✍️"From Civil to AI: My Journey to Building Trust in Machines"

In 2012, I passed 10th with a GPA of 5.3.
In 2020, I completed my B. Tech in Civil Engineering.
In 2025, I’m researching how to make Artificial Intelligence explain itself.

It wasn’t a straight line.
It was a zigzag of doubt, discovery, breakdowns, and breakthroughs.

This blog is my voice — for those who feel too far behind to dream.
It’s called VoXAI because it’s not just about AI — it’s about making AI speak for those unheard.

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🏗️ From Bricks to Bytes: Why I Left Civil Engineering

For 3 years, I worked as a Site Engineer in Andhra Pradesh.
I saw structures rise. I saw concrete settle. But something inside me wasn’t built yet.

People mocked me when I said I wanted to get into coding.
"From site to software? You won’t survive." they said.

But I did. Quietly.
First Java. Then Python. Then .NET MVC.
Bit by bit, I shifted from building with bricks to building with logic.

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🧠 What Is VoXAI — And Why It Matters

My M. Tech research project is called VoXAI:

Voice-Augmented Explainable AI
for secure federated face recognition systems.

Why?

Because face unlock systems can be fooled.
They sometimes register two people for the same ID. That’s dangerous.
And worse — they don’t tell us why they made a mistake.

So I’m working on:

• Detecting flaws in face recognition (like multi-face registration)

• Training models that explain themselves using SHAP/LIME

• Deploying them in federated systems for privacy

• Letting AI speak its decisions aloud using Eleven Labs voice feedback

It's not just code. It's a mission.

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🌐 What I Want to Build (And Who I Want to Become)

I don’t want to be another backend developer.

I want to build systems that:

• Protect people

• Respect privacy

• Speak clearly, not mysteriously

And I want to prove to myself — and to those who doubted me — that

you can come from a village, from civil engineering, from low grades…
and still shape the future of technology.

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✨ What’s Next for Me

My goal is to continue this research through a PhD — ideally at the University of Luxembourg.
They care about secure AI. They care about explainability. And quietly… so do I.

This blog will track that journey:

• Every experiment

• Every failure

• Every breakthrough

• Every scar

Because real research isn’t clean.
It’s honest. Like this post.

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💬 If You're Reading This…

If you’re feeling stuck.
If you're changing careers.
If you're doubting your own code or your worth — you're not alone.

I’ve been there.
I'm still there sometimes.

But I’m not giving up. And neither should you.

Let’s build something worth trusting — in tech, in life, and in ourselves.

—
Mahesh Kumar Tippanu
M. Tech CSE @ GITAM | Researcher @ VoXAI
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mahesh-kumar-tippanu-343237a5/
GitHub: https://github.com/mahesh-tippanu

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