Dakar, Senegal
KhalifaBabacarDiouf
AI & Software Engineer
Self-taught software engineer. I build AI systems and architectures that hold up in the real world.
- Startups (CTO)
- TEWLU & KOMPTWAR
- Approach
- Self-taught engineer
- Zindi competitions
- Silver & bronze medals
- Distinctions
- Concours Général · SALTIS
What I build
Two startups whose engineering I lead, and systems deployed against real industrial problems.
- 01Conversational AI & Backend
TEWLU
Co-Founder & CTO
AI sales assistant for merchants on WhatsApp
Conversational agent platform wired into the WhatsApp Business API, with an interchangeable multi-provider LLM layer (Gemini, OpenAI, HuggingFace, Ollama, OpenRouter) and a deterministic rule-based fallback. Voice message handling in Wolof and French, pricing guardrails, and structured order generation.
- Django
- DRF
- PostgreSQL
- Celery
- Redis
- Multi-provider LLM
- ADIA ASR
- WhatsApp Business API
- Vue 3 PWA
- Flutter
- Docker
- 02Business Management & Point of Sale
KOMPTWAR
Co-Founder & CTO
Native point of sale, built to run without internet
Checkout and business management software shipped as a native binary through Tauri. The SQLite database is embedded on the machine, so it runs fully offline — with stock traceability, versioned migrations and signed remote updates.
- Tauri 2
- Rust
- React
- TypeScript
- SQLite
- Vite
- 03Machine Learning & Sensor Data
Gas Pipeline Leak Detection
🥈 2nd Prize PAS Challenge — SALTIS 2024Leak detection from pressure sensor readings
Automated leak detection across gas pipeline networks using pressure sensor data alone. Time-series analysis of pressure differentials between measurement points isolates anomaly signatures and raises an alert before the loss occurs.
- Python
- TensorFlow
- Time series
- Pandas / NumPy
- Scikit-learn
- 04Computer Vision
Traffic Violation Detection
Real-time detection of road traffic violations
High-throughput video processing for automated identification of traffic violations, with multi-vehicle tracking across virtual regions of interest.
- PyTorch
- YOLOv8
- DeepSORT
- OpenCV
- Python
- 05Software Engineering & Databases
HR & Budget Monitoring Platform (SENELEC)
Centralising and monitoring operational data
Relational design on PostgreSQL and development of interactive reporting dashboards for the Information Systems Department of Senegal’s national electricity utility.
- Vue.js
- PostgreSQL
- Chart.js
- Docker
- Git
- REST API
- 06Computer Vision
Biomechanics Pose & Motion Tracker
Posture analysis and joint angles in real time
Pose estimation applied to the biomechanical validation of training movements and joint amplitude measurement on standard video streams. It grew out of my own calisthenics practice.
- PyTorch
- MediaPipe
- OpenCV
- Python
- NumPy
Learned by building
What I know how to do, I learned by building it. Then by breaking it, and starting over.
I consider myself a self-taught engineer. Most of what I can do — LLM pipelines, machine learning, distributed architectures — came from late nights spent reading, from Zindi competitions, from online certifications, and above all from projects carried through to production. Co-founder and CTO of TEWLU and KOMPTWAR, I build software for an unforgiving field: unreliable networks, modest hardware, and users who have no time to learn a tool.
In practice: anomaly detection on industrial sensor readings, vision models for road safety, conversational agents that understand Wolof, and software built to hold when the network doesn't.
- Based in
- Dakar, Senegal
- Role
- Co-founder & CTO — TEWLU, KOMPTWAR
- Learning
- Self-taught — Zindi (silver, bronze), Kaggle Learn
- Distinctions
- Concours Général 2022 · SALTIS 2024
- Community
- GalsenAI — Event Organizer
- Languages
- French, English, Wolof
Tools of the trade
What I use in production and in applied research, grouped by domain.
Applied AI & Machine Learning
LLM pipelines, vision models and data processing
- LLM pipelines
- PyTorch
- TensorFlow
- YOLOv8
- OpenCV
- MediaPipe
- ASR (Wolof / French)
- Scikit-learn
- Pandas / NumPy
- Time series
Backend & Distributed Architectures
Asynchronous systems, APIs and relational databases
- Python
- Django / DRF
- FastAPI
- PostgreSQL
- Celery
- Redis
- REST APIs
- Webhooks / OAuth
- Gunicorn
Applications & Offline Resilience
Native software, mobile apps and network-free operation
- Tauri 2 / Rust
- Flutter
- React / TypeScript
- Vue 3
- Embedded SQLite
- PWA
- Offline-first
Infrastructure & Tooling
Containerisation, systems and technical foundations
- Docker / Compose
- Linux (Debian / Ubuntu)
- Shell scripting (Bash)
- Git / GitHub
- Nginx
- Electrical engineering
Trajectory
Companies built, competitions, distinctions and continuous learning — in reverse chronological order.
- 2026 — PresentCompany
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer
TEWLU ↗ · Dakar, Senegal
- Technical leadership of a conversational agent platform for commerce on WhatsApp.
- Designed an interchangeable multi-provider LLM layer, with deterministic fallback and business guardrails on pricing.
- Incubated through the Going Digital programme (Expertise France).
- Django
- Celery
- PostgreSQL
- LLM
- Flutter
- Docker
- 2026 — PresentCompany
Co-Founder & Technical Director
KOMPTWAR (SAS) · Senegal
- Designed native checkout software that runs fully offline on an embedded SQLite database.
- Built the versioned migration system and the signed update distribution pipeline.
- Tauri 2
- Rust
- React
- SQLite
- 2026 — PresentCommunity
Event Organizer — Ambassador Program
GalsenAI ↗ · Senegal
- Organising AI outreach events within the leading artificial intelligence community in Senegal.
- Designing and running meetups, workshops and hands-on sessions.
- AI outreach
- Events
- Community
- April 2026 — May 2026Experience
Full Stack Developer Intern
SENELEC (Information Systems Department) · Dakar, Senegal
- Designed and administered the PostgreSQL database for HR reporting and budget tracking.
- Built dynamic dashboards (Vue.js, Chart.js) and handled containerised deployment.
- PostgreSQL
- Vue.js
- Chart.js
- Docker
- 2023 — PresentSelf-taught
Self-taught learning
Ongoing · Dakar, Senegal
- Data science competitions on Zindi, working against real African datasets.
- Kaggle Learn certifications in data science and machine learning.
- Nights spent on documentation, papers and source code — that is where I actually learned the craft.
- Zindi
- Kaggle Learn
- Tech watch
- August — October 2025Competition
🥉 Bronze medal — Ghana's Indigenous Intel Challenge
Zindi × Responsible AI Lab (KNUST) ↗ · Online
- Forecasting rainfall type 12–24 hours ahead using only the ecological indicators observed by Ghanaian farmers.
- Classification scored on F1, with a mandatory explainability component (SHAP / LIME) and ONNX model export.
- 950 participants entered.
- Classification
- F1 Score
- Explainability
- ONNX
- March — April 2025Competition
🥈 Silver medal — Fraud Detection Challenge
Zindi × GalsenAI & AI Hub Senegal ↗ · Online
- Detecting fraudulent transactions in data from an e-commerce platform.
- Heavily imbalanced classification, scored on F1.
- 198 participants entered.
- Classification
- F1 Score
- Imbalanced data
- 2025Community
GalsenAI Ambassador
GalsenAI — École Supérieure Polytechnique ↗ · Dakar, Senegal
- Represented the GalsenAI community at ESP and drove AI activity on campus.
- Organised meetups, workshops, hands-on sessions and certification drives.
- Meetups
- Workshops
- Certifications
- 2024Distinction
🥈 2nd Prize PAS Challenge (SALTIS 2024)
SALTIS — African Information Technology & Security Show · Dakar, Senegal
- Awarded for a gas pipeline leak detection system based on pressure sensor readings.
- Time series
- TensorFlow
- Python
- 2023 — 2025Education
Higher Technology Diploma in Computer Science
École Supérieure Polytechnique (ESP Dakar) · Dakar, Senegal
- Software engineering, databases, networks and systems.
- 2022Distinction
🏆 Laureate of the Senegalese Concours Général
Ministry of National Education · Dakar, Senegal
- National excellence distinction in Electrical Engineering (Lycée Seydina Limamou Laye).
What feeds the rest
Three disciplines that shape, each in its own way, how I work.
- 01
Quranic Sciences
Recitation, tajwid and qirā'āt. I also teach Arabic reading and the Quran — a discipline of the ear, of precision, and of transmission.
- 02
Outreach
Making artificial intelligence intelligible: meetups, workshops and hands-on sessions, mainly through GalsenAI.
- 03
Calisthenics
Bodyweight training — this practice is where my posture and joint-angle tracker came from.
Let's talk
A technical question, a project, a collaboration — write to me directly.