By Edward Makuzva – Business & Innovation Desk
When the story of Africa’s digital transformation is told, few names are likely to resonate louder than John Arufandika.
As the Executive Head of Digital Engineering at Aptiva AI, Arufandika is not just riding the wave of artificial intelligence; he’s helping to shape it.
With a career spanning broadcasting, telecommunications, AI, and digital strategy, Arufandika is a rare hybrid: part technologist, part strategist, and full-time visionary.
From leading AI projects at major banks to building sovereign large language models at his startup Afropost AI, Arufandika has made it his mission to make African technology by Africans, for Africans.
The Aptiva Mission: Secure, Explainable, African AI
At Aptiva AI, Arufandika leads a multidisciplinary team focused on building secure, explainable, and sovereign AI systems tailored for Africa’s digital context.
“Our philosophy is simple,” he says. “We believe in AI from every angle. From the boardroom to the command line, our solutions must be responsible, relevant, and radically transformative.”
Under his leadership, Aptiva has positioned itself as a 360° AI agency, offering everything from private LLM deployments and RAG-based retrieval systems to AI-powered business automation for law firms, banks, fintech, and public institutions.
One of the company’s flagship projects a self-hosted legal AI system built for a Southern African law firm, showcases Aptiva’s deep technical ability. The solution runs on LLaMA 3 (70B), hosted privately, using ChromaDB and LlamaIndex to ensure real-time Q&A on sensitive case law without compromising data privacy. “We call it EnterpriseGPT for Professionals,” Arufandika notes.
From National Broadcaster to Global Technologist
Before Aptiva, Arufandika’s career began in the newsroom as a Business and Technology Editor at Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC). He later pivoted to digital innovation, rising through leadership roles at top firms, including Vodacom South Africa’s largest telecom provider, where he led the development of a Quad Play lifestyle platform and MVNO innovations for digital convergence.
More recently, he has played a central role at a major South African bank, leading a blockchain-based auction platform and a credit lending automation system, integrating Salesforce and AI workflows to modernize legacy infrastructure.
Academic Depth and Strategic Insight
John’s technical leadership is underpinned by strong academic credentials. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Artificial Intelligence, with research focused on Explainable AI (XAI), Human-Machine Co-creativity, and Ethical AI. He has also contributed to academic work, including chapters on AI and political discourse analysis in Africa.
He brings this same analytical rigor to his work at Aptiva, where digital transformation strategy, legacy modernization, and data ethics are core to every solution he leads.
Whether it’s conducting digital maturity assessments for broadcasters or advising banks on AI risk governance, Arufandika is as comfortable with C-Suite strategy as he is with engineering design.
Championing Local Innovation
Beyond enterprise solutions, Arufandika is passionate about local AI talent development.
He’s been instrumental in launching Aptiva AI’s training and mentorship program and is helping establish platforms like the Machine Learning Indaba SADC, a regional summit to promote African frontier technologies.
He’s also behind the launch of Aptiva Media Group, a publishing arm producing African innovation journals, each dedicated to chronicling the continent’s fast-evolving AI landscape.
Looking Ahead
What’s next for John Arufandika? “Africa doesn’t just need tech, it needs trusted, context-aware, and strategic AI,” he says. “My goal is to help governments, companies, and startups reimagine what’s possible when we build with purpose.”
For a continent often forced to import innovation, John Arufandika represents a new chapter, where Africa becomes the architect of its digital future.