Student and entrepreneur out of Addis Ababa. I've been building things since I was seven model aircraft, then circuits, then software, then AI, then a company. ettech is where all of that meets: real products, in real use, built end to end.
Interviewed on EBS Television's 20/30 program.
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// EBS Television — 20/30 · opens on YouTube
Fourteen years, compressed into a log. Every line below is a real turn in the road a mentor, a competition, a product that shipped.
Grew up around a mechanic father and an electrical-engineer mother. Started building things by hand model airplanes, cars, digital houses long before I understood any of the theory behind them.
Met Nati (Bomb), a creative, technically-minded person who patiently taught me the basics of electronics and mechanics. Generous with his time and knowledge for no reason other than kindness I owe him a lot.
Set out to build a radio-controlled aircraft. Built about seven of them. None flew I didn't have the materials to get it right. But chasing flight controllers led a friend to introduce me to programming, and that changed everything.
Learned C++ and Python first, then HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, React + Redux, C#, SQL, Kotlin, Java, and moved into machine learning and data science mostly from books and Sololearn, where I ranked 5th in Ethiopia.
Built a face mask with built-in Bluetooth so people could take calls and listen to music without touching their phones designed with the low-touch instincts of the COVID moment in mind.
While hunting for parts at a TV maintenance shop, met Yisak, who taught me electronics, digital and power electronics, and soldering in real depth plus a fair amount of life advice. He asked for nothing in return.
My mother found NERD (New Era Research & Development). I couldn't afford the embedded systems course, so Tsiday helped me get a scholarship. Learned PCB design, Arduino/AVR programming, and computer architecture and built a line-following robotic car that placed 2nd citywide among Addis Ababa schools.
Took NERD's AI track computer vision, deep learning, video processing and earned an NVIDIA Deep Learning certificate alongside it. Graduation project: a breast-cancer detection model reading mammogram and ultrasound images faster than the eye. Won 1st place at the Abune Gorgorious Science & ICT competition, which led to an invitation from INSA's Cyber Talent Center.
Joined a 25-day residential cybersecurity camp at AASTU, away from home. Focused on cryptography, hardware hacking, and network jamming/spoofing. Graduated from the program in 2024.
Built a military surveillance drone as my cybersecurity graduation project anti-spoofing, collision avoidance, a custom flight computer, and night-vision recording and streaming. Entered it in the Ministry of Education's national ICT competition: 1st place in Bole Sub-City, 3rd place across all of Addis Ababa, and a personal commendation from Field Marshal General Birhanu Jula.
A few personal shots from along the way.
Real-time siren control system that automatically announces the end of periods, breaks, and other schedule events. Deployed and in daily use.
A full hardware-plus-software attendance system, built over a year and a half, with a feature-rich Windows application for management and reporting. Officially released and in service.
Built for the Ethiopian Defense Engineering Industry Group, with anti-spoofing protection, collision avoidance, a custom flight computer, and night-vision recording and live streaming.
A deep-learning model that reads mammogram and ultrasound images to help doctors identify tumors faster and more consistently than the eye alone.
An autonomous robotic vehicle that follows a marked path with no human control — built as a first step toward unmanned object transport.
A face mask built with integrated Bluetooth, letting the wearer take calls and listen to music without touching their phone.
Smaller builds and experiments that didn't get a full writeup — just the photos.
Proof of the road so far — courses completed, competitions placed, and people who noticed.
Also featured in a magazine profile piece.
I grew up around tools, not toys — my father a mechanic, my mother an electrical engineer. That combination gave me an early, physical curiosity about how things work, and I've been building since age seven.
What started as model aircraft turned into electronics, then programming, then embedded systems, then AI and cybersecurity — each stage taught mostly by people who chose to teach me for free. In 2025 I founded ettech to turn that stack of skills into real products people actually use.
Open to partnerships, investment conversations, and technical collaborations for ettech or otherwise.
petrosmelekte@gmail.com →