About
My name is Koffi Sylvain SOADAN. I grew up in Lomé, I am learning to write software, and I am interested in how a society decides what technology is allowed to do.
Who I am
I try to understand two things at the same time: how a technical system works, and how a society decides what that system is allowed to do.
Computing attracted me through objects before arguments. The first program that runs, the first database modelled properly, the first time a network answers: that is where I understood I wanted to build rather than merely comment. Since then I have been pursuing a degree in software engineering and information systems at IAI-Togo, where I study algorithms, architecture, databases and networks.
One question came back quickly: who decides what a system may do with a citizen's data? That question led me to public law at the University of Lomé, then to political science at the University of Kara. I do not follow these three programmes in parallel out of a taste for collecting degrees. I follow them because AI governance, data protection and cybersecurity cannot be handled well by an engineer alone, a lawyer alone, or a political scientist alone.
What interests me, in one word, is digital diplomacy: understanding how African states negotiate, adopt and enforce shared rules on technologies they do not always host. It is a field where one must speak both network protocol and negotiating protocol, and that is exactly where I want to build my place.
I document this work in public without inflating its progress: specifications, prototypes, analysis notes and code. This portfolio is a progress log as much as a showcase.
My journey
A path often starts with an accident. These are the moments that mattered, and what I took from them.
2022
Volunteer and first aider
The first commitment that taught me a skill is only worth something when it serves someone. First-aid training, presence in the field, discipline of the gestures.
2023 to 2025
Student leader, science, health and environment clubs
Speaking on behalf of students, organising, persuading. That is where I first touched Arduino and robotics, and where programming moved from coursework to project work.
2024 to 2025
Secondary education, Togo
A demanding scientific track that gave me the logical basis of engineering, and the habit of working a problem until it gives way.
2025 to present
African Institute of Computer Science (IAI-Togo)
Second year. Software development, programming, relational databases, networks and digital technologies. This is the technical column of everything else, and the part of my path that demands the most daily work.
2025 to present
iBase, Togo
Supporting young learners forced me to clarify what I thought I knew. A concept is only really understood at the moment you have to explain it to someone with no reason to take your word for it.
2025 to present
AIMES-Afrique / Health Corps / SOS Docteur TV Togo
Representation and coordination around youth health initiatives, alongside an online volunteering assignment for the United Nations on neglected tropical diseases in Guinea-Conakry.
2025 to present
Youth leadership and community advocacy
Community leadership, environmental protection, and above all a lesson about youth participation in local decisions: a policy changes nothing if nobody feels concerned by it.
2026 to present
University of Lomé · Faculty of Law
Where I learn to read a normative text, to separate a rule from an intention, and to understand how a state organises its own constraint. This is the bridge between my technical work and the idea of governance.
2026 to present
University of Kara
Institutions, power, public policy, international relations and multilateral organisations. This is where my curiosity about treaties and negotiations became a working subject.
2026 to present
MoNaJeL Togo · IAI-Togo student bureau · student network supported by the U.S. Embassy
General advisor at MoNaJeL on youth and international cooperation, general advisor at the IAI-Togo student bureau, student delegate in a network supported by the U.S. Embassy. Three different places for the same question: how an African institution connects to the wider world.
My experience
Each role is stated as it was held, without inflated responsibility. Detailed entries open on click.
iBase · Togo · current
Mentoring young learners in programming, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.
The work is about making often abstract ideas accessible. I adapt the pace, review practical exercises and introduce the basics of information security in concrete terms.
MoNaJeL Togo · 2026 to present
Supporting youth initiatives, international cooperation, leadership and mobilisation.
The National Movement of Young Leaders for International Cooperation works on the link between youth and international openness. I support the preparation of activities and the mobilisation of young people around these questions.
AIMES-Afrique / Health Corps / SOS Docteur TV Togo · 2025 to present
Representation and coordination around youth health initiatives.
Awareness on youth health and representation of these initiatives to other actors, in connection with SOS Docteur TV activities.
IAI-Togo · 2026 to present
Promoting student projects, programming and technical workshops.
Within the student bureau I push collective projects and technical workshops, so that programming remains a practice rather than merely a subject to revise.
Student network supported by the U.S. Embassy · 2026 to present
Coordinating information and running digital activities.
A network of students exchanging information and taking part in digital activities. I handle the flow of information and the organisation of some activities.
Lycée Agoè-Centre · Togo · 2023 to 2025
Speaking for students, Arduino and robotics activities, awareness work.
A role that taught me to represent a group, defend a proposal before a school leadership, and organise activities with limited resources.
Togolese Red Cross Society · 2022 to present
Volunteering and first-aid training.
UN Volunteers · United Nations
Communication and awareness on neglected tropical diseases.
An online volunteering assignment on communication and awareness around neglected tropical diseases in Guinea-Conakry, with a focus on rural communities in West Africa.
What defines me
My profile is not scattered: it rests on five axes that answer each other.
Software development, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, information systems.
Public law, public policy, digital governance, AI governance.
International relations, digital diplomacy, international cooperation.
Youth, volunteering, community development and civic engagement.
Innovation, digital transformation and the continent's development.
My vision
An infrastructure without a rule remains fragile. A rule without an infrastructure remains theoretical.
My ambition fits in one sentence: to build a career at the intersection of technology, law, politics, diplomacy and African development. I am not trying to choose between these worlds, because the problems I want to work on refuse that separation.
When an African state wants to host its citizens' health data, there is not a single technical obstacle. There is a question of norms, a question of budget, a question of sovereignty and a question of negotiating with partners. A country without engineers able to design the system negotiates badly. A country with the engineers but not the lawyers deploys it badly. And a country with both but no negotiating skill has it imposed on it.
That is the chain I want to understand, from protocol to treaty. My conviction is that African technology is not played out only in server rooms: it is also played out in committees, conventions and resolutions. The Malabo Convention, Agenda 2063 and the continental AI strategy are not decorative texts. They are instruments, and they need people able to translate them into code.
In the long term I want to contribute to AI governance frameworks, cybersecurity policy and digital public infrastructure designed for the continent's realities, and defensible in the forums where Africa speaks to the world. Three capabilities seem necessary: solid technical expertise, legal and normative capacity, and the ability to work multilaterally. I am building them one by one, and saying so plainly.
Transparency: the information in this portfolio reflects only training, engagements and projects that are genuinely underway. Where information is not available, it is flagged as such rather than invented. None of my projects is presented as deployed.
My values
Principles learned while working, not a list chosen for comfort.
Going further
The detail of my path is documented page by page, with each project's stage stated honestly.