A longer account of my work, interests, and what drives me — updated as things evolve.
I'm Bello Tukur, a Senior AI Engineer at Awarri, working at the frontier of intelligent systems — speech AI, large language models, and advanced machine learning. I studied Mechanical Engineering at Ahmadu Bello University, and my real through-line has always been the same: building technology, understanding complex systems, and chasing the question of what intelligence actually is.
That instinct matured from building and thinking about machines into a deeper pursuit — how intelligence emerges, how it can be modelled, and how it might be extended beyond the current limits of human and machine capability.
My work spans some of the core layers of modern AI: speech-to-text, text-to-speech, large language models, and the infrastructure that turns models into real products.
I’m most interested in the path from first principles to production, understanding architectural components of ML models deeply, and building it into something reliable enough for people to use in the real world.
Before Awarri, I served as Lead AI Engineer at Uniccon Group, where I led the AI team building the first African humanoid robot. That project sits at a fascinating junction of robotics, embodied intelligence, and human-centred AI — and it shaped how I think about AI not merely as software, but as something that perceives, reasons, and acts in the physical world.
Across my career I've worked on machines that can hear, speak, and think — and I remain drawn to the interfaces between those capabilities.
A major intellectual thread in my work is the intersection of computational neuroscience and AI. I've engaged seriously with ideas from Numenta's cortical column theory, the hypothesis that the neocortex operates through a common algorithm of prediction, reference frames, and sparse distributed representations.
I've also been involved with BMM MIT research to deepen my understanding of intelligence from first principles. The animating question is: what can understanding the brain actually teach us about building better AI? I believe the answer is: quite a lot — and we're only beginning to find out.
I think about the long arc of intelligence — how it evolves, compounds, and may transform civilisation. I'm genuinely interested in helping drive the emergence of what I think of as utopian intelligence civilisations: futures in which advanced intelligence, science, and engineering unlock flourishing at scales humanity has barely imagined.
For me, AI is not just about automation or benchmarks. It is part of a much larger civilizational project — one in which understanding mind and building intelligence may be among the most important things we can do.
I play chess — and think about it the same way I think about AI: a domain of deep pattern, long-horizon strategy, and emergent complexity. I hike whenever I can; sustained motion through physical space clarifies thought in a way nothing else does. And I play badminton almost every day — the most consistent part of my routine, and probably the best thing for my sanity.