Tony Odhiambo
Building the infrastructure for how Africa navigates opportunity.
The Journey
Kitengela, Kenya
1.4697° S, 36.9610° E
Where it all began
Kitengela, just outside Nairobi. Where I spent most of my childhood.
Nairobi, Kenya
1.2921° S, 36.8219° E
Light Academy
Won a scholarship to study at Light Academy in Nairobi. Became a boarding student at 13.
Nairobi, Kenya
1.2921° S, 36.8219° E
Competitive Chess
Picked up competitive chess. Won a bronze medal at a national tournament. It rewired how I think about problems, patterns, and planning ahead.
Harare, Zimbabwe
17.8292° S, 31.0522° E
Yale Young African Scholars
One of the first times I left Kenya for an academic program. Met brilliant young people from across the continent thinking just as deeply about the world.
Fun fact: I rapped freestyle at YYAS after forgetting the lyrics to my song.
Nairobi, Kenya
1.2921° S, 36.8219° E
Young Scientists Kenya
Where I developed a passion for rigorous research and running experiments. Learned a lot about the scientific and innovation landscape.
Kigali, Rwanda & Chiba, Japan
Math Olympiads
1st overall in the Kenya Math Olympiad. Silver medal at PAMO 2023 in Kigali. Represented Kenya at IMO in Japan.
New Haven, CT
41.3083° N, 72.9279° W
Yale Young Global Scholars
First time in the United States. Two weeks at Yale with students from 150+ countries. Confirmed I wanted to study in America.
Nairobi, Kenya
1.2921° S, 36.8219° E
Light Academy Graduation
Graduated from Light Academy as a top student. Four years of boarding school, done.
Cambridge, MA
42.3601° N, 71.0589° W
MIT
Started at MIT in Fall 2024. CS, Economics, and Data Science with a concentration in Development Economics. Rise 2024 Fellow.
What I've been up to at MIT
Los Angeles, CA
Leadership program with company visits and meetings with MIT Alumni in Southern California.
Yerevan, Armenia
MIT Global Teaching Labs. Teaching Chemistry abroad.
New York, NY
UNGA: Africa AI Village and Africa Digital Futures Summit.
Houston, TX
AfroTech. 30,000+ Black technologists in one building.
Oxford, United Kingdom
Rise Summit. The community that shaped everything.
Washington, DC
Hosted at the Kenyan Embassy. Congressional meetings.
Cambridge, MA
42.3601° N, 71.0589° W
Present
Sophomore year at MIT. ML research in the Kulik Lab. Building Mwendo full-time on the side.
Accra, Ghana / London, United Kingdom / Nairobi, Kenya
5.5600° N, 0.1969° W / 51.5074° N, 0.1278° W / 1.2921° S, 36.8219° E
Upcoming
Building Mwendo and continuing the research. eLearning Africa in Accra (June). London Tech Week (June). Mwendo Foundation Week in Nairobi (August).
Main Projects
ChemAxis
Molecular visualization tool - rotate your phone to control the molecule. Multiple modes, went viral on LinkedIn.
Hamstered
A browser-based gesture mirror that matches your face or hand sign to a hand-drawn hamster illustration in real time.
African Uni Database
A comprehensive database of higher learning institutes across Africa. Built under Tavneet Suri at MIT Sloan.
Mwendo
An education navigation program for Kenyan high school students.
Open layer: A WhatsApp chatbot, weekly opportunity newsletter, and curated database of scholarships, competitions, and programs available to Kenyan secondary students. Anyone with a phone can access this.
Fellow layer: 40 students selected per year through blind review, screened for curiosity, initiative, and coachability. Fellows go through Foundation Week in Nairobi, a year-long mentorship, and conduct structured interviews with professionals in careers they're considering.
Underneath both layers sits the Navigation Graph — a structured map of how subject pathways, opportunities, and student profiles connect in Kenya's CBC system. Gets smarter with every cohort.
Research
Kulik Lab
Computational ChemistryNLP pipelines for catalysis paper classification using ChemBERT/SciBERT. Under PI Heather Kulik.
Mwendo
Development Economics & MathematicsLong-term project mapping the opportunity and career landscape in Kenya. Fieldwork, online research, and technical infrastructure to answer: does structured navigation support meaningfully change student trajectories?
Tony Odhiambo
42.3601° N, 71.0942° W