About

I’m Iftekhar “Ifty” Ahmed, a computer science student at Rice University. I grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and now study in Houston. Earlier coverage of my work used the name Iftekhar Ahmed Tonoy.

I started building technology in high school. With Brailly, I worked on affordable devices and software that helped blind students access books, learning tools, and everyday computing. That work included the Blind Eye app and Braille Board, and later my research on SwingBoard, a swipe-based keyboard.

At Rice, I co-founded Diagnos with Thun Silpsamrit. We built an AI nutrition app that estimates nutrients from food photos and campus dining menus.

Today, I’m working on Qube and Translucid: secure real-time collaboration and the infrastructure for protected cloud sessions. I’m also exploring source-backed investigations through TraceDog and visual context for AI agents through Lenze.

My interests connect human-centered computing, accessibility, AI, and privacy. I’m interested in how people use these systems in practice, and what it takes to make them useful and trustworthy.