Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Iyanuoluwa Odebode. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Iyanuoluwa, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

Living through challenges in our lives is painful; figuring out how to deal with those challenges is one thing, but turning those challenges into breakthrough opportunities is so rewarding. I could have chosen to allow the unfortunate circumstances to cause me depression, and quit. Instead, I decided not to give up, but to continue to press on, which made a difference. I grew up in Nigeria Africa, started my Bachelors in Computer Science at the University of Ilorin and in spite of a lot of difficulty and challenges chose to continue to push on.

After losing a couple of extended family member and having a few of them fall sick, I was left with several questions. These questions set me up for life’s success and made me look at life from a positive perspective.

I decided I wanted to use whatsoever I learn’t to contribute to society. Because of this experiences, I chose a MSc in Bioinformatics, and a Phd in Information Systems. For my Masters, I learn’t a lot about the biological aspects (DNA,RNA & Proteins) of the human body and its relationship with diseases. For my Phd, my focus was using artificial intelligence to solve computational challenges in drug repositioning.

Now, I take the world’s complex problems and utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to solve them. This problem includes health, financial, business, economic challenges and more. My company Zeitios supports a lot Innovative projects in various spheres of life.

For more information, about how I turned my challenges into motivations, feel free to listen to my TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TzSs9ejxdY

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Data proved to be an unlimited source of power in my quest to solve real-world problems. Whenever I was bothered by a question or couldn’t answer one, I’d ask whether there was any existing data that could help me.

Usually, I find the answer after several hours of digging. Based on my experience with AI and data, I discovered we can make major changes in the world and transform lives. And that became my mission. How do we identify complex problems and use the power of AI to solve them?

I set out on a mission to raise 1 million data scientists. While doing so, I began teaching in college and took advantage of every opportunity to mentor the young generation of data scientists. I was able to do that at UMBC, Wittenberg and some other colleges. And I still continue to do that in some high schools.

Also, I decided I was aiming to create a platform for those scientists to continue to flourish and grow. I was hoping to create an opportunity for those data scientists to get hired. Founded Zeitios, an AI/ML consulting firm that helps companies use data to transform their industries. It also helps organizations drive innovation through artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Zeitios uses existing data or collects data to identify bottlenecks within a system. In addition, it identifies the costs of such problems and suggests ways to address them.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I have faced several challenges that tested my abilities to keep moving forward. The entrepreneur journey isn’t that for the fainthearted and I remember my first presentation about my business to a couple of friends in business, I was literally laughed, I was told my presentation was very poor and I remember speaking to my business mentor (Aaron Clark) who understood what I was doing. He had asked me the question and the question was the people you spoke to how many businesses have they built? My answer was none and so he asked why I was paying so much attention to it. Throughout my life, I’ve learned to surround myself with people who understand my space and who are willing to give me advice that pushes me forward. It was very critical who I surrounded myself with and whom I listened to.

I didn’t pay attention to those that told me it was impossible. I continued to push the limits and even though it wasn’t a straight road I learned a lot in the process that helped me grow and learn.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

“The more you read, the more things you will know, the more you learn, the farther you will travel,” says Dr. Suess. I have read several books through out my entrepreneurship journey and a lot of them have been extremely helpful as it pertains to certain aspects of my business.

I will mention two of them that have significantly helped me in times when it was really difficult to figure things out. The first is Clock Work by Mike Michalowicz and the second is Built to Sell by John Warrillow. They both teach about how your business can continue to run without you having to touch every piece of it. It’s basically designing your business to run automatically. I highly recommend it to anyone looking to build a business that runs by itself.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.zeitios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iyanu_odebode/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iyanuodebode/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/iyanuodebode