“You don’t have to be ready; just start.”

That’s the advice Elijah Kwaku Adutwum Boateng ’23 wishes he had embraced earlier. Two years after graduating with a degree in Computer Science, Boateng is back “home” at Ashesi University—this time as part of the Master’s in Intelligent Computing Systems (ICS) Class of 2027.

“It feels great to be back,” he shared. “I don’t want to come in with a fixed mindset. I want to be open and embrace fresh thinking. But also, knowing that I’ve been here before, it won’t kill me at least,” he laughed.

During his undergraduate years, Boateng made his mark as a budding innovator. He published a capstone thesis on face recognition under constraints, improving accuracy using wavelet transformations and Principal Component Analysis (PCA).

“The idea was, even if it’s dark, or someone is covering their face, the system should still identify them,” he explained. “Eventually, I built a model that could do that and afterwards built a student attendance system to validate it.”

At Ashesi, he also joined the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) team. The team developed a biosensor using E. coli to detect gold deposits, aimed at reducing environmental damage from illegal mining.

“We wanted to help miners know where to dig before they created dangerous pits. Our biosensor glowed in different colors to indicate the presence of gold, iron, or arsenic,” Boateng recalled.