Guided several startups across the ECOWAS zone in leveraging data strategy, aligning initiatives with core business objectives to unlock measurable value and operational efficiency.

• Developed training materials and delivered workshops on data collection and management for 15 startups from Benin and other Ecowas countries, enabling them to optimize their data processes for digital solutions.
• Provided one-on-one coaching to five startups to address data management challenges to drive growth and improve competitiveness.

This contract was conducted under the The Netherlands Trust Fund V (NTF V); a program between the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ITC to support ventures in the digital technology in several African countries.

iSHEERO is a visionary initiative led by experts to promote data science and artificial intelligence in Benin and across Francophone Africa. Our mission is built on three powerful pillars:

• Empower, Guide, and Inspire: We equip young Beninese talent with cutting-edge AI skills, fostering innovation and creating new opportunities in the field of artificial intelligence.
• Build a Local Ecosystem: We are establishing a robust data science ecosystem, positioning Benin as a hub for international AI projects and innovation.
• Champion AI in Benin: We help businesses discover and embrace the transformative power of AI to enhance their operational performance and drive growth.

To learn more about our activities, events and team, please visit our website and be part of the revolution.

As a passionate Junior Data Scientist, I co-founded and nurtured Takwimu LAB; a vibrant community for AI and Data Science enthusiasts, creating hands-on experiences from online learning paths that everyone could connect with. Together, we promoted research on low-resource African languages, collaborating to collect, label, and publish parallel text datasets for Neural Machine Translation like French-Fongbé and French-Ewe. These efforts resulted in impactful projects such as the prototype of an English-Fongbé Neural ML Translation app, made possible through the AI4D-Africa Network and UNESCO support.

Our work received recognition, including the Zindi Africa Award for the AI4D-African Dataset Challenge (2020). Later, we co-organized a machine translation challenge on Zindi Africa, contributing to the development of local data science talent. We published findings through the AI4D African Language Program, presented at the AfricaNLP Workshop during EACL 2021.

• Parallel text dataset for Neural Machine Translation (French - Fongbe, and French - Ewe) was published in November 2020 on https://zenodo.org/record/4266935
• AI4D – African Language Program, Avril 2021. Accepted et presented during AfricaNLP Workshop, EACL2021 Conference. N°: arXiv:2104.02516 [cs.CL]

During my transition from Statistician to Data Scientist in this bootcamp, I gained hands-on experiences in Data Engineering and Machine Learning. Leveraging technologies like Apache Spark, Hive, Python, and SQL, I refined my skills in Data Visualization and Big Data infrastructure, tackling real-world challenges through an impactful project.

One of the key achievements of this experience was the development of Duniya Data; an app leveraging data insights to enhance agricultural practices. This project, created collaboratively with peers and mentors, highlighted the practical impact of data science and demonstrated how teamwork can address global challenges effectively.