# NVIDIA Developer Champions **Build the next era of AI together. Lead the community as you go.** The NVIDIA Developer Champions (NDC) program supports and highlights hands-on, technical community leaders who educate, advocate for, and build with the NVIDIA stack in meaningful ways. Being a Champion is about impact. It’s for the passionate builders who lead, teach, and mentor, bringing their developer community along with them. As a Champion, you’ll be part of a select, invite-only cohort with direct access to NVIDIA technology, resources, and experts. Your role is simply to do what you do best: lead. Whether you’re organizing events, creating educational content, or mentoring new users, your contributions earn points that sustain your status in the program and unlock deeper tiers of support from us. ![](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/general/nvidia-developer-champions.jpg) * * * ## How to Apply ![Pencil icon.](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/icons/m48-pencil-edit.svg) ### Register for an Account To apply to the NVIDIA Developer Champions Program, you need to have an NVIDIA Developer account. [Register now](https://developer.nvidia.com/developer-program) if you’re not already a member. ![User and UI screen icon.](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/icons/m48-developer-1.svg) ### Apply for the Program Complete the application form for the NVIDIA Developer Champions Program. ![Checkmark in a circle icon.](https://developer.download.nvidia.com/icons/m48-check-mark-approved.svg) ### Await Email Confirmation When your NVIDIA Developer Champions Program application is received, you’ll receive an email. Please make sure nvidia.com domains are added to your safe list to avoid emails being flagged as spam. [Apply to Become a Champion](/developer-champions-program/join) ## Meet the Current Champions The rows below are the raw result records for this component — one row per record. Column names are the source index fields; the full data is also downloadable in the links that follow. | bio | group | links | title | location | full-name | last_name | organization | profile_page_url | profile_image_url | stack_layer_focus | ai_ecosystem_focus | years_of_experience | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Behzad Torkian is an expert in AI, large language models (LLMs), high-performance computing, and scalable architectures. He has contributed to multiple patents and developed advanced platforms that bridge cutting-edge research with real-world applications. His work drives innovation in cloud computing and machine learning, enabling organizations to harness AI at scale. Behzad has been collaborating with NVIDIA and bringing his deep technical expertise to help develop new generative AI and agentic AI certifications. He also leads AI strategy across multiple startups, turning emerging research into impactful products and solutions. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/bentorkian, https://github.com/torkian/ai-code-reviewer https://github.com/torkian/ai-program-factory | Principal Research Scientist | San Diego,CA, \| Columbia, SC | Behzad Torkian | Torkian | USC | /developer-champions/behzad-torkian | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/behzad-torkian.png | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 16-20 | | Founding DevRel for Crusoe Managed AI. I build the community of developers shipping frontier AI on Crusoe's GPU infrastructure — through hackathons, technical content, hands-on walkthroughs, and developer programs. My focus: creating the spaces where engineers building on the frontier come to learn, ship, and connect. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmanuel-acheampong/, https://github.com/acheamponge, https://x.com/achampiong | Senior Manager Developer Relations | Seattle, WA | Emmanuel Acheampong | Acheampong | Crusoe | /developer-champions/emmanuel-acheampong | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/emmanuel-acheampong.jpg | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 6-10 | | Fabian Duarte, Associate CTO at Insight, is a full-stack AI leader with 25 years of expertise in technology strategy. From his roots as a storage engineer through cloud architecture to AI, he now focuses on scaling NVIDIA practices and GPU deployments. Fabian is a certified expert versed in AI application development, agent deployment, and AI-defined results. An Advisory Board Member and mentor, he is dedicated to demystifying complex infrastructure and driving continuous innovation. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/duartefabian | Associate CTO | Chandler, AZ | Fabian Duarte | Duarte | Insight | /developer-champions/fabian-duarte | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/fabian-duarte.jpg | Platforms | Full-Stack Application Development | 20+ | | Grace Gong is a Cloud Reliability Engineer at Microsoft Azure with experience across developer tooling, machine learning observability, and cloud infrastructure. She has worked on Power BI and the Microsoft Fabric data platform, and previously worked on ML/LLM observability at Datadog. Grace is also a community builder, speaker, and mentor who has led developer programs and technical events for students and developers across data, cloud, and AI. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/1gracegong/, https://github.com/ggongg/, https://x.com/graceg0ng | Cloud Reliability Engineer | Redmond, WA | Grace Gong | Gong | Microsoft | /developer-champions/grace-gong | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/grace-gong.png | Systems | Full-Stack Application Development | 0-5 | | Kranthi designs and deploys production AI systems for enterprise healthcare and life sciences customers. Over the past decade, he has built deep expertise across enterprise integration on Azure, AWS, and Oracle Cloud, with a sharpened focus in recent years on clinical NLP pipelines, prior authorization automation, and HIPAA-regulated agentic AI. He works daily with Microsoft Agent Framework, LangGraph, LangChain, CrewAI, and the Azure AI Foundry ecosystem, helping organizations move agent prototypes into reliable production deployments. His work sits at the intersection of compliance and capability. He has been actively exploring runtime HIPAA enforcement for AI agent tool calls, an area he sees as critically underserved — no existing tool detects all 18 Safe Harbor identifiers at runtime. He has also developed a working AI Solutions Engineer Agent — a self-service demo system for healthcare enterprise customers spanning Azure Content Understanding, Foundry, Agent Framework, Copilot Studio, and Content Safety — designed to help account teams and customers reason about agentic patterns without standing up bespoke environments. Kranthi is also the founder and editor of The AI Runtime, a Substack publication and community for engineers shipping AI to production. He hosts monthly AI Runtime meetups in Cambridge, MA, bringing together engineers building agentic systems, and maintains a companion events site featuring speaker archives and resources for the community. Outside of his AI work, Kranthi has built creative AI-powered keepsake projects around his daughter's milestones — small experiments that often surface design ideas for his more serious systems work. He is interested in children's product design and screen-alternative experiences, and continues to explore how the principles of reliable, production-grade AI translate into more humane consumer experiences. Whether shaping an enterprise agent rollout for a hospital system, deliberating editorial direction for The AI Runtime, or judging hackathon demos, Kranthi's throughline is the same: the work isn't done when a model produces an impressive output — it's done when the system behaves reliably in the hands of real users. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/kranthimanchikanti/, https://github.com/ogkranthi | AI Solutions Architect | Boston, MA | Kranthi Manchikanti | Manchikanti | Microsoft | /developer-champions/kranthi-manchikanti | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/kranthi-manchikanti.jpeg | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 11-15 | | I'm Matthew, a sophomore Computer Engineering student at Texas A&M. I'm excited to bring NVIDIA's developer ecosystem to campuses worldwide! Outside of tech, I like to read, draw, and play basketball. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-shi-a2376b239/, https://github.com/Matthewtershi | Founder & Community Director | Austin, TX | Matthew Shi | Shi | tidalTAMU | /developer-champions/matthew-shi | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/matthew-shi.jpeg | Systems | AI Factory Infrastructure & Networking | 0-5 | | Rabimba is a Staff Machine Learning Scientist at PayPal with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Houston. He is a Google Developer Expert in ML and a Champion Innovator in Cloud AI. His work focuses on Large Language Models, multi-agent orchestration, security, and automated vulnerability detection. A passionate FOSS enthusiast, Rabimba actively develops AI solutions like LogInject and contributes to advancing the open-source ML ecosystem. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/rabimba, https://github.com/rabimba, https://x.com/rabimba | Staff ML Scientist | San Jose, CA, USA | Rabimba Karanjai | Karanjai | PayPal | /developer-champions/rabimba-karanjai | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/rabimba-karanjai.jpeg | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 6-10 | | Ron Caplan is a computational scientist whose interests are in developing and optimizing numerical methods for physics simulation models and their implementations in parallel high-performance-computing environments including GPU accelerators. His research currently focuses on the operation, development, and optimization of the thermodynamic magnetohydrodynamic code (MAS) used to study the solar corona and heliosphere, as well as providing computational solutions for additional projects. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/caplanr/, https://github.com/predsci, https://x.com/sumseq | Computational Scientist | San Diego, CA | Ron Caplan | Caplan | Predictive Science Inc. | /developer-champions/ron-caplan | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/ron-caplan.jpeg | Software | Industrial Digital Twins & Simulation | 16-20 | | Pacific northwest enthusiast, super passionate about how we can use AI to make the world a better place for all of us. In my free time I am an avid hiker. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/saalik-ahmed/, https://github.com/Kaboom2025/ | Software Engineer | Seattle, WA | Saalik Ahmed | Ahmed | UW | /developer-champions/saalik-ahmed | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/saalik-ahmed.jpg | Software | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 0-5 | | Samaresh Kumar Singh is an engineering principal at HP Inc. with more than 21 years of experience in designing and implementing large-scale distributed systems, cloud native platform systems, and edge AI / ML systems. His expertise includes agentic AI systems, GenAI / LLMs, Edge AI, federated and privacy preserving learning, and secure hybrid cloud / edge computing. Through-out his career he has been responsible for leading the design and implementation of high throughput, low latency services and resilient orchestration frameworks that provide intelligence closer to devices and data sources. Samaresh is also very active in the technical community, serving as a book review editor for Apress and Manning, and has reviewed more than 100 research papers submitted for publication in IEEE conferences and journals that span AI / ML, distributed systems, edge computing and cybersecurity. In addition, Samaresh is passionate about taking academic research from concept to working systems, and mentoring engineers and researchers. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/samaresh-singh-9772ba23/, https://github.com/ssam18 | Principal Engineer | Austin, TX | Samaresh Kumar Singh | Singh | HP Inc. | /developer-champions/samaresh-kumar-singh | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/samaresh-kumar-singh.jpg | Software | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 20+ | | Tom Bendien, Founder & CEO of GT Edge AI, leverages decades of tech experience to provide private, secure open-source AI solutions globally while advocating and running workshops for AI Literacy & Cyber education. He is actively working to support both Commercial and Government AI projects. | developer-champion-en | https://linkedin.com/in/tbendien, https://github.com/GT-Edge-AI-Internal/gt-ai-os-community | Founder & CEO | Washington, DC | Tom Bendien | Bendien | GT Edge AI | /developer-champions/tom-bendien | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/tom-bendien.png | Systems | AI Factory Infrastructure & Networking | 20+ | | I build AI products for Latin American enterprises. As Head of Product at Saptiva AI, I've taken our platform from concept to the infrastructure that banking, government, and education clients rely on, including a 5-year AI Lab at Universidad Iberoamericana and Mexico's first sovereign LLM, launched with the Ministry of Economy and NVIDIA. Background: International Relations (ITAM), full-stack Python, 3x NVIDIA Certified. | developer-champion-en | https://www.linkedin.com/in/carloslaraarias?, https://github.com/LaraArias, https://x.com/iaencorto?s=21 | Head of Product | Mexico City, MX | Carlos Lara | Lara | Saptiva AI | /developer-champions/carlos-lara | https://developer.download.nvidia.com/images/community/nvp/profile/carlos-lara.jpeg | Models | Agentic AI & Reasoning Systems | 6-10 | [Download the raw results data (JSON)](https://developer.nvidia.com/search-data/developer_champion_en.json) [Explore All Projects](/community/showcase) ## Why Become an NVIDIA Developer Champion? ![](https://brand-assets.cne.ngc.nvidia.com/assets/marketing-icons/2.3.0/accelerated-data-science.svg) ### Accelerate Your Development With NVIDIA Access Build your ideas and ask your questions with increased access to NVIDIA expertise, resources, and technology. ![](https://brand-assets.cne.ngc.nvidia.com/assets/marketing-icons/2.3.0/trophy-award.svg) ### Get Your Work Featured by NVIDIA When you ship something great, we help the world see it. We provide the stage—NVIDIA-owned channels, global events, and targeted community activations—to help you build your reputation and scale the reach of your contributions. ![](https://brand-assets.cne.ngc.nvidia.com/assets/marketing-icons/2.3.0/community-giving-2-financial.svg) ### Exclusive Perks We know you’re not here just for the swag, but we’re going to make sure you’re geared up anyway. Champions get exclusive merch, discounts on products, and priority invites to private events and workshops. ## The NVIDIA Developer Champion Profile We are looking for builders who lead by example. ### Community Centric You’re a natural doer, helper, and leader, pulse have a public track record in the developer community – starting or leading groups, or contributions such as speaking at or hosting events, publishing content, or mentoring other developers. ### Proof of Work An active GitHub, public demos, a winning hackathon track record. Whatever you’ve built, you make it real by showing instead of just telling. ### Technical Depth You’ve got technical chops and you’re hands-on. Whether you're optimizing kernels or building full-stack apps, you're using NVIDIA technology to solve hard problems. ### Share the Craft You don't just build; you share the journey. Whether it’s a deep-dive on Substack, a tutorial on YouTube, or a sharp thread on X, you break down complex builds and show others how it’s done. ## Frequently Asked Questions NVIDIA Developer Champions come from all different backgrounds. The common trait is their dedication to and involvement in the developer community. Champions are also familiar with some or all of the NVIDIA stack and enjoy leading, sharing knowledge, and making an impact on the community. Eligibility Criteria: - NVIDIA Power User: You have solid technical expertise in some area of the NVIDIA tech stack - Communication: You enjoy and are good at breaking down complex concepts, giving meaningful advice to others, and providing valuable technical guidance to others - Language: Proficient in English (the program’s primary language) - Skills \> Degrees: No formal education or diploma is required - Age: 18+ To become an NVIDIA Developer Champion, you must [apply here](/developer-champions-program/join). NVIDIA Developer Champion benefits include, but are not limited to: - Increased access to NVIDIA expertise, resources, and technology - Select amplification from NVIDIA-owned channels to promote Champion-led events and projects - Private channel for Champion cohort updates and collaboration - Free swag - Featured in the NVIDIA Developer Champion Directory This happens but don’t be discouraged! We are looking to grow the program over time so if you don't get accepted to the program on your first application, review the eligibility criteria and consider applying again. [Apply to Become a Champion](/developer-champions-program/join)