Dr. Junaid Farooq

Curriculum vitae

Dr. Junaid Farooq · Chief Architect & VP of AI at Sprouts.ai · PhD in Artificial Intelligence

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Experience

PhD research was carried out alongside industry roles.

Chief Architect & VP of AI

Apr 2025 – present

Sprouts.ai · Remote

  • Owns end-to-end technology strategy, platform architecture and the technical roadmap across data engineering, vector search, LLM systems and agentic AI; final technical authority on system design, scalability and reliability.
  • Architected and scaled a multi-agent conversational AI platform powered by a semantic search engine.
  • Built the evaluation backbone, combining automated evaluation with human-in-the-loop review, and set AI governance, safety standards and production quality gates.
  • Leads the engineering and AI organisation: hiring, mentoring and engineering culture.
  • Architected and launched Sprouts Data (sproutsdata.ai), a business-data API and MCP server that gives AI agents, developers, professionals and enterprises access to company, people, patent and research data.
  • Partners closely with the CEO, CTO and CRO, and presents to the board, on technology and business strategy.
  • Drove the move from AI-ready to AI-native systems: autonomous workflows, retrieval and decision automation. Owns IP and patent strategy.
  • During the $9M pre-Series A (May 2026), led the technical discussions with investors and presented the AI-native product platform, data-processing and MLOps pipelines he architected and built, including in the boardroom.
  • Led the technical due diligence and negotiations on the Sprouts.ai side for the 2026 acquisition of StartUs Insights’ search and data technology and AI IP.

Principal ML Architect & Head of AI

Aug 2023 – May 2025

StartUs Insights · Vienna, Austria (remote)

  • Led the platform’s shift from legacy big-data SaaS to AI-native, architecting a production multi-agent AI platform and a semantic search engine over innovation-intelligence data.
  • Deployed and fine-tuned large language models and generative models on high-volume datasets.
  • Integrated AI across the platform to improve data quality, insight reliability and analytical depth.

Machine Learning Engineer & Head of R&D

Mar 2023 – Aug 2023

Genie AI · Toronto, Canada (remote)

  • Led R&D for production conversational AI systems using GPT and other large language models.
  • Trained, tested and optimised NLP models; partnered with engineering on production integration and automation.

Senior and Junior Research Fellow

Dec 2019 – Dec 2024

NIT Srinagar, AI Lab · Srinagar, India

  • Deep learning and computational intelligence research leading to a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and eight peer-reviewed publications.
  • Teaching assistance for undergraduate and postgraduate theory and laboratory courses.

Machine Learning Engineer

Jan 2017 – Dec 2019

Comp Soft Solutions · Sopore, India

  • Designed, developed, tested and deployed machine learning systems; provided client technical support and training.

Automation Engineer

Oct 2015 – Dec 2016

ETA STAR Group · Dubai, UAE

  • Designed, integrated, programmed, commissioned and tested industrial automation systems.

Education

PhD, Artificial Intelligence

2019 – 2024

National Institute of Technology Srinagar

Thesis: Breaking Barriers in Forecasting — A Hybrid Deep-Learning Approach to Spatiotemporal Dynamics. Supervisor: Prof. Mohammad Abid Bazaz. Defended publicly on 24 April 2024.

M.Tech, Electrical Engineering

2017 – 2019

National Institute of Technology Srinagar

Thesis: adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference systems for frequency control of microgrids.

B.Tech, Electrical Engineering

2011 – 2015

National Institute of Technology Srinagar

Supported by the IDB International Fellowship in Engineering.

Publications

8 peer-reviewed papers and 1 preprint.

  1. Junaid Farooq (2026). Semantic Compression Trees: Multi-resolution knowledge retrieval via hierarchical semantic residuals. arXiv.
  2. Junaid Farooq, Danish Rafiq, Pantelis R. Vlachas, Mohammad Abid Bazaz (2024). RefreshNet: Learning multiscale dynamics through hierarchical refreshing. Nonlinear Dynamics, 112(16), 14479–14496. doi:10.1007/s11071-024-09813-3
  3. Junaid Farooq, Mohammad Abid Bazaz (2023). Hybrid deep neural network for data-driven missile guidance with maneuvering target. Defence Science Journal, 73(5), 602–611. doi:10.14429/dsj.73.18481
  4. Junaid Farooq, Mohammad Abid Bazaz, Danish Rafiq (2023). Multiscale autoencoder-RNN architecture for mitigating error accumulation in long-term forecasting. ICETCI 2023, IEEE. doi:10.1109/ICETCI58599.2023.10331086 · Best Presentation Award
  5. Manzoor A. Wani, Junaid Farooq, Danish Mushtaq Wani (2022). Risk assessment of COVID-19 pandemic using deep learning model for J&K in India: a district level analysis. Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 29(12), 18271–18281. doi:10.1007/s11356-021-17046-9
  6. Danish Rafiq, Junaid Farooq, Mohammad Abid Bazaz (2022). Synergistic use of intrusive and non-intrusive model order reduction techniques for dynamical power grids. International Journal of Electrical Power & Energy Systems, 138, 107908. doi:10.1016/j.ijepes.2021.107908
  7. Junaid Farooq, Mohammad Abid Bazaz (2021). A deep learning algorithm for modeling and forecasting of COVID-19 in five worst affected states of India. Alexandria Engineering Journal, 60(1), 587–596. doi:10.1016/j.aej.2020.09.037
  8. Junaid Farooq, Mohammad Abid Bazaz (2021). Deep learning for self-tuning of control systems. ICETCI 2021, IEEE, 6–11. doi:10.1109/ICETCI51973.2021.9574048 · Best Paper Award
  9. Junaid Farooq, Mohammad Abid Bazaz (2020). A novel adaptive deep learning model of COVID-19 with focus on mortality reduction strategies. Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 138, 110148. doi:10.1016/j.chaos.2020.110148

Books

  • ZERO DAY: The Invisible War: Mastering Vulnerability in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (2025). ISBN 979-8276520100.
  • The Art of Code: Tactics and Principles of Clean Code and Architecture (2024).

Awards and languages

  • Best Paper Award, ICETCI 2021 (IEEE)
  • Best Presentation Award, ICETCI 2023
  • IDB International Fellowship in Engineering, 2011–2015

Languages: English, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Kashmiri