I grew up in Zimbabwe, the middle child in a family of five, raised by a single mother. Lack of funding to pursue a law degree meant that my highest level of education was a high school certificate, attained in an under-equipped, often unsafe, public school.
Since then, I taught myself a variety of skills and put them to work over the course of fourteen years. My resultant work centers on the fields of Artificial Intelligence and big data innovation with a particular focus on developing solutions for Sub-Saharan African communities and I am proud to share some of my career highlights below:
In 2016 I created what Forbes magazine described as “the world’s first AI football commentator” for the UEFA Champions League final on behalf of Heineken.
In the same year I created a prototype for the prediction of human displacement in Africa using AI & thereafter worked with the UN Refugee Agency to actualise a pilot project in the same field.
I founded the Ulwazi Accelerator in 2018 to equip young Africans with the skills needed to contribute to the global digital economy.
In 2019 I created a prototype app for the early diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease using computer vision and presented my findings at Oxford University on the Skoll World Forum stage in April. My studio, Tripleblack Agency, has since launched the app, Patana AI, for iOS and Android.
In the same year I invented a cross platform app, SafePace that helps vulnerable people move around safer across South Africa. This app harnesses publicly-available crime data and maps areas according to the severity of reported contact crimes, notifying users of the app discreetly through in-ear audio.
In December 2019 I created “blackgirlhair.js“, the first machine learning model that can accurately identify black women’s hairstyles.
I am the co-founder of Sila Health, a startup that provides last-mile health care access across Africa using chat platforms and creates comprehensive datasets to advance healthcare in the region.
Growing up in an environment where one had to constantly be solving in some way or another just to improve the quality of life is something that prepared me for a future in social entrepreneurship.
I have a strong passion for fresh ideas that will change the lives of those around me and I am a firm believer in insight-led innovation. I will forever be invested in building the tools and realities that will advance our collective humanity in the spirit of Ubuntu.
Also, I like Kanye West Gqom.