Business founders
Abdigani Diriye
Abdigani Diriye, born in 1986, is a Somali computer scientist at IBM Research Africa who works on human-computer interaction and financial technology. He founded the Somali startup fund Innovate Ventures in 2012 and was named an MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 in 2017.
Abdigani Diriye
- Lived
- 1986 to today
- Known as one of
- Business founders
- Era
- Rebuilding without a state, 1991 to 2012; Who holds power, 2012 to now
- Sources
- 1 sources
Who is he?
Abdigani Diriye is a Somali computer scientist and research scientist at IBM Research Africa, working on human-computer interaction, data mining and financial technology (Wikipedia). He left Somalia for the United Kingdom at age five because of the conflict (same source). See Somalis in the UK.
Education
He studied computer science and mathematics at Queen Mary University of London, took a master's at King's College London, a PhD in computer science at University College London in 2012, and an MBA at INSEAD in 2022 (Wikipedia). He then did postdoctoral research at Carnegie Mellon University (same source).
Work
At IBM his team builds ways to assess credit for people applying for loans, including a 2016 machine-learning approach to credit scoring for Africans (Wikipedia). In 2012 he founded Innovate Ventures, a startup fund in Somalia that has worked with Oxfam, VC4Africa and Telesom (same source). He has published more than 35 patents and papers (same source).
Awards
He was a TEDGlobal 2017 fellow, a Next Einstein Forum fellow, an MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 in 2017, and a Quartz Africa Innovator in 2018 (Wikipedia).
In short
A London-trained computer scientist building credit tools for Africa and backing Somali startups.
Sources
- Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
Abdigani Diriye
- Lived
- 1986 to today
- Known as one of
- Business founders
- Era
- Rebuilding without a state, 1991 to 2012; Who holds power, 2012 to now
- Sources
- 1 sources
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