Tẹjúmádé Àfọ̀njá
I am a doctoral researcher at CISPA Helmholtz Center (advised by Prof. Mario Fritz).
My Ph.D research is at the intersection of privacy and machine learning where I focus on
developing robust methodologies for the generation and evaluation of private synthetic tabular data,
with a specific emphasis on applications within the healthcare domain. My publications are visible on my
Google Scholars page.
During the summer of 2020, I had the opportunity to intern remotely with
Prof. Nicolas Papernot
at the University of Toronto and Vector Institute where I investigated
the security of speaker classification models, specifically, I worked
on generative model extraction of speaker classification models.
In 2018, I co-founded
AI Saturdays Lagos,
a volunteer-driven artificial intelligence community
where we offer free classes on Data Science, Machine Learning and Deep
Learning for about 16 weeks (classes are on Saturdays) through
structured learning groups. You can find documentation of our cohorts organised on
Github
to support other communities looking to start similar initiative. From 2018-2019, we completely
operated as in-person only community where we gathered together at a location in Lagos, Nigeria.
However, since the onset of the Covid19 pandemic, we now teach our classes virtually.
In the future, we hope to move to a hybrid setup where we blend in-person and online classes.
In 2021, we registered a non-profit organisation called TRI AI (Artificial Intelligence Teaching, Research and Innovation for Africa Ltd/GTe)
to extend our educational initiatives at AI Saturdays Lagos and scale its impact across Africa.
From 2019 till date, I have been a member, volunteer and organiser at
Deep Learninig Indaba, an educational charity
focused on strengthening African AI where I served as one of the General Chairs for Indaba 2025.
From 2019-2021, I co-organised Machine Learning for the Developing World (ML4D) NeurIPS workshop where I served as the lead organiser in 2020, as well as the
chair of the steering committee in 2021.
I have also
co-organised other initiatives like Mechanism Design for Social Good development working group(MD4SG-Dev), now known as EEAMO Bridges.