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Alexander Mengesha

@alexandermengesha

Message

I build production machine learning systems for credit, health, and telecom.

Ethiopia

Message

I've built and deployed a production credit-scoring system at Kifiya Financial Technology that assessed loan eligibility for more than 916,000 smallholder farmers, including unbanked borrowers through unsupervised machine learning.

At the University of Gondar, I taught Machine Learning, Data Science, Python, and databases while leading public-health and explainable-AI research. I also mentor global data science learners and build applied ML products, from fraud-detection dashboards to telecom pipelines and retrieval-augmented LLM systems.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Data Scientist

Current

Kifiya Financial Technology PLC

Mar 2026 - Present (5 months)

Architected and deployed an end-to-end production credit scoring model for agricultural crop financing, scoring 916,000+ smallholder farmers for loan eligibility. Solved critical cold-start issues by engineering an unsupervised machine learning model to evaluate unbanked borrowers lacking prior financial repayment histories.

Python PyTorch Machine Learning Credit Risk Modeling Feature Engineering Hypothesis Testing AWS MLOps

Trainer – Data Analytics and Machine Learning

University of Gondar

Mar 2025 - Apr 2026 (1 year 1 month)

Delivered hands-on Data Analytics and Machine Learning training to students and professionals, covering supervised/unsupervised learning, regression, classification, and clustering algorithms. Designed practical exercises in ML modeling, feature engineering, hyperparameter tuning, and data-driven decision-making using real-world datasets.

Data Analytics Machine Learning Supervised Learning Unsupervised Learning regression Classification Clustering Feature Engineering Hyperparameter Tuning

Lecturer, Researcher

University of Gondar

Nov 2022 - Mar 2026 (3 years 4 months)

Developed and delivered undergraduate and MSc course materials for Machine Learning, Data Science, Python, and Databases, embedding hands-on industry-standard projects. Led AI-driven public health research leveraging Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) datasets, generating insights that informed national health policy on child and maternal health.

Machine Learning Data Science Python Databases Public Health Analytics Explainable AI SHAP Research

Data Scientist Teaching Assistant

SmartAI School

Feb 2025 - Feb 2026 (1 year)

Trained and mentored a global cohort of students in Data Science, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Generative AI workflows using Python, PyTorch, and Jupyter environments. Guided trainees in building neural network architectures, applying transfer learning, fine-tuning foundation models, and implementing class-imbalance techniques.

Python PyTorch Jupyter Machine Learning Deep Learning Generative AI Transfer Learning SHAP SMOTE Tomek Links

Instructor Data Science and AI Summer School

2nd New Life Research Foundation

Jun 2025 - Jun 2025 (0 months)

Delivered lectures on Statistics for Machine Learning and facilitated practical labs in Python Object-Oriented Programming (OOP), Foundation Models, and LLMs for an international cohort.

Statistics Machine Learning Python Foundation Models LLM