Sehou Romaric Kouiho is a Data Specialist with the Regional Hub for Fertilizer and Soil Health for West Africa and the Sahel, based at IITA Headquarters in Ibadan, Nigeria. His work focuses on developing AI-driven decision-support tools, data integration and advanced analytics/modeling to improve soil health, fertilizer use, and agricultural decision-making across and beyond the region.

Romaric holds two masters degrees – Bioinformatics from Wageningen University and Plant Breeding from the Pan African University – University of Ibadan. He also has in-depth training mainly in deep learning, GenAI and cloud computing.

Prior to joining IITA, he worked at BASF, as Data Scientist, leading digital transformation projects across digital twins, genomic prediction, image analysis, and other AI-driven applications in R&D. He co-founded DataInCube, where he mentors data scientists and supports AI solutions. He has also served as a Trainer at CIMMYT, delivering hands-on workshops on Python and AI applications for agricultural research across CGIAR. He brings experience at the intersection of science, strategy, and innovation.

Romaric interests lie in leveraging AI (GenAI and deep learning) to drive innovation in digital agriculture, with applications in agronomy, breeding, digital twins, and resource efficiency. He also explores AI’s potential in climate resilience systems