A 42-year-old tech wizard, David Gbodi Odaibo, who recently won a $125 million (approximately N69billion) U.S government contract, has reportedly died in his sleep
David, a native of Ogori in Ogori-Magongo local government of Kogi state, is son of Prof. Stephen Odaibo, one of Nigeria’s founding fathers of surgery, a foundation lecturer and consultant at the University of Ilorin College of Medicine.
He wrote the algorithm for automatically detecting threats at Airports and won a $125 million contract from the Department of Homeland security about one week before his death.
His brother, Stephen Odaibo, made the revelation on Sunday, a day after the incident.
Stephen, who took to his Linkedin account, however, added that his brother was fully vaccinated and did not have COVID-19.
According to him: “My brother passed away yesterday. My heart is broken. He had a cardiac arrhythmia/heart attack in his sleep. He was fully vaccinated and did not have covid. He and I were so close. David was kind, gentle, brilliant, and humble.
“He had a PhD in Computer Engineering and was a Kaggle Grandmaster, the highest attainable skill level in practical Machine Learning. He introduced me to AI. The algorithm he wrote for automatically detecting threats at Airports just won a $125 Million contract from Department of Homeland security about 1 week ago.
“His code beat out companies backed by Billions of dollars. So in the future when you safely fly the skies, please remember my brother David. Our hearts are broken. My poor parents, his wife and two young children. His 4 siblings. We are devastated.
“David and I were tremendously aligned in our interests and would often talk for hours. Our connection was rare and precious. We ended phone conversations with ‘love you’.
“Hug your loved ones and tell them you love them. Though there may be sorrow in the night, joy comes in the morning. I’m comforted that David is with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” he said.
Dr. Stephen G. Odaibo, brother of the tech genius, is Founder and CEO of RETINA-AI Health, a company building Artificial Intelligence to transform Healthcare. He is a Retina specialist, Mathematician, Computer Scientist, and Full-Stack Ai Engineer.
Dr. Stephen Odaibo is the first ophthalmologist in the world to obtain advanced degrees in both Math and Computer Science.