Olugbenga is a professor of digital innovation, and he serves as the Technical Lead for the Teesside Digital Trade Testbed, where he leads the design, implementation, and demonstration of digital trade pilots and use cases in collaboration with industry stakeholders, TradeTech Providers, and regulatory bodies.  Olugbenga has led pioneering research initiatives at the intersection of digital trade, sustainability and emerging technology. He led a multidisciplinary team comprising researchers, ICC UK International Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation, and Digital Catapult to integrate an electronic trade documents compliance pipeline with physical assurance mechanisms for international trade. He also led the development of an innovative collaboration toolkit that enables secure and transparent data sharing among critical minerals stakeholders to enhance supply chain sustainability and resilience.

Olugbenga has extensive experience collaborating with industry partners, policymakers, and academic colleagues to develop intelligent digital systems that support transformation across global trade, infrastructure, and manufacturing sectors. His research expertise spans the integration of complex socio-technical systems involving AI ethics, applied AI, digital twin, Internet of Things, immersive environments, and autonomous systems to address emerging industry challenges. As a recognised thought leader in his field, Olugbenga has delivered keynote addresses on multi-technology and corridor-scale digital trade innovation, as well as ethical digital transformation. His work has contributed significantly to regional economic growth and to supporting businesses in adopting innovative digital technologies.

Olugbenga is the co-lead for the Immersive, Imaging and Gaming Technologies (IIGT) research group at the Centre of Digital Innovation. The research group’s mission is to advance research excellence in immersive technology, digital twin, games & serious games, interactive systems, and HCI.​

He has worked with large businesses and SMEs on research grants with a total project value of more than £20 million. He has published over 90 articles in reputable journals and conferences.

• Digital trade innovation (transport & logistics, data & reliable systems innovation, digital identity & trust, etc.) 
• Intelligent systems for a low-carbon economy
• Industrial applications of immersive technologies
• Digital twin for construction, engineering and manufacturing processes

• Computer Vision and IoT for Personalised Site Monitoring Analytics in Real-Time towards Behaviour-Based Safety (CV-SMART). Funded by Innovate UK @ £799,999.
• IntelliSite: enabling safer and more efficient construction through video analytics and machine learning. UKRI Ideas to Address COVID-19@£832,243.
• AI System for Predicting Embodied Carbon (ASPEC) in Infrastructure Projects”. Funded by Innovate UK @ £800,000.
• Transport Infrastructure Efficiency Strategy (TIES) Living Lab. Funded by Innovate UK@£16.278 million.
• See the full list of research projects here: https://research.tees.ac.uk/en/persons/gbenga-akinade/projects/ 

I am teaching the following modules in the current academic year:

• Semester 1: AI Ethics
• Semester 2: Artificial Intelligence Ethics and Applications