# Nikhil Deshpande

> Putting technology where it had not been, in the language of whoever had to use it.

Nikhil Deshpande, Mumbai. CTO three times, product owner, founder. Twenty-one years across manufacturing, auto aftermarket, marketing, healthcare and applied AI. Site: https://nikhilrdeshpande.com. Email: nikhilrdeshpande@gmail.com. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilrdeshpande. GitHub: https://github.com/nikhilrdeshpande.

Static HTML with the full content on every page. No analytics. Every claim revised after re-running is listed on /corrections.

## Writing
- [Can Jev Pass AI 101?](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/jev-ai-101): Seven problems from the standard AI syllabus. Judgment is cheap now. Planning still is not. (2026-09-21)
- [I Tried to Break My Own Demo](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/connectome-controls): A fly connectome webcam demo, a degree-preserving shuffle, and a frozen connectome that never clearly beats raw pixels. (2026-09-19)
- [An AI Blessing Booth at Home for Ganpati](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/ganpati-blessing-booth): Three days, one laptop, an ESP32 camera, and the decision that mattered was what to show while the AI was thinking. (2026-09-16)
- [He Can Name More Things Than He Can Build](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/he-can-name-more-things): A weekend vibe coding with an eight year old, and the shape of the new learning. (2026-08-23)
- [Taste: The Part You Cannot Prompt For](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/taste): The council passed the chapter. Every agent approved it. And the chapter was dead. (2026-08-19)
- [Judgement Is the Thing You Cannot Automate](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/judgement): Choosing is not a skill that improves because your tools improved. If anything it gets worse. (2026-08-12)
- [Fifteen Years of the Same Problem](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/why-marathi-fiction): Distribution, then publishing, then a benchmark, now the writing itself. Four attempts, one language. (2026-08-11)
- [The Maharashtra FDA Shipped Something Good](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/maharashtra-fda): Three days between the domain existing and the Commissioner announcing it. I read the source. (2026-08-10)
- [The Em Dash With a Standards Body](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/watermarking): An unreliable signal with institutional backing is worse than no signal at all. (2026-08-10)
- [The Danger Was Never Access](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/the-danger-was-never-access): An eight year old asks why a detergent brand is advertising to him, and the parental controls turn out to answer the wrong question. (2026-07-03)
- [The Gate Never Holds](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/the-gate-never-holds): A frontier model was withdrawn from foreign users overnight. Access is becoming a weapon, and every gate in history has leaked. (2026-06-13)
- [Ideas No Longer Need Permission](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/writing/ideas-no-longer-need-permission): Ideas used to compete on how much effort they could survive. Now the cost of trying is a few tokens, and choosing is the hard part. (2026-03-30)

## Work
- [Food plan generation engine](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/food-plan-engine): Almost 80% less time per plan. For coaches building nutrition plans by hand, and the people they advise. 2024–2026.
- [MechanikTV](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/mechaniktv): 30,000 users. For auto mechanics in India who learn by video, not manuals. 2019–2021.
- [Jev AI 101](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/jev-ai-101): 22,000 decisions, under three dollars. For anyone shipping on a decision model who wants a number before a demo. 2026.
- [Crystalsoft](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/crystalsoft): An ERP running in Gadchiroli. For sugar refinery clerks who had never used software. 2011–2013.
- [Royal Challengers Bangalore](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/rcb): About 1M downloads across four IPL seasons. For a cricket franchise and its national audience. 2013–2019.
- [Luke AI](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/luke-ai): One expert, eighty practitioners. For around eighty nutritionists inside the practice, and the clients they advise. 2024–2026.
- [Connectome controls](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/connectome-controls): The wiring never clearly beats raw pixels. For myself first, then anyone shipping a demo on borrowed structure. 2026.
- [iPuraskar](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/ipuraskar): 250,000 coupon transactions a month. For channel influencers in the auto aftermarket, on feature phones. 2019–2021.
- [Ganpati blessing booth](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/ganpati-booth): 82 captures, 73 portraits. For eighty guests in a house, on one laptop, in one evening. 2026.
- [Callr.live](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/callr-live): 1M+ call minutes for one client. For enterprise brands running video consultations at scale. 2022–2023.
- [Tikao Technologies](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/tikao): Did not find product-market fit. For brands that needed sustainability claims they could defend, and the people who buy from them. 2023–2024.
- [Experience Commerce](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/experience-commerce): 30% of company revenue. For a digital marketing company that needed a second business, and the brands it built platforms for. 2013–2019.
- [The revenue system](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/work/revenue-system): Zero lead drop. For a sales team doing data entry, and a management team that could not see the pipeline. 2024–2026.

## Building now
- [Stripii](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/building/stripii): Your data never leaves your computer. (CLI ready · Mac app in progress · desktop app paid, CLI open)
- [AI Reading Pen](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/building/ai-reading-pen): A child still learning to read needs it in their own language more than anybody. (Public repo · built for Claude Dev Day)
- [Visual QA](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/building/visual-qa): It has never run on a shop floor, and until it does I am not claiming it works. (Local prototype · adapters parked until a factory pilot)
- [Jev AI 101](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/building/jev-ai-101): Judgment is cheap now. Planning still is not. (Playable · full benchmark and method online · repo going public)

## Also running
- Bobhata: Media · ten years (https://www.bobhata.com)
- Vartaforge: Platform · in build
- Kathaforge: Fiction engine · in build

## Corrections
- 2026-09-21 Jev solves 0 of 6 puzzles by ranking: 0 of 6 eight-puzzles solved → 16 of 30, once the search could back up
- 2026-09-21 Beats the textbook tagger: Jev beats the textbook tagger, 93.9% against 92.5% → On par: 92.9% against 92.3% at twice the data
- 2026-09-21 Never died in the Wumpus world: Eight worlds, no deaths → Fifty worlds, died in 10
- 2026-09-19 The connectome ablation number: Removing the two loom-sensitive cell types dropped escape to zero → 0.33 on MaleCNS v1.0
- 2026-09-17 No style could save the last four guests: The four guests with no portrait were style failures → A framing problem, not a model problem

## Optional
- [About](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/about)
- [RSS](https://nikhilrdeshpande.com/rss.xml)