Celebrating Paul Azunre

About a decade and a half ago, an English colleague at work in the UK came up to me and asked whether I was related to the celebrated Ghanaian designer Ozwald Boateng. I was flattered, of course, but I did not want to lie that I was.

However, I loved the idea of having some of Ozwald’s gold dust rubbing off me. So I kept quiet and just gave him a warm smile. I have no idea what he made of the smile. I hope he assumed I was indeed related to Ozwald.

Growing up, I was aware of many Ghanaians both home and abroad who lifted the flag of this country high by excelling in their various disciplines. And that is the inspiration for this column’s decision to turn its spotlight occasionally on a young Ghanaian making waves whether locally or abroad.

We must celebrate our own to inspire the young to aspire.

An NSMQ legend

Anyone who followed the National Science & Maths Quiz (NSMQ) in its early years must have been aware of one of its legends, Paul Azunre, who captained the Opoku Ware School team to victory in 2002.

Many, including his classmates, speak of his sheer brilliance and simple demeanour. I have never met him in person, but I have engaged with him on several occasions through social media and I find him thoroughly refreshing.

After secondary school, Paul left for the US, where he read two undergraduate degrees in Engineering and Economics at the Swathmore College, a Masters’ degree in Computer Science at the Massachusets Institute of Technology (MIT) and a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science again at the MIT.

Exploits

Dr Azunre is an expert in optimisation and machine learning. He has written software and consulted for a number of companies including Oracle, MathWorks and a number of innovative startups.

He has performed fundamental Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning research as a Principal Investigator (P.I.) for a US Department of Defence agency, DARPA.

Dr Azunre is the chief architect and founder of Algorine, Inc. and Algorine Ghana Ltd. Algorine is a research laboratory spun out of MIT to seek high impact applications of his dissertation work and related technologies, with branches in Ghana and USA.

In his dissertation, he developed algorithms that take away a lot of guesswork out of the process of designing optical systems — his thesis work resulted in an improved solution for reducing reflections from solar panels making them more efficient.

Algorine has struck up a partnership with Kazaki Enterprises here in Ghana. This was founded by Dr Azunre’s brother Richard, whose background is in Civil Engineering and ICT and who teaches at the Bolgatanga Polytechnic.

They have ventured into agrotech products to be produced in Ghana, with a focus on the needs of the farmers in the northern parts of the country. More specifically, they are looking into innovative irrigation, tillage and processing technologies for improving arid farming.

Dr Azunre is currently penning a book on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to be released in 2020 through which he hopes to make AI and machine learning more accessible, especially to African developers.

According to him, “nowadays AI has been democratised to a point where anyone can fire up a Neural Network and start classifying new categories of images in under an hour with just an Internet connection and a browser. The barrier is just exposure, a bit of expertise and inspiration”.

By writing and speaking about these technologies in an accessible way, and importantly by seeking to use them to solve real problems, he hopes to contribute to the AI revolution at home and help achieve drastic improvements to quality of life in areas ranging from medical, security, agriculture and beyond.

Looking ahead

Dr Azunre has a few words for young researchers starting out on their careers, which I believe apply to every young person starting out on a journey, whether school, work, marriage or a business.

“Desist from comparing yourself to anyone else. Every journey is unique, with a unique starting point and a unique destination. Be helpful and kind towards one another along this journey — it really does come around.”

I have no doubt this fascinating young man will go places and make an impact, particularly on Ghanaian society.

Hopefully, I will see him one hot day for a cold beer (mortuary grade, naturally) and grilled kebabs for a long, lazy chat over everything and nothing.

By Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng (rodboat@yahoo.com)