Guwahati teen shines on global stage, presents research paper at International AI Conference in Azerbaijan

In a proud moment for Assam and the entire Northeast, 16-year-old Huma Abia Kanta, a class 12 student of Royal Global School, Guwahati, has presented her research paper at the “Advancement and Innovation: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning” I International Scientific-Practical Conference held on October 30–31, 2025, at Nakhchivan State University, Azerbaijan.

The prestigious event, organized by Azerbaijan Technical University, featured partner institutions including Tashkent State Technical University (Uzbekistan), Asia Pacific University (Malaysia), and Mingachevir State University (Azerbaijan). Conducted in a hybrid mode, the conference brought together leading AI and ML researchers from around the world.

Huma’s paper, titled “ML-Based Prediction of Phycocyanin Purity,” presented an innovative approach using machine-learning algorithms to predict pigment purity levels crucial to sustainable bio-resource industries. By comparing six regression models including Linear, Ridge, SVR, Random Forest, and XGBoost her research achieved a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.058, significantly outperforming the standard lab standard deviation (SD) of 0.31.

With this achievement, Huma becomes one of the youngest Indians to present a research paper at an international AI and ML forum. Her paper will soon be published in reputed international journals indexed in Scopus, in line with the conference’s publication standards.

Adding to her growing list of accomplishments, Huma’s second paper — “Seq2Seq Reconstruction of Sanskrit Phonology via Tang-Era Siddhaṃ-Hanzi Transliteration: A Buddhist-Lexicon-Inspired Encoder–Decoder Model with Luong Attention” — has been accepted for presentation at RegICON 2025, a Regional International Conference on Natural Language Processing jointly organized by Gauhati University and Assam Skill University later this month. At just 16, she has already co-authored three additional research papers currently under peer review.

Beyond research, Huma is the Founder and Lead Developer of “desicodes,” an educational startup developing asPy, an Assamese-Python transpiler designed to make coding accessible in regional languages and democratize computer science learning across the Northeast. She has also collaborated with Dr. Purnima Devi Barman’s “Hargila Army” initiative, helping digitize motifs of the endangered Greater Adjutant Stork for handloom saris — a creative blend of ecology, technology, and cultural preservation.

Expressing gratitude, Huma said, “I owe this milestone to my mentor, Dr Ankur Pan Saikia, and to Dr Arup Kumar Mukhopadhyay, Director of Royal Global School, for their constant guidance and encouragement.”

Royal Global School, known for its strong emphasis on innovation-driven learning and values-based education, continues to nurture young minds capable of contributing globally while remaining rooted in their local ethos.