Toluwani Olukanni
It’s one thing to leave home for college, another to cross an ocean and embrace the unknown. For Toluwani Olukanni, unfamiliarity became opportunity, and he found the Norwich community ready to stand beside him and cheer him on.
Growing up in Lagos, Nigeria, Toluwani '25, always dreamed of being an engineer, but coming to Norwich opened doors to possibilities he never imagined.
A generous scholarship gave him his start, but it was the relationships, leadership roles, and hands-on challenges that transformed his experience. Norwich became a place where professors knew his name, students welcomed him in, and every corner of campus offered a chance to get involved.
The more Toluwani reached, the more he accomplished, and the more his Norwich community rallied behind him.
Eager to make an impact, he founded the AI Club, where he led projects in machine learning, robotics, and computer vision. With the Undergraduate Research Program, he produced groundbreaking work in lung cancer image classification, American Sign Language detection, and assistive AI for visually impaired users. As president of Tau Beta Pi and vice president of IEEE HKN, he mentored engineering students, guided research teams, and built connections across campus. Along the way, his hard work earned him top honors like the Ernest N. Harmon Award, University Scholar recognition, and the President's List. At Norwich, Toluwani discovered just how far perseverance and bold thinking could take him.
With graduation behind him, Toluwani is heading to Orlando to celebrate before launching his career in engineering and prepping for graduate studies.
His journey reminds us all that by stepping into the unknown and daring to try, we can become our own heroes and uncover just how far we can go.
