About James O. Oluwadare
I am a dedicated Mechanical Engineer specializing in UAV systems, machine learning, and geospatial intelligence. With a strong foundation in aeronautics and hands-on experience in drone design and operations, I bridge the gap between hardware and software to create innovative solutions.
Education
Federal University of Technology, Akure
November, 2015 - November, 2021
BSc. Mechanical Engineering 4.33/5.0
- Capstone project: Design and fabrication of a fixed-wing surveillance UAV
- Relevant courseworks: Aerodynamics, Thermodynamics, Robotics, Control Systems, CAD
Certifications
African Drone and Data Academy, Malawi
Certificate of Drone and Data (Level 2)
Work Experience
Aerohub UAV Solutions, Nigeria
February, 2025 - Present
Technical Lead and Co-founder
- Lead the development of AeroOps, an AI-driven aerial operations management platform integrating ML for flight risk scoring, predictive maintenance, and data analysis.
- Architect and oversee implementation of ML features, including flight data analysis and flight risk scoring.
- Coordinate cross-functional engineering teams, defining system architecture, ML integration and deployment workflows.
- Contributed to the development of innovative UAV solutions, including fixed-wing and multirotor drones for various client applications.
Nigeria Flying Labs, Akure
March 2024 - February 2026
Drone Pilot and GIS Technician
- Lead pilot for commercial drone mapping and aerial data collection missions
- Process and analyse geospatial data using GIS software
- Train students and interns on UAV operation and data processing
- Developed geospatial classification models combining drone imagery, satellite data and terrain metrics for environmental risk modelling to support decision-making.
SA Environmental Research
August 2025 - November 2025
Freelance Geospatial Analyst
- Developed regression models to estimate Above-Ground Biomass Density (AGBD) using multispectral imagery and terrain-derived features.
- Designed geospatial ML pipelines integrating feature engineering, remote sensing pre-processing, and predictive modelling workflows.
- Retrieved and processed satellite datasets to estimate carbon stocks and monitor emissions using CO₂ and thermal signatures as proxy indicators.
Independent Contractor
2024 - Present
Freelance ML & Software Engineer
- Developed and deployed a computer vision pipeline for pothole detection by fine-tuning, comparing, and benchmarking multiple YOLO models.
- Built a full-stack AI counsellor web application for K-12 students, utilizing React for the frontend and FastAPI for the backend.
- Integrated pre-orchestrated Large Language Models (LLMs) into the FastAPI backend to power the AI counsellor's core conversational features.
Spec-AI
September 2025 - Present
Machine Learning Engineer
- Designed and deployed a multi-stage computer vision ML pipeline for counterfeit liquor detection, from data acquisition, pre-processing, model training and evaluation, to production inference via API.
- Collected and curated labelled image datasets and developed modular pre-processing pipelines including image normalisation, augmentation, and feature extraction.
- Trained and benchmarked multiple deep learning architectures for label detection, text extraction (OCR), feature analysis, and authenticity classification.
- Maintain continuous improvement workflow, including dataset expansion, retraining, and performance optimisation.
Factware Analytics, Nigeria
February, 2019 - December, 2024
Machine Learning Developer
- Developed predictive models for business intelligence and analytics
- Developed and evaluated multiple ML architectures for stock price prediction, including hybrid CNN-LSTM and GRU timeseries architectures.
- Delivered production-ready ML pipelines and technical documentation for further research and integration.
Aircraft Maintenance Depot, Nigerian Air Force
June 2019 - December, 2019
Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Intern
- Assisted in routine and scheduled maintenance of military aircraft
- Learned hands-on troubleshooting and repair of avionics and mechanical systems
- Documented maintenance procedures and ensured compliance with safety standards
- Participated in technical workshops and training sessions