I help businesses find where AI actually fits.

I grew up in Cape Town, with parents from the DRC, on a scholarship to one of the best schools in the Western Cape. I was the kid who figured things out by doing them. I taught myself data science principles while studying full time at UCT. At 20, still at university, I joined the data team at RepData — a funded US market research company serving Fortune 500 clients — where I built machine learning models and ran predictive analysis that used past data and context to surface patterns most people couldn't see manually. That work taught me something I've carried into everything since: AI doesn't create insight from nothing. It amplifies what you already understand. The quality of the context you bring determines the quality of what comes back. That principle is what everything I build is built around. At MakeReady Central, a multi-million dollar US property technology firm, I applied the same thinking at a systems level. I built a comprehensive, complex AI-powered platform that reduced operational turnaround from 21 days to 3 days. Not because the tools were clever. Because we understood the workflow deeply enough to know exactly where AI could sit inside it without breaking what already worked. I founded TeknaLabs to answer the same question for young people, schools, NGOs and foundations across South Africa. We've built AI readiness programmes for hundreds of young people who had never thought of themselves as capable of working with technology. Many of them now do. Now I'm answering it for businesses through Cipher. I have extensive experience working with data across different disciplines; data science, predictive modelling, software and product development, and AI implementation. I've been recognised globally for my involvement in tech innovation and leadership through One Young World and various other organisations. I'm not an AI guru. I'm someone who builds things inside real businesses, and teaches others how to do it.