Marco Anthony
Ayuste
I build AI-powered tools that solve real problems for real people.
Who I Am
I am Marco, a University of Toronto student graduating in 2027 (CCIT and Sociology at UTM). Concrete proof I ship: I built an AI pipeline that reads photos of paper tournament sheets and drops the data cleanly into Google Sheets, cutting my club president's weekly admin from 1 to 2 hours down to under 3 minutes.
That is the work I am drawn to: turning tedious, error-prone, real-world workflows into boring-to-run, easy-to-audit software.
Right now I am a Full-Stack Software Engineer Intern at Yadag, Team Lead at Paideia Mundi NeuroSystems Institute, and founding developer of the UTM Billiards Club platform (320+ members).
I love hackathons: winner at DeerHacks V, IBM Z x UNSA 2026, and Hack the Globe (Global Spark x BCG), top finalist at IMC Prosperity 4. Trilingual (English, French, Tagalog), born in Canada, based in Toronto / Mississauga.
Languages Spoken
Tech Stack
Where I Have Worked
Student (Co-op)
Department of National Defence / Ministère de la défense nationale
Canadian Armed Forces | Forces armées canadiennes
Jun 2026 - PresentHybrid
AI and Autonomous Systems Team
Software Engineer Intern
Yadag Technologies Inc.
Apr 2026 - Jun 2026Remote
- Built and owned 8 REST API endpoints (auth, matchmaking, tenant config) and 12 schema migrations across Laravel/MySQL and PostgreSQL for a multi-tenant agricultural-staffing SaaS, including a fault-tolerant matchmaking loop on AWS (Lambda, S3) that cut p95 latency from 2.1s to 0.7s and request timeouts from around 8% to under 0.5% via idempotent retries and dead-letter queues
- Shipped 24 PRs (around 3,200 lines) over 6 weeks at a 1-week sprint cadence, including the Python backend integration (webhook handling and APIs) for an LLM-powered multilingual WhatsApp onboarding assistant (English, French, Tagalog) that cut onboarding time from around 15 minutes to under 3 minutes
- Wrote PHPUnit unit and feature tests across the Laravel backend to catch regressions and keep releases stable, working directly with the founding team to translate product and operations requirements into shipped software at startup speed
AI/ML Engineer Intern, Team Lead
Paideia Mundi NeuroSystems Institute
Mar 2026 - May 2026Remote
- Appointed Team Lead of a 3-person cross-university engineering team building a multimodal AI prototype for early-stage neurodevelopmental healthcare; owned scope, standups, supervisor comms, and end-to-end delivery across a 10-week sprint
- Built the EEG preprocessing pipeline on Colab Pro (bandpass/notch filtering, RANSAC bad-channel detection, ICA with ICLabel artifact rejection, fixed-length epoching, autoreject epoch QC), passing contract validation with zero deadline slip
- Engineered scikit-learn regression pipelines across 5 model families (Random Forest, Gradient Boosting, SVM, Gaussian Process, Stacking) with subject-grouped cross-validation, conformal prediction intervals, and label-permutation significance testing
- Shipped an Auth0-gated Streamlit + Plotly dashboard surfacing predictions, feature importance, and metrics in a layout tested against a non-engineering executive reader
- Architected the end-to-end system (raw signal to model artifact to dashboard) with clean process boundaries between pipeline, FastAPI inference service, and UI, plus seams for additional research data modalities
- Built infrastructure: GitHub org, 3 green CI/CD workflows (lint, test, docs), 124-test pytest suite, Sphinx documentation site, MLflow experiment tracking, Next.js landing page, and a one-command pipeline runner
- Authored a 24-page technical report, 9-page plain-language user guide, and 8-slide demo deck; co-presented the live demo and Q&A
Webmaster Intern
MINOA
Dec 2025 - Apr 2026Remote
- Managing the storefront across both frontend and backend (product updates, collections, navigation, theme changes, and customer-facing pages)
- Supporting SEO improvements, desktop and mobile UX cleanup, and conversion-focused page enhancements
- Optimizing the B2B Collaboration area by reviewing competitor sites and improving navigation and structure
- Automated customer service by integrating an AI chatbot into the site
Lead Founding Software Developer
UTM Billiards Club
May 2025 - PresentRemote
- Architected and delivered the UTM Billiards Club platform using React, TypeScript, Tailwind, Node.js, and Python, shipping responsive tools for rankings, tournaments, scheduling, and club operations serving a 320+ member community across 10+ pages
- Built a rankings data pipeline pulling from Google Sheets via CSV exports that parses and sorts standings by Elo tier, validates inputs, masks player names for privacy, and caches results in localStorage with a 10-minute TTL
- Developed a live Elo rankings dashboard with search, multi-tier filtering, refresh controls, privacy masking, and fully optimized mobile and desktop layouts
- Reduced manual admin work from 1-2 hours to under 3 minutes by building automated Python and Google Sheets ranking workflows, plus a Google OAuth-based 1v1 tracker with an AI/ML image-to-data extraction pipeline that parses match results from sheet photos into structured entries
- Engineered tournament tools including a 2v2 bracket generator supporting team and player modes, randomization, BYE handling, save/load state persistence, and regenerate controls
- Implemented scalable data-driven site architecture using shared JSON as a single source of truth, with date-based rendering logic that auto-splits upcoming vs past events
- Added an optional AI chatbot with persistent floating UI, deployment-safe API fallback behavior, and a simple enable/disable flag
Indigenous Programming Assistant & Peer Mentor
University of Toronto Mississauga (CSE)
Aug 2025 - Apr 2026Hybrid
- Planning, budgeting, and delivering Indigenous programming at UTM's Centre for Student Engagement (Access Days, transition events, and trips)
- Developing PowerPoint materials and supporting the broader portfolio
- Building community through mentorship to strengthen Indigenous student belonging and wellness
- Supporting outreach and partnerships across events, projects, and ongoing programming
SEO Specialist Intern
Stealth Startup
Sep 2025 - Feb 2026Remote
- 6-month contract working both individually and on a cross-functional team to drive sales through SEO improvements
- Collaborated weekly with the supervisor, social media marketing lead, and 3D designer on keyword strategy, on-page SEO, and conversion-focused copy
- Owned SEO duties end-to-end (audits, on-page optimization, and reporting) while contributing to broader marketing decisions
Inventory Control Clerk
Hallite Seals
Nov 2023 - Dec 2025On-site
- Worked in multiple seasonal, part-time, and full-time roles across multiple periods
- Managed inbound/outbound shipments, scanning, packaging, and logistics
Job Shadowing
Nov 2025 - Nov 2025On-site
- Gained industry exposure through on-site job shadowing at Google Toronto
Poll Clerk
UTMSU
Mar 2023 - Mar 2025On-site
- Facilitated voting procedures during key election periods across 6 election cycles
- Verified student identification, ensured fair and impartial voting, and counted ballots
Bilingual Customer Service Representative
Embark Student Corp.
Jul 2024 - Aug 2024Hybrid
- Provided financial guidance to 200+ parents on RESP fund withdrawals
- Increased customer satisfaction to 90% and reduced average handling time by 25%
Data Analyst
Peroptyx
May 2023 - Aug 2023Remote
- Reviewed and evaluated mapping data to improve accuracy of digital maps and navigation apps
- Validated navigation routes, verified business information through systematic online research
What I Have Built
FeaturedLOCATR
DeerHacks V 2026 Winner
Full-stack / AI engineer, top GitHub contributor (team of 4)
Agentic spatial intelligence platform built in 36 hours at DeerHacks V. Six LangGraph agents (Commander, Scout, Vibe Matcher, Cost Analyst, Critic, Synthesiser) turn natural-language requests into a live Mapbox shortlist, streaming agent state to the client over WebSockets.
Impact
DeerHacks V 2026 Winner (1 of 9 prizes across 164 participants). Asyncio fan-out across the Analyst agents dropped pipeline latency from ~9s to under 3s (~70% reduction); 45,000+ lines shipped; Auth0 CIBA gates real Gmail bookings behind a secure mobile push.
FeaturedCANOPY
Hack the Globe 2026 - Health & Humanity Winner
Full-stack / AI engineer, #1 GitHub contributor (team of 4)
Continuous remote-care platform for elderly patients. Three linked surfaces: a 'garden' patient check-in with voice AI, a family dashboard, and a clinical dashboard with 0-100 risk stratification. A LangGraph pipeline turns daily signals into early-warning alerts.
Impact
Won the Health & Humanity Track at Hack the Globe 2026, Global Spark's international social impact hackathon run with BCG across Toronto, London, and virtual. 117 commits in 36 hours; judges flagged the triple-interface design as the strongest clinical workflow of the track.
FeaturedUTM Billiards Platform
Lead developer, club tech lead
Official site for the UTM Billiards Club (320+ members). Built Elo rankings, a tournament bracket generator, a TF-IDF FAQ chatbot, an in-browser 8-ball game with physics, and a Google-Sheets-backed data pipeline so execs can update rankings without touching code.
Impact
Replaced a static Linktree with a production platform the club runs on week-to-week. Handles live leaderboard updates and tournament sign-ups each term.
FeaturedPaideia Mundi Neural Research Platform
Deploying May 2026
Engineering lead, AI/ML Engineer Intern
Multimodal AI research platform I am leading for the NeuroSystems Intelligence and Research Unit at Paideia Mundi NeuroSystems Institute. Ships the ML data pipeline, model training loop, and privacy-compliant full-stack architecture supporting neurodevelopmental research.
Impact
Deploying May 2026. Leading a small engineering team through architecture, data preprocessing, feature extraction, and secure infrastructure sign-off ahead of the public launch.
FeaturedVIGIL
GenAI Genesis 2026 - GKE Turns 10 Honourable Mention
Full-stack / AI engineer, #1 GitHub contributor (team of 4)
Multi-agent healthcare billing fraud detection built at GenAI Genesis 2026. Students upload a receipt; a 14-agent LangGraph pipeline across five layers (Perception, Reasoning, Planning, Action, Reflection) cross-checks it against the Ontario Dental Association fee guide and surfaces unused benefits.
Impact
Honourable Mention at GKE Turns 10 Hackathon. 21,000+ lines of code, 26 Playwright E2E tests, and a YAML-driven policy layer so fraud scoring stays auditable.
ClaimFlow
Solo engineer
Human-in-the-loop AI medical insurance claims platform: provider-pluggable LLM extraction (Claude with Gemini fallback), per-claimant ChromaDB RAG, and a fine-tuned EfficientNet-B0 imaging classifier, with human approval gating every stage.
Impact
94.2% imaging accuracy (ECE 0.016) on 15,000 images, a 253-test suite across state-machine, audit-tamper, PII, and prompt-injection cases, and a hash-chained audit log over every model call.
FeaturedPandexis
IBM x UNSA Two-Track Winner
Full-stack / AI Engineer (team of 5)
IBM x UNSA two-track winning epidemic simulator pairing a vectorized SEIR plus Monte Carlo engine with a fault-tolerant RAG LLM explainer (IBM Granite, Claude, deterministic template fallback) on IBM Cloud.
Impact
Won two tracks (1 of 5 on the team) against 600+ participants from a 10,000+ applicant pool, backed by 104 automated tests on CI/CD.
This Portfolio
Designer, developer (solo)
Single-page Three.js beach/sunset portfolio with a scroll-driven camera, procedural ocean, and a 3D island scene. R3F Canvas is fixed full-screen; HTML sections overlay on top with GSAP ScrollTrigger keyframes.
Impact
60fps on mid-range laptops via AdaptiveDpr, AdaptiveEvents, and Draco-compressed GLTF. Lighthouse 90+ across categories.
Get in Touch
Have a project in mind, a question, or just want to connect? I would love to hear from you.
print("AI is learning");
if (input == "human") {
connect();
}// HITL Review & Efficiency
if (processComplexity > threshold) {
escalateToHuman();
} else {
streamlinePipelines();
}
costOptimization = true;Human + AI
Marco Ayuste
AI Engineer | Researcher
a beach waits on the other side
