Barlow Kasule

About

Background

I have built web systems since 2018 and now lead the data and AI function at a Kampala fintech. I studied data science in Italy and taught it in Kampala for three years.

Experience

  1. 09/2023 – now

    Lead Data Science & AI Engineer

    FutureLink Technologies, Kampala

    • Owns the whole data and AI function for an East African fintech serving SACCOs and MFIs.
    • Built the FLT Analytics Platform, Bank of Uganda regulatory reporting, and churn and revenue models.
    • Built SchoolPlus V1 solo; leads backend development on V2.
  2. 01/2022 – 2025

    Consultant, Data Science & Engineering (part-time)

    National Agricultural Research Organisation (NARO), Entebbe

    • Led the data analysis workstream in a 10-person multidisciplinary team planning a big data platform for 16 research institutes.
    • Two rounds of requirements and design (2022, early 2025); paused after donor funding was cut.
  3. 11/2021 – 2024

    Lecturer, Data Science (part-time)

    ISBAT University, Kampala

    • Taught business analytics, data science and machine learning.
  4. 10/2020 – 07/2021

    Web Systems Developer & DevOps Engineer

    Infinity Computers & Communications Company (i3c), Kampala

    • Led development of the UBOS Gender Statistics Portal; DevOps and CI/CD for the portal and the .UG domain registry.
    • Built short-term client web systems in Ruby on Rails and Flask.
  5. 02/2020 – 08/2021

    Software Engineer (Instructor & Developer)

    Aptech Computer Education, Kampala

    • Built internal software for inventory tracking, CRM and report generation.
  6. 12/2018 – now

    Freelance web systems developer

    Self-employed

    • Currently manages the HMT Security Services website (WordPress, Elementor, email authentication, SSL).
  7. 08/2014 – 08/2015

    IT Support Technician

    Misanvu Nursery Teachers' College, Bukomansimbi

    • Documented lab setups and supported staff and students.
  8. 02/2013 – 08/2015

    Administrator

    Aunt Rebecca Primary School, Bukomansimbi

    • Managed about 30 teaching and non-teaching staff.

Skills

Data engineering

  • Python
  • SQL
  • Airflow
  • dbt
  • Spark
  • Kafka
  • Delta Lake
  • PostgreSQL
  • MariaDB / MySQL
  • SQLite
  • Redis
  • ETL / ELT design
  • Hadoop / Hive

ML & statistics

  • scikit-learn
  • Gradient boosting
  • TensorFlow
  • Time-series forecasting
  • Kalman filtering
  • Churn modelling
  • Held-out evaluation
  • Model monitoring (New Relic)

Search & AI

  • Information retrieval (BM25)
  • Query expansion
  • LLM foundations

Backend & product

  • FastAPI
  • Laravel
  • Vue 3
  • React
  • TypeScript
  • Rust (Tauri
  • Axum)
  • REST APIs
  • Multi-tenancy
  • Offline-first apps
  • SQLCipher
  • Role-based access
  • MTN MoMo
  • Airtel Money
  • Interswitch
  • CI/CD

Also

  • Flask
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Power BI
  • Tableau
  • Kotlin / Jetpack Compose
  • WordPress / Elementor
  • .NET Core (earlier)

Education

  • MSc Computer Science, Data Science & Analytics

    University of Trento, Italy · 2015 – 2018

    • Thesis: Using Simpson's Paradox as a guide for the assessment of the quality of integrated data.
    • Opera Universitaria scholarship.

  • BSc Computer Science

    Makerere University, Kampala · to 2013

Read the thesis (PDF, 330 KB) · See it as an interactive demo

Certificates

  • Google Business Intelligence (Coursera, 2024)
  • Generative AI (openSAP)
  • Introduction to Large Language Models (Google)

Languages

  • English · C1
  • Italian · B1
  • Luganda · Native