Architecting Humane & Technology Beautifully
(If you prefer to read a more formal bio, go here)
I woke up for the past 10 years of me never working full-time my entire adult life with this phrase: “spreading beauty.”
At my core, I think pursuing big questions with curiosity to seek clarity is beauty.
For me, this means seeking ways to find the gaps, identifying loopholes, and then improving them into a more elegant, humane solution.
This is the “geek in me”—not a fascination with one specific technology, but an obsession with the architecture of systems, both human and digital, and a relentless drive to make them more whole.
This practice has taken many forms.
It was there during the chaos of a national flood, where I saw the gap between good intentions and effective aid, and quickly built a volunteer management system to bring order and elegance to the relief efforts.
It was there when I won the Apart Hackathon with “Morph,” a project designed to make the complex ideas of AI safety accessible to everyone.
It was there architecting ecosystem with Verdas and Softmax, from Malaysia to Germany and Europe, and from one-person to flood-aid national quick system and education.
It was there when I looked at the global conversation on AI safety and saw a profound philosophical loophole: a discourse dominated by one cultural worldview.
My curiosity led me to bridge that gap, drafting a mabadi-asharah framework for AI that weaves the deep wisdom of Malaysiana-Muslim principles into how Malaysia can approach this in our own way.
My work today continues this same thread.
My curiosity about the AI safety has led me to a deep-tech project in compute governance, asking questions with my research partners at MIRI and PauseAI: How do we design the very compilers and chips that run AI to be auditable and secure from the ground up?
At the same time, my love for community leads me to build systems for “AI sovereignty” in Southeast Asia, working with AI Safety Asia and EffectiveThesis. This isn’t just about technology; it’s about asking: How do we ensure our local languages and cultures are not just an afterthought in the age of AI? How do we empower ourselves to create our own AI?
Spreading beauty also means making complex ideas accessible.
It’s why I love sharing no-code development tips on TikTok or creating a viral tech explainer with ML Studio that garnered over 150k views.
It’s about taking something intimidating and finding the simple, elegant entry point for others.
I practice this every day in my “Jeda Journal,” where I distill a complex thought from my readings into a simple reflection and a Jon Klassen-inspired drawing.
It’s my daily act of finding the humane connection in a world of overwhelming information.
All of this work, from a single drawing to a national policy, is just a different expression of the same, single, driving question: How can we architect our technology, our organizations, and our lives to not just be more efficient, but to be more beautiful and more human?
A more formal bio
At her core, Shafira Noh is a curiosity-driven systems architect with a simple mantra: “spreading beauty.” For her, this means designing the elegant, humane blueprints for a better future. Her “geekiness” isn’t found in a single programming language, but in her deep fascination with weaving together disparate worlds—AI safety and Islamic philosophy, compute governance and community empowerment—into resilient, flourishing systems.
This drive to connect and create has led her down a unique path. As a volunteer, she initiated and drafted a mabadi-asharah framework for AI based on Malaysiana-Muslim principles, a project born from the simple question, “How can we make this global conversation feel like it belongs to us?”
Her curiosity also led her to win the Apart Hackathon with “Morph,” a project designed to make the complex ideas of AI safety accessible to everyone. She also channeled her zealousness with architecting ecosystem with Verdas and Softmax, from Malaysia to Germany and Europe, and from one-person to flood-aid national quick system and education.
Currently, Shafira is channeling her architectural skills into two high-impact ventures that grew from her hands-on experiences. The first is a deep-tech project focused on compute governance (with PauseAI and ongoing with MIRI), where she’s exploring fundamental questions specializing in chip design: How do we design auditable compilers? How can we build deep character into AI using cognitive security?
The second is a broader initiative to foster “AI sovereignty” in Southeast Asia, with AI Safety Asia and EffectiveThesis. Here, she’s doing the foundational work of extending research on linguistic biases in AI and contributing to projects like MaLLaM (Malaysia’s own LLM), asking: How do we ensure our local languages and cultures are not just an afterthought in the age of AI? How do we empower our own selves to create our own AI?
Shafira’s approach is holistic; she applies her architectural mindset to everything, from designing mindful leadership curricula to creating a personal operating system for a “Soft-Impactful-Wealthy” life.
She practices her philosophy of making complex ideas accessible through her media work, from creating a viral tech explainer with ML Studio and Akademi Jawi podcast on AI, that garnered over total 150k views, to sharing no-code development tips on TikTok, to appearing on shows like MrMoneyTV. She distills it all in her “Jeda Journal,” where a simple reflection and a Jon Klassen-inspired drawing embody her single, driving question: How can we architect our technology, our organizations, and our lives to not just be more efficient, but to be more beautiful and more human?