Daylen
Hicks/Engineer
I'm a Computer Science student with a minor in Supply Chain Management at North Carolina A&T State University, passionate about building full-stack applications and working with AI systems. From winning hackathons to founding two companies — a B2B sports platform and an AI consulting firm — I build products at the intersection of technology and community.
1st
Place Hackathon
3.6
GPA at NC A&T
3
Companies Founded
AI Engineer, Founder, Builder, Hackathon Winner, LLM Engineer, Basketball Head, Product Thinker, CS Student, Full-Stack Dev, Community Builder, AI Consultant, Problem Solver
Crafting digital
experiences with
purpose
A Computer Science student, founder, and AI consultant building at the intersection of technology and community.
I'm a Computer Science student with a minor in Supply Chain Management at North Carolina A&T State University, passionate about building full-stack applications and working with AI systems. From winning hackathons to founding two companies — a B2B sports platform and an AI consulting firm — I build products at the intersection of technology and community.
I'm currently pursuing a B.S. in Computer Science at NC A&T with a 3.6 GPA, while building products and gaining industry experience through internships and AI engineering work.
Technical
toolkit
Featured
Projects
A selection of projects built at hackathons and beyond — from AI-powered platforms to surgical robot dashboards.
PitchPad
Built an AI-powered pitch practice platform as deployment & infrastructure lead; architected a Next.js/Vercel frontend and FastAPI/Railway backend serving real-time AI feedback for the Lenovo "Ideation to Impact" challenge
Integrated OpenAI Whisper for live transcription and GPT-4o to auto-generate pitch decks in under 60 seconds; used Groq for low-latency coaching scored on a 1–10 scale
Wired Supabase (PostgreSQL + pgvector + Auth) supporting 2 user roles (Creator/Reviewer) and shareable pitch deck export
Forte
Built a browser-based financial literacy platform with 5 interactive games (salary negotiation vs. live AI, job offer math, budgeting, freelance taxes, 30-year portfolio sim); shipped zero-login product with Gemini 2.0 Flash + server-side scoring in under 24 hours
Aggie Aid
Developed a student resource platform for North Carolina A&T students to access campus tools and information
SurgiControl Robot Arm Dashboard
Sole developer on a 4-person team — designed, architected, and built the entire technical solution end-to-end while teammates focused on research and presentation
Built a real-time 3D surgical robot arm dashboard for Johnson & Johnson enabling users to save and replay precise arm positions
Engineered CSV export to log exact arm placement coordinates, enabling data-driven motion pattern analysis
Where
I've worked
From AI engineering at scale to founding products from scratch.
May 2026 – Aug. 2026
Cary, NC
R&D DevOps Documentation Intern
JMP Statistical Discovery (SAS Institute)- Engineered a Python automation script to migrate 1,574 XML menu paths across 52 documentation files with zero failures, handling encoded characters, multiline elements, and whitespace edge cases as part of a FrameMaker-to-oXygen migration initiative
- Designed scalable project folder architecture separating BA and DOE dataset environments, resolving Windows/OneDrive file-lock conflicts and ensuring safe output isolation
- Implemented structured logging capturing file counts and conversion summary metrics to support validation and cross-team QA review
Jan. 2026 – Present
Remote
Founder & Lead Developer
I Got Next- Scaled a full-stack pickup basketball platform to 500+ active players and 120 courts across 3 cities; shipped 18 routes including player map, facility dashboard, admin panel, and public profiles
- Engineered B2B Stripe pipeline targeting YMCAs and parks & rec departments with 3 facility pricing tiers ($199–$699/mo) and a $5.99/mo player Pro tier; integrated Airtable for facility lead capture and CRM
Jan. 2026 – Present
Remote / Greensboro, NC
Founder | Web Development, AI Consulting & Workshops
Hicks Digital- Delivered AI literacy workshop to 30+ students (Boys 2 Men, Roanoke Rapids, May 2026); drafted GoHighLevel automation proposal for GROW nonprofit serving Halifax County
- Executed 25+ cold outreach campaigns across 2 counties; secured paid brand partnerships and AI consulting engagements with local businesses
Jul. 2026 – Present
Greensboro, NC
Resident Assistant
North Carolina A&T State University — Aggie Suites F- Incoming Resident Assistant responsible for well-being, academic success, and community development of residents in Aggie Suites F
- Planned programming includes an AI & Career Readiness Workshop Series and monthly community-building events to support resident engagement and retention
Feb. 2026 – Present
Remote
LLM / Generative AI Engineer
Handshake- Benchmark output quality across 3 LLMs (Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT) using structured evaluation criteria, identifying performance gaps and selecting optimal models for production use cases
- Perform RLHF-style feedback by rating and ranking hundreds of model responses; clean and curate training datasets to reduce noise and improve pipeline accuracy
Aug. 2024 – May 2025
Gaston, NC
Tech Leader & FRC Team Captain
Northampton County Schools- Chartered the school's inaugural FIRST Robotics Competition team (RoboJags), leading 10+ members to two Rookie All-Star awards, a state championship, and the FRC World Championship in Houston, TX; secured a NASA robotics grant and NC A&T sponsorship
Academic
background
SJECCD AI Session Certificate
San Jose Evergreen Community College District
Completed intensive AI training covering machine learning fundamentals, neural networks, and responsible AI practices.
North Carolina A&T State University
B.S. Computer Science, Minor in Supply Chain Management
Halifax Community College
A.A. & A.S. (Concurrent with High School Diploma)
Earned both A.A. and A.S. degrees concurrently while completing high school — dual enrollment across the full four years.
Competitions & Activities
Building a
Bridge Home
I'm building a gateway program to give back to my community — making the path from where I started to where I am now a little clearer for those coming next.
College Transition Guidance
Helping high school students navigate the leap to college — from applications and scholarships to what the first semester actually looks like. I made this transition from a rural community and want to make it smoother for the next generation.
Motivational Speaking
Sharing my journey from Northampton County to NC A&T, hackathon stages, and the tech industry. Available for schools, youth programs, and community organizations looking to inspire the next wave of builders.
General Consultations
One-on-one conversations about getting into tech, choosing a major, building a portfolio, or starting your first project. No question is too basic — I'm here to help you get started.
Community Service
Boys 2 Men AI Workshop
Delivered an AI literacy workshop to 30+ young men in Halifax County — covering practical AI tools, career paths in tech, and hands-on demos.
Roanoke Rapids, NC
Northampton County Schools — AI Workshop
Upcoming!Partnered with Northampton County Schools to deliver an AI education session for students, focused on real-world applications and pathways into tech careers.
Northampton County, NC
First Presbyterian Church
Packing plates for the homeless and less fortunate
Let's build something
together
I'm always open to new opportunities, collaborations, and conversations. Send a message or book a time to chat.