Nima Shahbazi
Nima Shahbazi | |
|---|---|
| Education | PhD Computer Science, M.Sc. Computer Engineering |
| Alma mater | York University at the Lassonde School of Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management |
| Occupation | AI scientist |
| Known for | Winning $1 million Zillow Prize |
Nima Shahbazi is a Canadian AI scientist who won the $1 million Zillow Prize by creating the most accurate home valuation algorithm that beat Zillow's Zestimate by over 13 percent.[1]
Education
Shahbazi earned his PhD in Computer Science from York University at the Lassonde School of Engineering, where he studied under the supervision of Dr. Jarek Gryz and Aijun An.[2] He earned a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2006 and completed entrepreneurship studies at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management in 2018.[2]
Career
Shahbazi is an expert LLMs, RAG, and MLOps, and holds a track record of delivering scalable machine learning products.[3] He is currently the President of Mindle.ai.[4]
Shahbazi is involved in algorithmic trading.[5] In 2019, he was the winner of the $1 million Zillow Prize, considered as the biggest computer science or AI competition in history.[6] He won the prize by creating the most accurate home valuation algorithm that beat Zillow's Zestimate by over 13 percent.[7]
Shahbazi is a Kaggle Competitions Grandmaster whose models consistently rank in the Global Top 10 on the platform.[8] He has achieved top placements in competitions including the Mercari Price Suggestion Challenge, Two Sigma Financial Modeling Challenge, and Home Depot Product Search Relevance.[9]
Shahbazi's speaking experience includes presentations at the Kaggle Days in Toronto, and RBC Disruptors.[10][11] Beyond his professional accomplishments, Shahbazi is passionate about tennis.[3]
In 2025, he participated as a speaker at Canada AI Day, held as part of the ACM KDD conference, where discussions focused on transparency, fairness, data governance, and the societal impacts of artificial intelligence.[12][13]
In 2026, Shahbazi served as a keynote speaker at the Appraisal Institute of Canada–Ontario's "Evolving With Value" Conference, where he spoke about the use of artificial intelligence in valuation and data-driven decision-making.[14] That year, he also participated as a speaker at a reinforcement learning event hosted by Georgian, discussing developments and applications of reinforcement learning and artificial intelligence.[15]
Awards
References
- ↑ Rachel Metz,"Zillow's home-buying debacle shows how hard it is to use AI to value real estate". CNN. 9 November 2021. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
- 1 2 "Lassonde PhD Graduate wins $1 Million Zillow Award, improves the Zestimate". lassonde.yorku.ca. 7 February 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
- 1 2 Kurt Schlosser,"Meet the 'Zillow Prize' winners who get $1M and bragging rights for beating the Zestimate". geekwire.com. 30 January 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
- ↑ "Recent Lassonde PhD grad wins $1M Zillow Award, improves the Zestimate". YFile. 2019-02-11. Retrieved 2026-06-01.
- ↑ "Nima Shahbazi President Mindle.ai". bigdata-toronto.com. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
- ↑ David Schneider,"Winners Announced for the Zillow Prize". spectrum.ieee.org. 30 January 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
- ↑ "Recent Lassonde PhD grad wins $1M Zillow Award, improves the Zestimate". educationnewscanada.com. 14 February 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
- ↑ "Nima Shahbazi - Grandmaster". kaggle.com. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
- ↑ "Lassonde grad and Zillow algorithm contest winner to give a guest lecture, March 25". yorku.ca. 18 March 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2025.
- ↑ "First Kaggle Days Meetup in Toronto". www.blogto.com. Retrieved 2026-06-01.
- ↑ Stackhouse, John. "Can Humans Save AI? Only If We Act Now". RBC Investor Services.
- ↑ "Speakers". sites.google.com. Retrieved 2026-06-01.
- ↑ "Building a More Trustworthy Future for AI: Connected Minds at Canada AI Day 2025". Connected Minds. Retrieved 2026-06-01.
- ↑ "PheedLoop". site.pheedloop.com. Retrieved 2026-06-01.
- ↑ "TL/IRL: Reinforcement Learning, Foundations to Production · Luma". luma.com. Retrieved 2026-06-01.
- ↑ Shane Dingman,"Toronto man shares $1-million prize for real estate price predictions". theglobeandmail.com. 7 January 2019. Retrieved 12 March 2025.