Victor Olufemi’s journey into artificial intelligence (AI) and data science began with a childhood curiosity that entailed dismantling electronic gadgets to understand how they worked. Today, he is a top-ranked competitor on Zindi, Africa’s largest data science competition platform, as well as a co-founder at LyngualLabs. His story is of relentless curiosity, resilience, and the transformative power of community-driven learning.

Technology Savvy

Victor’s love for technology was sparked early. He told ImpactAI News, “As a child, I was always curious about how things worked.” His father’s old and bulky Windows XP desktops of the early 2000s were his playground. “I often tried to repair electronic gadgets or simply opened them up to see what was inside,” he recalled.

This 4D exploration led him to pursue Electronic and Electrical Engineering at one of Nigeria’s top universities, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU. While at OAU, he joined the Data Science Nigeria (DSN OAU), the campus club, where he was exposed to AI and machine learning in 2018. “I was immediately intrigued by the potential to combine AI with my engineering studies,” he recalled.

At a 2019 (Google) Kaggle hackathon, he qualified for a DSN boot camp. “I learned more in those three weeks than in the entire previous year,” he said. His formidable performance boosted his confidence. The boot camp was transformative, exposing him to global experts and culminating in a Zindi-hosted hackathon. That was his first encounter with Zindi, the leading professional network for data scientists and AI developers in emerging markets.

Overcoming Challenges with Resilience

“Access to resources like reliable internet and adequate computing power was a significant challenge,” and a roadblock to the future.  Ill-equipped with failing laptops, Victor juggled university coursework with obsessive self-learning and faced sleepless nights on hackathons that didn’t always yield wins.

Perseverance is his asset. Victor navigated these challenges through sheer resilience and a constant drive to outdo himself. Communities like DSN OAU and Zindi were his family and foundation, where he could find mentors’ guidance, role models, and help debugging code.

His first major win on the Zindi platform came in November 2020 at the UmojaHack Nigeria, sponsored by AXA Mansard.

“Initially, we were ranking fifth on the live leaderboard; it’s really exciting because it keeps moving, and then, we jumped to second place. I was ecstatic.” That victory, achieved after seven straight hours of coding, marked a turning point. Over several attempts, he won the top prize in 2024, reaching the number one spot.

Zindi would later become more than just a competition platform for Victor, but a career accelerator. It elevated Victor’s technical skills and shaped his entrepreneurial destiny. “I met my co-founder through Zindi’s chat interface,” he revealed. Today, at LyngualLabs, he leads a team focused on AI research for African languages, curating datasets, building open-source models, and running an AI academy.

His skills honed on Zindi (handling messy data, optimising models, and creative problem-solving) are now central to his work. Zindi’s focus on actual Africa-centric problems deepened his passion for leveraging AI within the daily life challenges in Africa.

 AI Future in Africa

Victor is optimistic about Africa’s AI growth but acknowledges gaps. “We’re innovating, but we’re not yet at the global frontier,” he said. He further noted that limited resources have, ironically, fueled creativity. “We’ve become highly innovative in model optimisation and efficiency.”

Africa’s AI future hinges on stronger educational programs and sustained community efforts. “With continued focus, Africa will be at the forefront of AI innovation in the coming years.”

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