After nine years in the banking and finance sector, he made a U-turn, in 2017, to develop his passion for new technologies. In partnership with various partners, he invested in artificial intelligence, earning several awards. 

Youssef Bouyakhf is a Moroccan tech entrepreneur and co-founder of DeepEcho, a medical imaging startup. 

Through DeepEcho -founded in 2020, Youssef combats infant and maternal maternity with a prenatal diagnosis solution that helps prevent potential pregnancy complications and reduce diagnostic errors. Thanks to high-performance deep learning algorithms, the solution makes ultrasound scans simpler yet more accurate.  

"DeepEcho is a deep tech startup that focuses on the fourth Millennium Development Goal of reducing child mortality. We come from AI Lab and we work hand in hand with the best doctors in Morocco," Youssef Bouyakhf told Plug and Play in February 2022.  

The tech enthusiast is particularly attracted by artificial intelligence given its usefulness in practical applications. In 2020, he co-founded Akumen IA, a consulting firm leveraging tech and data science to meet firms' and institutions’ needs. Three years earlier, he co-founded AIOX Labs, a Morocco-based start-up studio that uses data science and artificial intelligence to address businesses’ needs. 

Before going into entrepreneurship full-time, Youssef worked for national and international institutions. His professional career started in 2009 when he was hired, as an audit intern, by the accounting firm Ernst & Young. Months later, he became an assistant Director of Marketing and Communication for the construction company Garanti Koza. In 2011, he joined BNP Paribas as a Business Analyst Intern in the structured debt department. 

The following year, JP Morgan hired him as an  Investment Banking Summer Analyst. Between 2015 and 2017, he was a principal investing associate for the financial services group Macquarie Group. Then, his growing interest in artificial intelligence pushed him to start side projects.

Thanks to DeepEcho, he is among the three winners of the 2022 Orange Social Venture Prize in Africa and the Middle East (POESAM). He is also one of the nominees for the Aviram Awards-Tech for Humanity 2022, a competition launched by the Aviram Family Foundation in partnership with Forbes. In September 2022, DeepEcho was selected for the pan-African program “Investing in Innovation,” funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Melchior Koba