Data Scientist · Researcher · Founder
Building AI and research that work for real communities.
I'm Ojonugwa Wada. I work where machine learning, applied research, and social impact meet — from financial inclusion and agritech to computer vision — and I'm the founder of AtlasMatch AI, a cultural intelligence platform for African and diaspora communities.
Peer-reviewed publication
Extended Family System and Welfare Care in Post-COVID Nigeria
Published in Development (Springer Nature / Society for International Development). DOI 10.1057/s41301-026-00494-6.
What I work on
Research and engineering, pointed at practical problems.
AI, machine learning & data science
Prediction, classification, and explainable models — computer vision, tabular ML, and interpretability with SHAP.
Applied & research-led innovation
Peer-reviewed and working-paper research on financial inclusion, welfare, and student outcomes — turned into working tools.
Agritech, rural & social impact
Data and AI for smallholder farming, pest management, and sustainable rural development in underserved communities.
Founder & product development
Founder and Product Lead of AtlasMatch AI, taking research all the way to a product people can use.
Selected projects
A few things I've built.
🛰️ Aerial Object Detection
Transformer-enhanced YOLO with an attention-fusion module for detecting small objects in aerial imagery — with training, evaluation, and ablation studies.
♻️ Waste Classification
An EfficientNet-B0 image classifier that sorts waste into recyclable, organic, and other categories to support automated recycling.
🎓 Student Performance
Machine-learning models and an interactive dashboard that predict academic outcomes to support early intervention.
Founder story
AtlasMatch AI
A cultural intelligence and connection platform for African and diaspora communities. It helps people answer three practical questions — where can I go, who can I trust, and where do I belong — by bringing trusted country intelligence, verified consultants, events, communities, and collaboration into one place. As Founder and Product Lead, I lead the product vision, research, AI strategy, and system architecture. It's a founder-led product under active development.
Speaking
Youth Vision Assembly 2025 — Amsterdam
A talk on rural innovation: how technology, guided by human dignity, can expand access to opportunity in rural communities.
View speakingPartnership
CEPODRA — Peruvian Amazon
A proposed long-term collaboration with a Peruvian rural-development association on sustainable farming, conservation, and community training.
About the partnershipContact
Let's talk.
Research collaboration, data and AI work, speaking, or AtlasMatch AI — I'd be glad to hear from you.