Zihad Tarafdar

Curriculum vitae

AI and Innovation Lead at Business Novelty Ltd., with a background across full-stack development, DevOps and embedded systems and a PhD in biomedical physics and technology. Currently leading the AI practice, from client use cases to shipped tools and the cloud platform behind them. Previously led software for the Dhaka University Telemedicine Programme and Bibeat Ltd.’s homegrown medical devices.

Dhaka, Bangladeshzihad@bmpt.du.ac.bdgithub/zihadtlinkedin/zihad-tarafdar

experience

2025 – present

AI and Innovation Lead

Business Novelty Ltd. · Dhaka

  • Lead the AI practice at Business Novelty, from identifying use cases with clients to shipping personalised AI tools into their enterprise applications.
  • Own the cloud platform the AI products run on, including architecture, cost, and the team’s security practices.
  • Evaluate new models and tooling, and decide what the team adopts and what it drops.
  • Mentor junior developers and set the engineering standards for AI work across in-house projects.

2024 – 2025

Senior Software Engineer

Business Novelty Ltd. · Dhaka

  • Containerised every in-house and client project, moving them from monolithic deployments to Docker Swarm clusters.
  • Designed the CI/CD pipeline used across all in-house projects.
  • Re-provisioned the company’s entire managed cloud estate, cutting hosting costs by almost half.
  • Led the refactoring of several in-house projects to improve maintainability and prepare them for containerised deployment.

2024 – present

Software Consultant (part-time)

Bibeat Ltd. · Dhaka University Telemedicine Programme

  • Firmware and user-software guidance for indigenously designed medical devices.
  • Technical consultation on the telemedicine system and training for rural telemedicine operators.

2018 – 2023

Lead Web Developer

Dhaka University Telemedicine Programme

  • Led development of a web telemedicine system with video consultation and electronic medical records: 40+ rural centres, 35,000+ patient consultations.
  • Built a Capacitor Android app in Vue.js for roving telemedicine operators (Tele-Bondhu) delivering door-to-door care in coastal districts.
  • Integrated homegrown devices: 12-lead digital ECG, digital stethoscope, X-ray view box. HIPAA-aligned document storage on AWS; managed the Ubuntu hosting server.

2018 – 2023

Software Engineer

Bibeat Ltd.

  • Designed a universal USB device controller in C# that relays data from every Bibeat USB device over WebSocket for cross-platform use.
  • Built the Vue.js interface with digital signal processing for a commercial 12-lead diagnostic ECG, shipped in the telemedicine platform and a Windows Electron app.
  • Co-authored the NCV system user software (C#) and device firmware (C++), the digital stethoscope web UI, and a USB biomedical data acquisition system for teaching labs.

2013 – 2018

Doctoral Research Fellow

Dept. of Biomedical Physics & Technology, University of Dhaka

  • Designed and built the telemedicine web platform for low-resource settings, now used across 40+ centres, with WebRTC video tuned for low-bandwidth networks.
  • Requirements study with doctors, rural operators and administrators; evaluated four other rural telemedicine projects; ran a qualitative impact survey.
  • Fellowship funded by the International Science Programme, Uppsala University.

2011 – 2013

Postgraduate Research Fellow

Dept. of Biomedical Physics & Technology, University of Dhaka

  • Modernised the legacy Turbo C++ nerve conduction velocity software for Windows 7; used for diagnosis at the Trauma Center, Dhaka, for several years.
  • Built Java desktop software for recording distribution of F-latency (DFL) data with the lab’s NCV device.

2010 – 2015

Web Administrator (volunteer)

International Crimes Strategy Forum

  • Built and ran the network’s news site, blog, digital media archive and e-library.

2010 – 2013

Web Administrator

ABC Radio FM 89.2

  • WordPress site, Shoutcast live streaming and server maintenance for one of Bangladesh’s leading FM stations.

2010 – 2012

Freelance Web Developer

  • 25+ sites in WordPress and CodeIgniter, including an employee management system for a department at Robi.

education

2014 – 2018

PhD, Biomedical Physics & Technology

University of Dhaka

  • Thesis: Software Development for a Secure Telemedicine System for Slow Internet Connectivity.

2011 – 2013

MPhil, Biomedical Physics & Technology

University of Dhaka

2005 – 2009

BSc, Mechanical Engineering

Islamic University of Technology

skills

languages
"python, php, c#, java, javascript, c++"
web
"fastapi, laravel, vue.js, spring boot, electron, capacitor, mysql"
cloud & devops
"aws, docker swarm, ci/cd, linux servers, cloud security"
ai
"retrieval-augmented generation, llm tooling"
embedded
"pic18f2550, usb host-device protocols, websocket, c++ firmware"

publications

Papers on telemedicine and medical instrumentation are listed on ResearchGate.