Bio
Abdoulaye Diack is a strategic leader with over 20 years of experience in engineering and management, including AI/ML research , research operations, mobile financial services, payments, and big data solutions.
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For the past 6 years, Abdoulaye has worked as a Program Manager in AI research, first at Google Brain and then at Google Research Africa. During this time, he has been in a unique position to see the rapid advancements in AI being applied in the real world.
A core focus of his work has been the Open Buildings project, a pioneering AI initiative that has revolutionized mapping in underrepresented regions. This project has successfully mapped over 1.8 billion buildings across the Global South, improving Google Maps’ coverage in these areas. The resulting open data has become a useful for local governments and organizations, enabling more effective urban planning, disaster response, and economic development strategies.
Interests:
- Research + innovation + startups in Africa
- Digital transformation & AI Africa Ecosystem
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When engineering beats AI
This is one of the most interesting (and hilarious) stories I’ve heard this year.A competitor in a major RNA folding competition lacked GPU access. This “GPU poor” competitor had to innovate, and they ended up beating everyone. (2400 participants)How? Pure engineering and ingenuity. Instead of tackling the problem with a very large AI model, they…
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The Real NoSQL? Chatting with MySQL in Plain English (and French!)
You can now interact with a database in English—the real NoSQL 🙂 As someone who has done a lot of database administration and written a lot of SQL queries in the past, this is the stuff of dreams! So this week when Google announced Gemini CLI extensions, I was particularly interested in the new database…
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How I Built an Agriculture “Expert” with a 549MB Model
Fun Sunday exercise, how much useful information I can squeeze in a tiny AI model. My goal was to take a general-purpose language model and turn it into an expert on a topic vital such as agriculture. Here are my steps: 1. The Foundation: Google’s Gemma 270M I started with this small but powerful but…