Tanmay Bakshi , one of the youngest Algorithmist in the world, spoke at the IBM THINK event on the future of health. (He was 14 when he delivered this presentation).
Of all his recent AI projects, Tanmay believes these three are the most critical:
- Clinical trials for drugs
Tests are run to make sure no one experiences adverse effects, but all of our bodies are different, and there are billions of us in the world, so it’s hard to guard against the potential of something going wrong. Correlation does not equal causation, so even experiences of effects in an individual can’t be verified. The FDA’s database could help solve this problem, as could many other sources — including social media. Custom models can be trained to pull that data and apply it more effectively. - Augmenting the lives of people through the power of cognitive
This project focuses on assisting those with special needs to allow them to live better, fuller lives. After Tanmay’s introduction of the topic, attendees watched a moving video about a woman with Rett Syndrome named Boo in a small town. As she cannot speak or express herself clearly, Tanmay and his team are working to help her communicate with her family. The technology developed used an EEG headset, custom-printed to her head, pairing the data with deep learning algorithms to sense neural responses. This project is the source of great hope for the future of those with special needs and their caretakers. - Assisting in the field of mental health
Tanmay is working with another team to develop and evolve a platform that uses AI to create an early warning system for depression in teens. This has been extended to the veteran population in the US as well. Chatbots can assist patients and provide an outlet for those in critical need, averting suicide and helping them on the path to wellness. Machine-learning therapy is the next step.
Tanmay ended by assuring the audience that AI is not replacing humans; it’s going to empower us! We’re amplifying our own abilities so we can do more. He sees AI more as IA: intelligence amplified.

Tanmay Bakshi at the age of 14, has already spoken to over 150,000 people live worldwide about programming and its value for society.
His passion for programming began when he started coding at the age of five, where he fixed his schools computers. Today he builds applications engineered to augment human capabilities. He is an algorithm-ist specializing in neural-network architecture, a published author, AI keynoter and TED speaker, Visiting Faculty Member at Grad Valley Data Science, IBM Honorary Cloud Advisor and the host of IBM’s most popular Facebook Live Series called Watson Made Simple with Tanmay where he explains today’s most cutting edge technology in a way that people can understand and build themselves. His passion for learning and sharing through his YouTube channel, books, and other media has taught him how to best utilize and apply cognitive computing in fields ranging from banking and finance to healthcare and medicine to music.
Tanmay has already trained over 7,500 people of his initial goal of training 100,000 aspiring developers to create their own solutions. All of this has been done while finding time to work on the following two passion projects. The first is focused on helping those with Rett Syndrome so they can “speak” through the detection and interpretation of EEG signals analyzed by cognitive systems and the second focuses on suicide prevention through depression mitigation using AI.
Contact us to engage Tanmay Bakshi to speak at your next conference.