My name is Ing. Judith Leo (Ph.D.) a Tanzanian female Engineer and Data Scientist. Currently, working as a Senior Lecturer cum Researcher and, a Chairperson of a Research Theme responsible for Cybersecurity and Privacy in the School of Computational and Communication Science and Engineering (CoCSE), at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology (NM-AIST). I am a Female Engineer senior lecturer at the School of CoCSE who oversees the training and guiding staff and students to design and develop hardware-based innovative solutions using Engineering skills with the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Embedded, and Mobile Systems. My area of interest is in bioinformatics, data science, satellite imagery, mobile applications, embedded systems, and the Internet of Things (IoTs) to solve challenges in society and industry. I have experience in working with multidisciplinary research that integrates diverse areas in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Gender Equality, Inclusivity, Policy Formulation, Leadership, and Open Data Management in healthcare, environment, agriculture, renewable energy, climate change, and social and business sectors. Most importantly, I prefer to apply my expertise to healthcare-related challenges, for instance, my Master’s research title was, "An Interactive Remote Doctor Consultation Registration System for Acquisition of Geo-Information to Enhance Epidemiological Analysis: A Case of Tanzania". My Ph.D. research focused on modeling health and environmental data with the title of “Adaptive Reference Machine Learning (ML) Model for Prediction of Cholera Epidemics based on Seasonal Weather Changes Linkages in Tanzania.

Dr. Leo has won several scholarships and awards including her PhD Scholarship from DAAD and Queen Elizabeth at Oldenburg University in Germany and Carleton University in Canada respectively. Additionally, Dr. Leo won twice in the Business Plan Competition which was organized by Washington State University, USA, and NM-AIST, where she developed a system called Maternal Money Funding (M2 Funding). The M2 Funding system assists women living in marginalized areas to save money monthly and then, the collected money is organized to provide required services, knowledge, and alert to attend clinics from the beginning to the end of their pregnancies (support until after six months of their delivery) at the cheapest cost and reliable service with a linkage to the healthcare facilities. Furthermore, through DLi grants from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), I developed and implemented a tool called Early Warning Dropout Visualization Tool (EDV-Tool). The EDV-Tool is an early warning mechanism tool designed to work effectively in primary and secondary schools in Tanzania which tracks students' attendance, especially young adolescent girls to prevent them from school dropout. The schools selected were public schools that have high dropout rates because they are in marginalized areas and have limited resources. Hence, by preventing the students from school dropout, challenges such as literacy rate, early marriages and pregnancies, and HIV-AIDS infection among young adolescent girls will be reduced significantly. The EDV-Tool is currently being used in five public and seven private secondary schools in the Arusha region in Tanzania. Through the EDV-Tool project, I have established a non-governmental organization (NGO) initiative called Bintishule which is a Swahili word that means Girl’s Education. The Bintishule initiative aims at preventing students, especially girls from school dropouts and motivates them to study Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Innovation (STEMI) studies.

 

Dr. Leo is the Assistant Coordinator of the Healthcare in the AI4D Africa’s Anglophone Multidisciplinary Research Lab Project and Principal Investigator of the AI Early Career Award offered by the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) which is funded by the International Development Research Center / Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (IDRC/SIDA) to develop AI and Mobile-based Tool for Early-detection and control of Mycotoxins in Maize. Dr. Leo is the Outreach, Industrial Linkage, and Innovation Transfer Coordinator for dSkills CENIT@EA Project - GIZ. Principal Investigator for Towards sustainable carbon-neutrality and climate-resilient green growth development: Using AI in Tanzania in the area of Climate Change and smart Agriculture has been selected under the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Hub for Climate Action funded by the consortium of WASCAL, RUFORUM, and AKADEMIYA and Currently a Postdoc fellow at NM-AIST, Arusha - Tanzania in collaboration with the Institute for Global Health and Development at the Aga Khan University (AKU) in Nairobi – Kenya which is funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Leo is a 2023 OWSD Early Career (EC) Fellowship – Application of AI to solve Postpartum Hemorrhage (PPH) issues among maternal. Dr. Leo was the head of the technical team in the development of the Tanzania Open-Health Information Mediator to solve challenges of Interoperability in Tanzanian Health Systems in the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare– Funder USAID.

Currently, Dr. Leo is a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in Residence (SIR) from August 2024 to May 2025 at Meharry Medical College (MMC) in the School of Applied Computational Sciences (SACS) in the Department of Biomedical Data Science which is in Tennessee, USA working in the capacity of Assistant Professor. Furthermore, Dr. Leo has worked as a consultancy for AfriLabs as an Anglophone Lead Researcher and Report Writer on two projects; one was to Map Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethical Policy in African countries and the other project was on Mapping the status of AI Startups in African Countries in this project Dr. Leo was able to work with different communities in about 30 African countries to understand their status, challenges, and opportunities for AI policy and startups. Moreover, Dr. Leo has participated in the validation of Continental AI Strategy: Harnessing AI for Africa’s Development and Prosperity organized by the African Union and, writing the AI strategies and guidelines in the Tanzanian two Ministries, which are the Ministry of Information, Communication and Information Technology and the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology respectively. Lastly, Dr. Leo is involved as a Lacuna Fund Technical Advisory Panel expert to review proposals on the call for Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and Dr. Leo has taken part as a reviewer of the 15 proposals on Natural Language Processing for the Lacuna Fund in 2024.

• Computer Programming Fundamentals for Data Science
• Advanced/Machine Learning Theories and Applications
• Advanced Data Mining
• Mobile Commerce & Electronic Business
• Database Management Systems
• Systems Development Methodology
• Document Engineering and Information Architecture

• IEEE
• Engineering Registration Board (ERB)
• Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD)
• Blacks in Artificial Intelligence (BAI)
• Women in Machine Learning (WiML)

• 2023 OWSD Early Career (EC) Fellowship - AI application to solve PPH issues among maternal - Amount 50,000 USD for Three Years – (Early Career Fellow).
• Supporting Women in Science: A Research Capacity Building Program at Aga Khan University and NM-AIST. The research project is jointly implemented by the Institute for Global Health and Development at the Aga Khan University, the Centre for Global Child Health at the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), and the University of Oxford, with the funding support of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – Amount 20,000 USD for three years (As Postdoc Fellow).
• Towards sustainable carbon-neutrality and climate-resilient green growth development: Using AI in Tanzaniain Climate Change and smart Agriculture has been selected under the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Hub for Climate Action. Funded by the consortium of WASCAL, RUFORUM, and AKADEMIYA – Amount 60,000 USD for one year (As Project Investigator).
• AI-based tool for early-diagnosis and control of Mycotoxins in Grains: Case study of Maize and Peanuts in Tanzania: Funded by African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) through IDRC and SIDA - Amount 21,000 USD for Three Years (As Project Investigator).
• Establishment of AI4D Africa’s Anglophone Multidisciplinary Research Lab: Funded by IDRC and SIDA (As Assistance Coordinator in the Health Sector).
• Solution for Interoperability Challenge in Health Systems Domain: Tanzania Open-Health Information Mediator Project, 2020/2021 – Funder USAID (As System Analyst and Administrator).
• Team Leader for Maize Data Collection, Lacuna Fund in Agriculture.
• Centre of Excellence for Information and Communication Technology in East Africa a 387 million € regional innovation hub -Funder DAAD and GIZ (Outreach and Industrial Liaison Coordinator).
• Climate Change Issues in Agriculture and Other Sectors- Funder Queen Elizabeth Scholarship (As Student Assistant and Ph.D. Scholar).
• Award to Participate at the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) for women in computing organized by Anita Borg Institute and presented in partnership with ACM at Orlando, Florida (USA).
• Data for Local Impact: Control of student dropout especially young girls through the use of IoT and Machine Learning- Funder PEPFER and COSTECH (As Project Manager).
• The 4th Business Plan Competition, the first winning team at Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology.
• The 3rd Business Plan Competition, the first winning team at Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology.
• Full Scholarship by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Tanzania to pursue a Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and ICT at the Visvesvaraya Technological University- Belgaum- Karnataka, India.
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• Outreach Program at Murieth Secondary School and Visit Nambala Primary School with EMoS Students during the E-Business Course to Manage the Functionalities of E-readers.
• Consultancy Service: To deliver a Cybersecurity Course for IUCEA.
• Participate in innovation acceleration programs by assisting 5 EMoS students to participate in the Business Plan Competition at NM-AIST.
• Conduct Internship awareness sessions for cohort 3 EMoS students.
• Outreach Activities such as at (a) and (b)Nambala and Nganana Primary Schools with EMoS Students during the E-Business Course to Manage the Functionalities of E-readers.
• 2 Consultancy Service: Arranged by UNESCO, Tanzania to Facilitate the Training Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Disaster reduction as Master Trainers and Training on Review of Telecommunication Standards and Measurement Technologies to Weights and Measures Agency (WMA).
• Participate in innovation acceleration programs by assisting 2 EMoS students to participate in the Business Plan Competition at NM-AIST.
• Train 33 EMoS 3rd Cohort Students on the Business Canvas Model and Copyright Management Procedures.
• Present and review the CENIT@EA Academia-Industry Linkages Sustainability Strategy.
• Conduct Internship awareness sessions for cohort 4 EMoS students.

• Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7420-6533
• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=keAhw8AAAAAJ&hl=en
• Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ing-Judith-Leo
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• Outreach and Industrial Coordinator for dSkills CENIT@EAProject (Phase2)
• Principal Investigator of Responsible Artificial Intelligence Hub for Climate Action – Supported by WASCAL, RUFORUM and AKADEMIYA.