Kalebu’s pursuit to reshape Tanzania's AI landscape

As the founder and CEO of Neurotech Africa, his company helps build the infrastructure for developers to easily build industry-ready natural language processing solutions.

Neurotech Africa is an AI firm that assists businesses in transforming their customer experiences through conversational AI (chatbots) that can help customers across different platforms such as Telegram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

They also provide consultation on data-driven solutions that can be very specific to a company based on the data it has or one that is planning to adopt a data strategy.

His commitment to leveraging Python and machine learning to address local challenges has positioned him as a trailblazer in the field of AI.

“I have always been into machines and technology, and I was lucky enough to have had access to technical education even while in secondary school,” Kalebu shares.

“While in Iyunga Secondary School, I was already learning all these technical skills and as curious as I was already, I developed a deeper interest in technology and I kept asking myself how I could get in deeper.”

During his secondary school years, he got plenty of opportunities to enter into STEM programmes, exploring software engineering, development and mechatronics.

“After graduating from secondary school, I didn’t want to proceed to advanced level because I already knew what it was that I wanted. I liked engineering and electronics and that was where I was keen to develop my skills,” he explains.

Driven by a relentless pursuit of knowledge and an understanding of the simple reality that the best knowledge is often gained from colleagues and teachers, Kalebu immersed himself in the world of software development.

Through countless hours of self-study, project building, and collaboration with peers and online platforms, he honed his skills as a Python developer and machine learning engineer.

"I am an advocate of open-source software," Kalebu shares proudly. "I maintain over eight open-source software packages and actively share my knowledge with others through speaking engagements and writing articles."

His journey took him from the halls of Mbeya University of Science and Technology (MUST) to the bustling streets of Dar es Salaam, where he embarked on a mission to make his mark in the tech industry.

Along the way, he definitely encountered challenges and setbacks, but each obstacle only fueled his determination further.

A market realisation that disappointed him as he was finding his footing was that many mechatronics engineers in Tanzania are relegated to do the manual and maintenance work.

“I wanted to build stuff and finding that the marketplace in Tanzania did not really trust local mechatronics was really disappointing. Many companies still opt to bring in experts to handle their machines while the local engineers are left to do basic maintenance,” he says.

“So, on realising this, I thought to myself that I wanted to keep doing this, but until I was able to build that trust, I needed to find an escape route, and so I decided to also pursue software engineering as well.”

During the course of his studies, he came across the movie ‘Ex Machina’ which showed how AI and mechanics can be applied to develop something transformative.

Drawing inspiration from the movie for the possibilities at his disposal, he threw himself into intense self-study in the field, downloading any and all material he could get his hands on, learning and experimenting.

After finishing his university diploma, Kalebu didn’t want to study further, much to his father’s chagrin, but overtime, he was able to convince his family to allow him to pursue his vision in the only way he knew best, applying his skills to real-life experiences.

His first mission to Dar es Salaam started with him working as a data engineering analyst at Kopa Gas.

“I was doing a lot of data engineering analysis work and during this time, I started believing that I might finally be going somewhere,” he says.

However, after the internship ended, he didn’t get the job and had to go back to the drawing board to figure out his survival in Dar.

“I decided to work on building my reputation as a software engineer. Doing it from scratch was a lot of work, but one of the first tools I developed was a chat bot that you could text and it would go online and search for information and respond back—essentially an offline search engine that works through regular SMS,” he explains.

The goal at the time was to build trust and he approached this by building open-source products that potential clients could make use of and, at the same time, cementing his credibility in developer communities.

Despite facing uncertainties and challenges, Kalebu remained steadfast in his pursuit of excellence.

In 2021, Kaleb shares that he spent a lot of time doing freelance work online as he worked towards starting his own AI consultancy.

“My dream was to come up with an AI programme and I was picking up a lot of online contracts to get money for it,” he elaborates. “I took on anything that was AI-related and worked on it.”

I am someone who works a lot with open source programs. Kalebu shares that one area he observed to be lacking was localised tools.

This was where the idea to build Sarufi came from. Sarufi is a product that enables one to build a conversational chatbot that can be deployed across multiple messaging channels, including WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram, Discord, and even SMS via Africa's Talking.

What sets Sarufi apart is its natural language processing (NLP)-based conversational AI, which allows your chatbot to understand and respond to natural language input.

“For businesses, Sarufi can help to quickly and easily create a chatbot that can engage in dynamic, personalised conversations with your customers,” Kalebu explains.

The journey for Kalebu and Neurotech Africa has been a series of learning experiences, and one thing Kalebu is grateful for is the supportive ecosystem he encountered.

While it could be better, filled with more information and access to more critical opportunities, he shares that there has been good progress in the support that start-ups are given.

“I see the efforts, and I think that the government can do better to support the start-ups from the ground up, providing them with incentives that motivate them to build,” he explains.

“The ecosystem is also in a better place now, with everything opening up more, as opposed to the past, where many events and opportunities were invite-only,” he adds.

Events and communities that embrace incoming developers and techpreneurs are now easy to access and through these communities, he has also found himself championing technology and innovations through hackathons and conferences he is invited to speak at.

Sarufi is also in over 15 colleges and universities in the country now through tech clubs, where students are exposed to first-hand experiences in building for Tanzania, nurturing them and providing them with the necessary skills for the changing marketplace.

“I believe that when we start to take the tech communities more seriously, we will push people to build beyond their imaginations. Obviously, this means that more innovation spaces are needed, as well as access and support in terms of mentorship and even good internet connectivity,” he says.

At the back of his mind, too, is his love for mechatronics and his dream to be able to combine his software engineering skills and mechanics.