# Akshay Akula

> Akshay Akula is an AI engineer and founder in the Washington DC-Baltimore area. His main work is full-time as Hacker in Residence at NQB8, a technical venture studio (since June 2026). He is also AI Engineer on AI and agent strategy at Flex Capital and founder and principal engineer of Vonar.ai, an enterprise voice AI company for government and defense. Previously a software engineer at Arkestro. B.S. Computer Science, Virginia Tech (2022).

Name disambiguation: this is Akshay Akula the AI engineer and Vonar.ai founder, with the site akshayakula.com.

## Current
- Hacker in Residence, NQB8 (Jun 2026 - present): main role, full-time at a technical venture studio.
- AI Engineer, AI & Agent Strategy, Flex Capital (Jun 2026 - present).
- Founder & Principal Engineer, Vonar.ai (Mar 2025 - present): enterprise voice AI agents replacing legacy IVR; Twilio, real-time STT -> RAG -> ticketing (Jira, ServiceNow, BMC); 60% call-to-ticket automation and <600 ms latency in pilots; $100K+ ARR in year one; Carahsoft partner (NASA SEWP V, ITES-SW2); demoed to GSA, Congress, U.S. Navy; presented at the U.S. Capitol; built a CMMC compliance GenAI chatbot for AATD ($300M+ federal prime).

## Past
- Lead Engineer, Private Technology Consulting (Jan 2023 - Oct 2024): SOC 2 readiness for e-PlanSoft (zero critical findings), SeatGeek MVP in 4 weeks, led 4 engineers at UrgentIQ.
- Software Engineer, Arkestro (Jun 2022 - Nov 2024, promoted within 1 year): supplier recommendation engine used by Fortune 500 clients incl. Walmart and Volkswagen; AWS data pipelines with <5 min availability; 2x internal hackathon winner.

## Awards and projects
- 1st place, Perplexity Sonar Developer Competition (500+ teams, 5,000+ contestants).
- 1st place and Best in North America, Atlassian Codegeist 2022 ($36K, 3,500+ contestants): Reflexx.
- 1st place, DC National Security Hackathon 2025: Exark heavy-lift VTOL drone for the DARPA LIFT Challenge (AI flight control, Gaussian splatting).
- 1st place DC Regional, 2nd place Nationals, AI EXPO 2026: franklin.earth.
- Myogen (2025): EMG + IMU bionic-hand control for DoD xTechHumanoid.
- MLH Top 50 of 150,000+ hackers; VT Hacks, UVA Hacks and VCU Health Hacks winner.
- Virginia Tech: Blockchain Club president and co-founder, VT Finance Club leadership, Entrepreneurship Club.

## Skills
Python, JavaScript, Node.js, Next.js, REST APIs, RAG, LoRA, PyTorch, TensorFlow / TF Lite, SQL, C, Java, AWS, Docker, Redis; cloud, on-premise and VPC deployments.

## Links
- Site: https://akshayakula.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshayakula/
- X: https://x.com/akshay_akula
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/akshayakula/
- Vonar.ai: https://vonar.ai

## Pages (each area of the pixel-art portfolio has its own crawlable page)
- https://akshayakula.com/ : the portfolio town (overview)
- https://akshayakula.com/current-quest/ : current roles, NQB8 and Flex Capital
- https://akshayakula.com/experience/ : Career Road, Vonar.ai, private tech consulting, Arkestro
- https://akshayakula.com/vonar/ : Vonar.ai HQ (enterprise voice AI)
- https://akshayakula.com/exark/ : Exark heavy-lift VTOL drone lab
- https://akshayakula.com/resume/ : full resume, projects, education, skills, travels (21 countries)
- https://akshayakula.com/home/ : Akshay's house, family and milestones
- https://akshayakula.com/westfield-high/ : Westfield High School activities

## Blog
- [Hacker in Residence at NQB8: What It Means to Build Companies from Zero to One](https://akshayakula.com/blog/nqb8-hacker-in-residence/): Akshay Akula on his full-time role as Hacker in Residence at NQB8, the venture studio that builds four or more ambitious companies a year with the top 1% of founders.
- [Flex Capital: Founders Backing Founders, and Why AI Engineers Belong in Venture](https://akshayakula.com/blog/flex-capital-founders-backing-founders/): An overview of Flex Capital, the seed-stage firm run by the founding CEOs of LiveRamp, BrightRoll, Lemonaid Health, SafeGraph and Pipedream, and Akshay Akula's work there on AI and agent strategy.
- [Vonar.ai: Building AI, Voice Agents and Modern Infrastructure for Government](https://akshayakula.com/blog/vonar-ai-government-ai/): The story of Vonar.ai, the government technology company Akshay Akula founded in 2025: AI voice agents, data pipelines, cloud, IoT networks and sensors for agencies, available through Carahsoft.
- [Exark: Heavy-Lift Drones for Defense Logistics and the DARPA LIFT Challenge](https://akshayakula.com/blog/exark-heavy-lift-drones/): How Exark, which won 1st place at the 2025 DC National Security Hackathon, is building U.S.-made heavy-lift drones with AI control for contested logistics and the DARPA LIFT Challenge.
- [Zelcast: The Talent Network That Helped Me Find My Next Role](https://akshayakula.com/blog/zelcast-engineer-talent-network/): Akshay Akula on Zelcast, the AI-native talent firm that places top engineers in founding and early roles at startups under 100 people, and the network that helped him land his current job.
- [AngelFlow: A Curated Angel Network with No Fees and No Secondaries](https://akshayakula.com/blog/angelflow-angel-investor-community/): An overview of AngelFlow, a curated community of 500+ active angel investors where startups raise primary rounds with clear terms, shared by email the same day.
- [KrazyPickles: A Free Pickleball League App for Friend Groups](https://akshayakula.com/blog/krazypickles-pickleball-league-app/): An overview of KrazyPickles, a free pickleball league app with Elo-style ratings, SMS and email game scheduling, a court finder for Northern Virginia and DC, and AI-written recaps.
- [Campser: Finding Verified Summer Camps in Northern Virginia, DC and Maryland](https://akshayakula.com/blog/campser-summer-camp-finder-dc/): An overview of Campser, a search engine for summer camps and after-school programs around Washington, DC, with 1,399 verified programs and real published prices.
- [Aerdos: Finished Intelligence for the Agencies That Defend the United States](https://akshayakula.com/blog/aerdos-finished-intelligence/): An overview of Aerdos, which turns multi-source collection into finished intelligence for the U.S. intelligence community through collection, fusion, analysis and delivery.