John is currently a PhD candidate with Quantum Leap Africa at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Rwanda, and the University of Rwanda, researching on how to leverage machine learning to improve satellite rainfall estimates for African rain-fed agriculture. He obtained a BSc. Mathematics from the University for Development Studies, Navrongo, Ghana, in 2017. He subsequently obtained an MSc. Mathematical Sciences (Big Data and Computer Security) from AIMS Senegal, in 2019.
His research institutes include Data Science, Machine Learning, Remote Sensing, Climate Change, and Applied Mathematics. He recently interned with the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, ICRISAT, Mali where he researched on leveraging machine learning with satellite images for plot delineation in the African rain-fed agriculture setting. In this project, he researched and built a Python package, making use of the deep learning algorithm (UNET) and transfer learning, to automatically download satellite images for a given area of interest and delineate plots with great accuracy.
John is a Co-founder and Team Lead of AI Ghana, a nonprofit organization that seeks to promote the use of Artificial Intelligence in solving problems in Ghana and beyond. John has also served as the Country Ambassador of Zindi (a platform that hosts the largest community of African data scientists, working to solve the world’s most pressing challenges using Machine Learning and AI) since January 2020. Volunteering with AI Ghana and Zindi, he organized the first ever inter-university machine learning hackathon in Ghana (Umoja Hack Ghana 2020) which saw over eight universities participating, and has also organized so many weekend webinars where participants were taken through important concepts in AI, Data Science or Machine Learning either by himself or invited experts. He was also a program committee member of the successfully organized IndabaX Ghana 2021 and oversaw the smooth running of a Zindi machine learning hackathon which was part of the program.
Publications;
“Extraction and Systematic Synthesis of Textual Information by Contextualization and Enrichment : Applications of Automated Reasoning in the Cognitive Sciences”, “Problem and Solution Documentation Template for Machine Learning Competitions to Enhance Explainability, Reproducibility, and Collaboration Between Stakeholders”, and “Federated Grassroots Community Model for Catalyzing Artificial Intelligence for Common Good”.
John loves to write at his leisure, and runs Tee Series (registered in Ghana as Pee Series Services), which has edited and published one novel so far (written by an upcoming author) and has many more in the pipeline. He also enjoys listening to music and playing the trumpet.
