Carpe Diem
Let's Do It, Together
Carpe Diem Let's Do It, Together
Azra Bano
TL;DR: I build human-centric tech to help society 🫀
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“Sounds like every CS major.” Haha, no.
Not your average CS major. I’m an ENGINEERING major.
Fancy Award (1 of 14.5K+ students)
Computer Engineering — but make it invisible (chips, logic, firmware, backend code). If you're reading this, it’s already working. 💻
Full-Stack Developer: I make your experience look pretty and the backend stuff not crash. Keep scrolling, yw.
AWS, MIT, NASA, Goldman Sachs, etc.
NSF-Trained (and funded) Startup Founder: 🤫
R1 research:
Quantum computing @ Columbia. (Young Sheldon arc)
Smart nanotech & Augmented Reality @ Rutgers.
Founder of Neuro-Edu Org @ Yale Med: 10K+ students, 150+ orgs, 5 countries. Making neuroscience click — worldwide. 🌍
Tech Policy Advocate: Thanking ChatGPT before it takes us over.
Elected University Rep: Advocating for 40,000+ students.
I don’t believe in solo journeys to the top. 🚀
Hey, but I’m human too.
South Indian (yeah, I was in Kumon…then went back as a teacher)
Eldest daughter, big sister, “Mom” friend, plans every hangout, loves horse-back riding & the beach.
CR7, F1, Celtics ☘️🏀 & Patriots Fan (Not a bandwagon, just used to live in New England).
My work is driven by my belief that technology can revolutionize lives, for the good.
Why Carpe Diem?
Why Carpe Diem? You see it everywhere on my posts—LinkedIn, Instagram—and if you meet me in person, you'll notice it engraved on my signature bracelet I never go anywhere without.
To me, it's more than a phrase; it's a way of life. It’s about seizing every opportunity, embracing the present, and making the most of every moment, no matter how big or small.
"Wow, impressive for your age."
I know. Age is just noise. Impact does the talking.
Pictures in Action
Pictures in Action
Outstanding New Student Leader 2025 for my leadership in Nanotech Research, Student Government, Entrepreneurship, and Finance. Given to 1 student out of a class of 14,500+
I was part of the team running the Rutgers MARK Conference, one of largest student leadership conferences in America.
My Startup Co-Founders. Selected for ScarletPitch, an exclusive Pitch Competition @ Rutgers where only the top 20% get chosen to pitch.
Startup CEO Grind: Presenting at ScarletPitch 2025, a Pitch Competition @ Rutgers. Out of hundreds of teams, only the top 20% are selected to present.
What's more fun than the post-Pitch dinner with your Co-Founders?
Grinding it out @ HackRU, the iconic Rutgers hackathon. We created Beacon: an AI tool to help victims of wildfires.
Invited to an NYC Dinner for Entrepreneurs, hosted with NasDaily & Co-Founder of Venmo: Iqram Magdon-Ismail! Launched his new app: JellyJelly Video Chats! Add me on there: @azra
3rd Place in a Barclays Datathon, where we drew insights from traffic datasets to help create safer traffic laws. Had to grab some victory Taco Bell!
Asking a question to chief Washington correspondent for FOX News Channel, Mike Emanuel, at my Byrne Seminar with President Jonathan Holloway of Rutgers University!
As part of the National English Honor Society, I went to different schools across Central NJ to promote reading during "Read Across America" week!
For my Final Project in Integrated Data-Driven Design for Engineering Applications, we were asked to create a toy and thanks to my incredible group (Jesse Trujilo, Ashad Mohamed, and Isabella Menist), we 3D printed a toy train (used Onshape) based on Universal Design Principles (inclusive + accessible design) for kids ages 3-9 years.
Throwback to when I was Co-Chair of Vote16 JC, and hosted a rally at Jersey City City Hall with my team with Pix-11 press on-site to promote lowering the voting age to 16 in Board of Education Elections.
At the 2023 Ali Leadership Institute Gala as a graduate, presenting my non-profit with my Co-Founder, Zach Yabut - Project Pantree, which gives back hygienic and food products to those in need across Hudson County, NJ.
Did full-stack development for a project in the realm of Med-Ed (Medical Education) for a Healthcare-oriented Hackathon at Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ! (We won 4th Place!)
A team made up of PhD, medical, graduate students - and me, a Freshman in Undergraduate! And the only woman on our team!
Presenting a solution for Hermann Trucks to the CEO, Jeffrey Hermann, to incorporate sustainability in their product designs! This was taken at Rutgers-Newark Business School at a Supply Chain Certification Program.
Being Student Body President and serving over 2K students in High School was a blast! Here's me getting pied at our bi-annual Pep Rally by my Vice President!
Won 2nd in Parliamentarian Debate in the Muslim Interscholastic Tournament (MIST) with my partner, Raahim Hashmi (Duke '28) over several preliminary rounds with dozens of talented competitors across New Jersey!
Attending Rutgers Student Assembly's annual Retreat for Elected Voting Members - elected in my first semester of college to serve over 40,000 students and the Rutgers School of Engineering!
Invited to speak and attend the launch of the Rutgers Democracy Lab with other student leaders and political scientists across Rutgers!
At the 1st Rutgers TechStart Business Pitch competition with my incredible team - thanks to our sponsor, RedBull!
Presenting our team idea for a social media fitness app modeled after "BeReal" that destigmatizes fitness trends and contributes to a healthy community.
Participated in a Machine Learning Competition @ Rutgers & was the lead programmer for a predictive model for housing prices. 🏠📊 I used: Preprocessing (feature engineering, data scaling & data conversion), Polynomial Features (allowing the model to capture non-linear relationships while keeping the model linear), regularization with Ridge Regression & train/test split for model validation (to reduce overfitting & stabilize coefficient estimation). My Project achieved the highest R-squared value (0.75), meaning the model explains 75% of the variance in housing prices - a substantial benchmark! 🎯 Thanks to Gabriele Lisci & Kristen Reilly!
A picture with Mussab Ali (former Jersey City Board of Education President) and my Ali Leadership Institute Cohort at our 2023 Rally to lower the voting age to 16 in local School Board Elections.
Community service is at the heart of what I do! Here's a throwback picture of a park cleanup at Johnson Park, NJ.
Teamwork makes the dream work.
I've been exposed to Business since Freshman Year of High School - here's a picture of me during a mentor program with fellow peers by Rutgers Business School Alumni (RUBY)
Ali Leadership Institute Cohort '23
Presenting a poetry piece at the Muslim Interscholastic Tournament's Poe-Tea Event! Thank you AP Lit for teaching me to love reading and writing poetry.
5'2 Woman Things
As part of the Neuroscience Education non-profit organization I lead, this is a picture of an educational event to help students with their Research Projects and introducing high schoolers to conducting research.
Presented at the 2024 Rutgers Materials Science Engineering Research Symposium and created EcoMate, an AI-driven Environmental Optimization System, improving sustainability practices. Achieved 30% increase in recyclable materials, 25% decrease in packaging waste through circular economical solutions through my simulation.
Working with high schoolers across NJ to promote Neuroscience Education with Yale Neurology!
Won 5th Place across NJ in Parliamentarian Procedure at HOSA State Leadership Conference by conducting a simulated business meeting using parliamentary procedure.
Discover more about my resilience behind my passion for creating meaningful impact.
4th Place in Rutgers Health Hackathon
We created CureBytes: a cloud-based AI driven model to allow teachers to provide medical students with comprehensive feedback for their medical notes.
So, why should you care?
I do a lot. Why should you care, and how can you get involved?