Christo W. Strydom
Knowledge Graph Specialist · Behavioural Data Scientist · AI Platform Engineer
From nuclear physics to derivatives trading to building production AI systems at scale
I'm a South African engineer with a career that's crossed nuclear research, quantitative finance, derivatives trading, and — for the last decade — applied AI and knowledge graphs. I currently architect and operate a platform of 25+ containerised AI applications on Azure Kubernetes Service for a Big Four advisory practice, while building side projects in school operations tech and clinical voice AI.
What ties it all together: I've always been drawn to complex systems, networks, and the behaviour of agents within them — whether those agents are subatomic particles, financial instruments, consumers, or people being trafficked.
⚡ What I'm building now
| Project | What it does |
|---|---|
| ARQ AI Platform | Multi-tenant AI app platform on AKS — Knative scale-to-zero, 25+ services, FastAPI backends, React frontends, Qdrant vector search, centralised logging and file ledger |
| ARQ Clinical / MedVoice | Voice-first clinical note capture — Google STT (en-ZA), ElevenLabs TTS, WebSocket pipeline, Firebase Auth, tiered access control |
| Human Trafficking Intelligence | Playwright crawling → Claude entity extraction → graph storage → React + Cosmograph dashboard with suspicion/vulnerability scoring |
| IFRS 17 Extraction Engine | Multi-agent system for insurance financial statement analysis — planner, analytical, and QA agents with metric synonym resolution |
| BellBook (side project) | School communication & operations platform — PWA, Paystack/Ozow payments, SMS/WhatsApp OTP, QR/NFC learner cards |
🧭 Career arc
1989 Scientist — Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa (Pelindaba)
BSc Physics & Maths → BSc Hons Solid State Physics (cum laude) → MSc Nuclear Physics
1994 Quantitative Analyst — Anderson Wilson, then Brait Merchant Bank
Derivatives pricing, structured products
1995 MBA — Wits Business School
2000 Structured Product Specialist — Real Africa Durolink / PSG / ABSA
2003 Trader & Derivatives Structurer — Nedbank
→ Algorithmic trading & autonomous execution engines
→ Commodities, international derivatives, debt capital markets
2013 Independent — Built autonomous FX trading platform with ML signals
2015 Data Scientist — MyBucks
Open-source big-data fraud detection, streaming feature extraction
2017 Head of Big Data Analytics — Nedbank Loyalty & Rewards
Led data science team, client behaviour models, retail knowledge graphs,
brand affinity classification, competitor analysis
2021 ML & Knowledge Graph Specialist — ProQuo AI
Brand Knowledge Graph, consumer-brand relationship modelling
2022 AI & Knowledge Graph Specialist — Big Four Advisory (present)
Platform engineering, RAG systems, financial intelligence, anti-trafficking
🛠 Stack
Languages Python · TypeScript · R · SQL · PowerShell
Backend FastAPI · Flask · Streamlit
Frontend React · Vite · Tailwind · shadcn/ui
AI / ML Claude & OpenAI APIs · Qdrant · pgvector · Neo4j · RAGAS · NetworkX
Graph Neo4j · Cosmograph · react-force-graph · GraphSHAP · knowledge graph pipelines
Cloud Azure (AKS, Blob, Entra ID, Workload Identity) · GCP (Cloud Run, GCS, Firebase)
Infrastructure Kubernetes · Knative · Helm · Docker · Kaniko · GitHub Actions
Data SQLite · PostgreSQL · MongoDB · Cosmos DB · Databricks Lakebase
Finance Derivatives pricing · Algorithmic execution · IFRS 17 · market profile analysis
📊 Stats
🎓 Education
MSc Nuclear Physics · University of Pretoria
BSc Hons Solid State Physics (cum laude) · University of Johannesburg
MBA · Wits Business School
Johannesburg, South Africa · Open to collaboration on graph AI, RAG systems, behavioural modelling, and applied ML