Janet Mutuku has had an ardent interest in mathematics and science since her formative stages of growth. To achieve her passions, she enrolled at the University of Eldoret, Kenya, and earned a BSc. in Actuarial Science. In 2018, she joined the AIMS Senegal Co-operative (Co-op) Education program, which by virtue of its philosophy, brings together the brightest students from Africa with different backgrounds to solve Africa’s diverse problems. This program has provided her with a broad overview and deep study of cutting-edge scientific topics and useful mathematical and computing research skills.

In summer 2019, Janet was one of the AIMS students to benefit from the AIMS-IVADO partnership that supports the next generation of data scientists in Africa to stimulate innovation outside their borders. Janet undertook supervised collaborative research between the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) Laboratory at Polytechnique Montreal and the Montreal Exchange in Canada. In this internship, she was acquainted with machine learning techniques to detect anomalies and reduce the risk of their non-detection in the financial markets. As she aspires to be a data scientist and a CEO of a financial and investment consultancy firm, this opportunity equipped her with vast knowledge on how artificial intelligence tools can automatically detect financial market anomalies and manipulation. She is confident that this will help African financial institutions become less vulnerable to attempts at financial manipulation, which in turn means greater stability in African financial markets overall – a factor that is critical for economic development.

“I take pride not only in the AIMS work placement initiative but also in the invaluable interaction I had with the great professionals and researchers at CERC and Montreal Exchange. This was a great opportunity to practice data science and research techniques learnt at AIMS. Working in a team of intelligent experts in the fields of finance and artificial intelligence exposed me to new approaches of handling financial problems and decision making. I loved the diversity of ideas and skills. Working in the link between finance and artificial intelligence is something I would love to dedicate myself to,” she said.

Janet Mutuku has had an ardent interest in mathematics and science since her formative stages of growth. To achieve her passions, she enrolled at the University of Eldoret, Kenya and earned a BSc. in Actuarial Science. In 2018, she joined the AIMS Senegal Co-operative (Co-op) Education program, which by virtue of its philosophy, brings together the brightest students from Africa with different backgrounds to solve Africa’s diverse problems. This program has provided her with a broad overview and deep study of cutting-edge scientific topics and useful mathematical and computing research skills. In summer 2019, Janet was one of the AIMS students to benefit from the AIMS-IVADO partnership that supports the next generation of data scientists in Africa to stimulate innovation outside their borders. Janet undertook supervised collaborative research between the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) Laboratory at Polytechnique Montreal and the Montreal Exchange in Canada. In this internship, she was acquainted with machine learning techniques to detect anomalies and reduce the risk of their non-detection in the financial markets. As she aspires to be a data scientist and a CEO of a financial and investment consultancy firm, this opportunity equipped her with vast knowledge on how artificial intelligence tools can automatically detect financial market anomalies and manipulation. She is confident that this will help African financial institutions become less vulnerable to attempts at financial manipulation, which in turn means greater stability in African financial markets overall – a factor that is critical for economic development. “I take pride not only in the AIMS work placement initiative, but also in the invaluable interaction I had with the great professionals and researchers at CERC and Montreal Exchange. This was a great opportunity to practice on data science and research techniques learnt at AIMS. Working in a team of intelligent experts in the fields of finance and artificial intelligence exposed me to new approaches of handling financial problems and decision making. I loved the diversity of ideas and skills. Working in the link between finance and artificial intelligence is something I would love to dedicate myself to,” she said.