The beginning
The small one.
Before code and before cricket, I was the small one in every family photo. Here are a few.
hi, it’s me
Ishraq
Tanvir.
Builder from Dhaka. Test cricket romantic. Mamoni’s son before anything else. This is the story behind the screen, told mostly in photos.
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Kaggle Expert
NeurIPS ’26 workshop author
175* vs. a wall
2020 · lockdown · age 12
The wall bowled.
Eight months indoors. No ground, no team, no bowler, so the wall bowled. I invented a game where the goal wasn’t to hit the ball but to make it drop dead at my feet, like a ripe mango falling from a tree. I was Sir Alastair Cook, guarding paper stumps the way a bird guards its eggs.
- Mango · the ball dies at your feet
- 6
- Slice · lands a little farther
- 1
- Hit it hard
- 0
175*
My best innings. Started at noon; the afternoon and sunset calls to prayer came and went. At 175 the ball rolled under the bed and never came out. The sky was dark and my wrist ached. Did I just time travel?
Me: “I think the mosque skipped the afternoon and sunset calls today.”
Mamoni: “First, tell me why you weren’t answering me.”
Me: “When? What? You said nothing at all.”
She pointed at my sister. My sister nodded.
Your turn · the wall is bowling
Best: 0 · Record: 175*
0
runs · 0 balls
The wall is ready when you are.
Favourite cricketer
Sir Alastair Cook
161
Tests
12,472
runs
33
hundreds
11
sixes. In total.
A hundred in his first Test and in his last. Patient, stubborn, never in a hurry. I still play Test-style every week, with a bat from Pakistan. T20 feels like a street fight.
Also 2020
The same lockdown, I learned to code.
Tutorials by day, mango cricket by evening. Then I started freelancing, mostly on Upwork. 22 projects later, I’d worked with clients in 14 countries, with schoolwork by day and client calls by night.
21
jobs on Upwork
100%
Job Success
5.0
stars from 15 reviews
See my Upwork profile →“He nailed this contract.”
Stefan M., a client, March 2024
2025 → now
Then I started competing.
I joined Kaggle in February 2025. Nineteen competitions later: two bronze medals, the Competitions Expert title, and a best rank of 2,047 out of 224,245 people. My profile tagline says it best: Learning to be a Learner.
RSNA Knee Abnormality Detection
321st of 6,299 teams · top 5.1%
Orbit Wars
413th of 4,729 teams · top 8.7%
2026
My first paper. Written alone.
Accepted as a poster at the NeurIPS 2026 Verify-Agents workshop, where I also reviewed other people’s papers. The finding: AI models can prove single functions correct up to 95% of the time, then fall to 14–41% when functions call each other. My fix breaks the code on purpose to catch proofs that are too weak.
Read the paper →
Right now
What I’m building.
A Bangla language model
Trained from scratch with Tridip Roy Arjo, because Bangladesh still doesn’t have a native one. Small, and meant to be used, not just demoed.
Out there
Places I’ve stood.
Museums, old buildings and railway tracks. Most of my best photos happen when I’m not trying.
Home team
Family first.
I’m a family guy before I’m a builder. Mamoni is the reason I now answer the first time she calls. Mostly. The little ones keep me silly, and my friends put up with all of it.
Dinner time
I take eating very seriously.
I have a super duper love for eating. The evidence is below.
Screen time
When I’m not coding or batting.
Animated comedies, K-dramas and family sitcoms. Mostly family sitcoms.
Movies I love
- Hotel Transylvania1, 2 & 3
- MinionsAll of them
- The AvengersAssembled
Series
- Queen of TearsK-drama
- Crash Landing on YouK-drama
- The First FrostC-drama
- The CrownBritish
American sitcoms
- Fresh Off the BoatWatching now
- Young SheldonWhere Georgie started
- Georgie & Mandy’s First MarriageSeasons 1–2
- Modern FamilySeasons 1–3
Outtakes
The ones that didn’t make the album.
Every family has a folder of photos nobody asked for. This is mine. You’re welcome.
Made in Dhaka, on chai. Kaggle once gave me a “Vampire” badge for turning on dark mode, so the switch up top is for that. And try clicking my photo at the very top.