order.
The Emperor of All Maladies
A "biography" of cancer, tracing thousands of years of the disease and the people who fought it. Pulitzer Prize winner.
About the book
The Last Lecture
A computer science professor, diagnosed with terminal cancer, shares what he learned about achieving childhood dreams and living fully.
About the bookBlog
Writing occasionally. More soon.
- Coming soon — On building RAG systems for clinical environments —
- Coming soon — vLLM vs TGI: inference benchmarking on RTX 5090 —
- Coming soon — What I learned at the AWS Kiro & Agentic AI conference —
- Coming soon — MCP (Model Context Protocol): what it is and why it matters —
Publications
Research in progress. Publications will appear here.
Contact
I read every message. Response time: a few days.
"The people who can change the world, are the ones who are crazy enough to believe it."
- Steven Paul Jobs
Gallery
Autonomous Rover
Autonomous rover work from competitive robotics projects.