This month of August, we are celebrating Inventors, and due to this, we will be looking at the brilliant innovative minds we have in our nation Nigeria. This has to do with introducing new ideas and being creative in your thinking; sometimes finding a new way to do an old thing. It is a process to bring a newness to something of old; with someone coming to improve on it.
There are many young innovative minds in Nigeria that by their creativity have introduced amazing products to our society; these minds are challenging problems in society with their innovations, making life easier and inspiring the future generation to do more and be better. We will be looking at these innovative people and how they came about doing what they did.
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Silas Adekunle
Silas Adekunle is a robotics technology entrepreneur and inventor; he is known for creating the world’s first intelligent gaming robot. He was the co-founder and former CEO of Reach Robotics, an augmented reality gaming company that creates robots for gaming and for STEM education. Silas created Mekamon, a 4 legged robot with lifelike movement. In 2018, Silas signed with Apple Inc. to become the highest-paid robotics engineer in the world.
He is now the founder of Awarri; a company that aims to enable the development and adaptation of advanced AI & Robotics technology in Africa; also the co-founder and CEO of (R.I).
Chioma Abone & Emmanuela Ilok
Chioma and Emmanuela are sudents of GreenSprings School, Lagos. These innovative minds have developed the idea of products that use wearable technology; to address the increasing abduction of school children in Nigeria. The students made a presentation of their idea at the Young Tycoon Business competition.
Presenting their idea, the students said: “The inspiration for our business idea came from insecurity in the country. As students, we are not happy with the news of the constant abduction of fellow students in some parts of Nigeria. So, we decided to work on an idea about a company called Paramount Guard; which seeks to offer security services to school students, not only in Nigeria but all over the world. The company plans to introduce AirGuard Wearable, which pairs with the AirGuard App; to help students quickly alert family members and friends when in a critical situation or a state of emergency.”
Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi
These two are co-founders of the app, PayStack. The challenge for them was to solve the issue of online payments in Africa by connecting the split aspects of the financial sector. They went ahead to develop multi-channel payment options for merchants across the country; enabling them to accept payments digitally from around the world. Ezra Olubi teamed up with Shola Akinlade to establish PayStack.
However, their big break came when World Stripe, an online payment system, reached out to the duo to acquire PayStack in October 2020. The deal saw Ezra Olubi and Shola Akinlade rack up the sum of $200,000,000 for their platform and launch them into the limelight in the IT sector.
Fareedah Oyoyola
Fareedah is also a student of GreenSprings school. The John Hopkins Centre for Talented Youth honored her as one of the brightest students in the world. The is a result of her exceptional performance in the advanced School and College Ability Test (SCAT).
She had high marks in an aptitude test for verbal and quantitative reasoning; where she had to answer 100 questions in 44 minutes. She however commended her teachers for developing her comprehensive abilities and mathematical reasoning skills.
Florence Otedola
Otherwise known as DJ Cuppy is a Nigerian disc jockey and producer. She is the daughter of Nigerian businessman, Femi Otedola. Asides from coming from a rich family, she made a name for herself for her innovativeness; as a disc jockey, singer, producer, activist and philanthropist. She is an ambassador of Save the Children UK, and also the founder of The Cuppy Foundation; among many other roles.
Parents should help society bring up children who are solutions to challenges; using their creativity and innovation, we will be bringing up children that will gradually alter the course of life in our nation and inspire others to be better and do better.
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