NorTex AI Experts

ABOUT

Building AI that actually works.
Teaching everyone else how.

We're a small, practitioner-led team. The people you talk to in a discovery call are the same people who write the SQL, design the pipelines, ship the code, and develop digital marketing solutions.

We don't have a layer of account managers between you and the engineering, because for the kind of work we take on, that layer is where projects go to die.

Our work focuses on four areas where small and mid-sized businesses tend to leave the most value on the table: data engineering & analytics, AI/ML feature delivery, AI-powered digital marketing, and custom software that fits the shape of how the business actually runs.

Outside of client work, we run AI for Common Folks — a free newsletter and growing library that explains AI in plain English, read by professionals, founders, and students.

It's a tax on our own time we're happy to pay: it keeps us honest, forces us to explain things clearly, and is the foundation for the AI training programs we're launching for teams in 2026.

How we work

A few non-negotiables.

Honest scope, honest pricing

If a project is the wrong shape for us, we say so. If a smaller scope will get you 80% of the value, we'll quote the smaller scope. We'd rather lose a sales cycle than ship a project that shouldn't have started.

Practitioners only

Everyone on a project is hands-on technical. Pre-sales, scoping, implementation, support — same people throughout. The signal-to-noise on calls stays high.

Modern, boring infrastructure

Postgres, dbt, TypeScript, serverless. We pick tools that the next engineer who touches the codebase will also know. Novelty is reserved for the problem, not the stack.

Documented handoffs

When a project ends, your team gets a documented system they can run, modify, and extend without us. We're consultants — not a lock-in.

Leadership
Portrait of Bakht Singh

Bakht Singh

Founder

Founder of Ascentia Tech Solutions and an AI Engineer at the International Mission Board, shipping production AI systems on a daily cadence. He leads NorTex Labs — the team's accelerated-prototyping arm — and writes AI for Common Folks, the free newsletter (and growing open-source curriculum) that demystifies AI for professionals, founders, and students. Currently working alongside top researchers at the Center for Ethical Intelligence (CEI), expanding from operations into research. Sets the team's posture: ship fast, ship right, and treat infrastructure-level decisions as first-class engineering work.

Portrait of Noel Jerke

Noel Jerke

Co-Founder · Operations

Three-decade technology executive, entrepreneur, and published author. Founder & CEO of Power Digital Services (24+ years) and Texas Digital Edge, with delivery work for Martha Stewart, Sharp, Dell, Mary Kay, Texas Instruments, the U.S. Air Force, and more. Deep expertise across Microsoft and open-source stacks, with a long-running focus on generative AI for measurable business impact. Co-Founder and Operations Director at NorTex.

Portrait of Abraham Chacko

Abraham Chacko

Strategic Advisor

Healthcare executive with decades of senior leadership experience — former Executive Director at Kish Health System and COO at Medical Associates PLC, where he ran an $85M provider across 15 departments and three satellite clinics. Track record of finding and unlocking value: $1.8M in unrealized revenue via system optimization, $325K profit on a new Imaging Center, and EMR/PQRI automation that made his clinic Eastern Iowa's first. Brings strategic planning, contract negotiations, and the senior-leadership instincts you can't shortcut.

Portrait of Sahithi Chindam

Sahithi Chindam

Data Analytics Engineer

Data Analytics Engineer with a Master's in Advanced Data Analytics from the University of North Texas and 2.5 years at Accenture as a BI Analyst before joining NorTex. Microsoft Certified across Power BI, SQL, and Microsoft Fabric — owns the full analytics lifecycle from ETL to dashboard. Co-creator of AI for Common Folks, where she shapes the brand, researches stories, and reviews every post that ships. Cares as much about welcoming spaces and mentorship as she does about clean data models.