Research Partners

funded by Google

Project partner

ALU provides higher education for a higher purpose, empowering students to declare missions, not majors. Through a peer and student-led approach, they develop real-world skills to tackle pressing challenges and shape the future from day one.

Alongside world-class faculty and staff, ALU students drive positive impact across Africa and beyond. ALU also leads groundbreaking research on AI policies, regulations, and use cases to transform Sub-Saharan Africa, advancing innovation and sustainable development. Join us and start your journey with skill-based bachelor programs and hands-on internships.

Sand Technologies is an enterprise AI solutions company specializing in industrial AI and data science. For over a decade, our award-winning solutions have helped enterprises, cities, and governments tackle complex challenges and drive real impact.

With deep expertise in telecom, utilities, healthcare, and insurance, we provide the technical AI solutions needed to bridge the gap between today’s reality and a digital future. Operating from delivery centers in the Americas, Europe, and Africa, we offer enterprise AI, data science, software engineering, and IoT services.

Organizations of all sizes trust Sand Technologies to bring their visions to life and scale with market demands.

Project Team

Jaen Adams

Program Lead

Urowoli Obietan

Program Team

John Kimani

Program Lead

Dr. Jaco Jansen van Rensburg

Research Team

Fred Swaniker

Steerco

Shaun Dipnall

Steerco

Jaen Adams

Program Lead

Jaen is an experienced AI Solutions Leader with expertise in consulting, product management, and cross-functional leadership across utilities, financial services, retail, and education. Over the past three years, he has delivered large-scale AI projects in predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, and data-driven insights to optimize operations and meet regulations.

He has scaled AI solutions for infrastructure management and pollution control, driving operational improvements. Jaen has led high-performing teams, aligning technical execution with business goals and securing long-term contracts.

Jaen also led a Google-backed AI research project on AI applications in Sub-Saharan Africa, covering education, healthcare, agriculture, and SME enablement. He worked with researchers and experts to align findings with policy recommendations and address regional challenges.

Urowoli Obietan

Program Team

As Program Coordinator at the Center for a Reimagined Africa (CRA), Urowoli Obietan has delivered transformative programs and events across multiple African countries and beyond. With a degree in International Business and Trade from the African Leadership University and two years of professional experience, Urowoli excels in program and project management, ensuring each initiative runs smoothly and meets CRA’s standards of excellence. Urowoli has successfully hosted high-impact intensives, including collaborations with African public sector leaders and events outside Africa, coordinating logistics and fostering seamless teamwork. Urowoli is highly passionate about teamwork and driven by a vision for sustainable leadership in Africa, Urowoli is dedicated to advancing CRA’s mission of reimagining leadership across the continent.

John Kimani

Program Lead

John Kimani is the Senior Director for Growth and Strategy at the Center for a Re-Imagined Africa (CRA). An initiative of the African Leadership University, the CRA’s mission is to catalyze world-class execution across Africa’s public sector by working with senior public sector leaders to close the gap between policy formulation and implementation. As the founding employee of the center, John is tasked with leading all set-up efforts to bring the organization to life.

Prior to joining the Center for a Re-Imagined Africa, John worked at the ALU School of Business where he held various leadership roles in marketing, operations and strategy.

John started his career at the global public relations and marketing agency FleishmanHillard in their New York office. At FleishmanHillard he was part of teams providing communications advice to multinational companies such as Samsung, as well as different government agencies including the Office of the President of Brazil, the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority and the US State Department.

John received a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Government from Harvard University. He also holds a Practitioner Diploma in Executive Coaching from the Academy of Executive Coaching, UK.

Dr. Jaco Jansen van Rensburg

Research Team

As Vice President of Learning, Dr. Jaco Jansen van Rensburg is responsible for steering and shaping the learning areas across ALX, with a mission to create work opportunities for millions of Africa’s youth. He steers the creation of transformative educational programs that meet a spectrum of needs, from empowering individual learners with critical, real-world skills to designing bespoke corporate training solutions aligned with current and future industry demands.

His career is marked by prior roles such as leading the ExploreAI Academy and Data Science Academy, a published senior researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research in South Africa, and acting as a visiting lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand to teach and inspire the next generation of engineers and data scientists.

Dr. Jansen van Rensburg earned his PhD from the University of Pretoria, and his MBA from Wits Business School.

Fred Swaniker

Steerco

Fred is the Founder and CEO of Sand Technologies. Recognized by TIME Magazine as one of the “100 most influential people in the world” in 2019, he received a “TIME 100 Impact Award” in 2023. He has been honored as a top emerging social entrepreneur by Echoing Green and as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. With an MBA from Stanford, he began his career at McKinsey & Company and also founded the ALG group. Fred holds multiple honorary doctorates.

Shaun Dipnall

Steerco

Shaun is an actuary with a vision, Shaun has worked with enterprise AI for more than a decade because of his passion to change the world. In a previous life, he has held the positions of Chief Data Scientist, Chief Actuary and Business Analyst for various telecommunications companies and research consultancies.