Building The Future with Dotun

Temie Giwa-Tunbosun is the founder of LifeBank. LifeBank is a platform that makes blood available when and where it is needed in Nigeria. LifeBank has one goal… to save lives. In 2016, Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg found her work intriguing and rightly said “If she can actually pull it off, she’ll show a model that will impact not just Lagos, not just Nigeria, but countries all around the world.”

This is to introduce the Season 2 of Building the Future Podcast. One-on-one interviews with people who are using technology, entrepreneurship and innovative ideas to shape the future of Africa. This season is in partnership with the British Council Nigeria.

We have come to the end of Building The Future Podcast Season 1! It has been an interesting journey full of learnings and exposure. Season two starts next year, and already we have an impressive lineup of entrepreneurs as well as a special series planned I have given a bit of insight into what you can expect on Buildng The Future Podcast season 2. I look forward to sharing this journey with you!

This was a live podcast recorded in Abuja! Tola Onayemi is in the economic team of the office of the Vice President. He serves as a Special Adviser on the industry, trade and investment cluster by providing technical policy assistance. Tola is strongly of the opinion that crude oil is not the solution Nigeria desperately craves. He says, “ if we are ever going to take off as an economy, it’s not just oil.”

Michael Simeon is the Co-founder and CEO of VoguePay, a user-friendly online payment system in Nigeria. Michael believes that to launch a product, it’s essential to research the market. In his words “You have to build something that fits for a purpose.” VoguePay is a multi-million dollar business that never received any funding or grant.

Paul ziem is the founder and CEO of NerdCore, a digital entertainment studio poised to make very entertaining games, comics and other related products and services. Paul is of the opinion that gaming can change the African narrative. By the kinds of games developed, the storylines, the characters we can tell our stories and share our uniqueness with the rest of the world. According to Paul, gaming is the “new golf” CEOs play over drinks.

Edem Dotse is the founder and CEO  of Swiftly, a disruptive peer to peer platform making shipping affordable for everyone. If you are shipping a container, you can find someone to share your extra space. Sending a package by Air, add it to someone who has extra space or yet still collaborate to fill your shipment and share cost. Edem has a brilliant view about sharing. He thinks it’s pretty wasteful to ship a half-full container by sea or a half-full air package.

Akin Jones is is the co-founder and CEO of Aella Credit, a provider of financial employee benefits. Aella credit is working towards eliminating the hassle of standard loan applications and enabling employees to borrow at competitive and fair rates through their employers.

Okechukwu Ofilli is the co-founder and CEO of Okadabooks, a book reading and publishing platform that has powered over 14,000 books, 137,000 readers and a million book downloads. They have bootstrapped their startup for the past three years and are now in the process of raising money from investors.

On today’s episode, we have Kendall Ananyi, co-founder of Tizeti which operates as Wifi.com.ng Wifi.com.ng provides unlimited uncapped internet to users for less than $25 per month. Kendall has an interesting. He started Wifi.com.ng in order to solve their personal problem. He wanted unlimited and fast internet. He then bootstrapped to a significant revenue before getting into Y Combinator accelerator programme.

Oby Ezekwesili is a force. She was recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the world and by New York Times as one of the 25 Women of Impact for 2015. She was Vice President of the World Bank (Africa Region) with responsibilities for operations in 48 countries and a lending portfolio of about $40 billion. And also worked for as the Nigerian Minister of Education and later as Minister of Solid Minerals.

“No matter the rules, delivery is key” On today’s episode of Building the Future, we have Cecil Nutakor, Founder of eCampus. eCampus literally puts the classroom in your palms, giving you the power and control to self learn and explore at your own pace. Cecil is using technology to disrupt self-paced education in Africa.

“The customer is not just the king, he runs the business” On today’s episode of Building the Future, we have Oluyomi Ojo, Co-Founder of Printivo. Printivo is a DIY (do it yourself) web-to-print-to-doorstep platform. This startup is trying to redefine the digital printing business by offering consumers a radically easy solution for meeting their printing requirements.

On today’s episode of Building the Future, we have Afua Osei, Co-Founder of She Leads Africa. She Leads Africa is a community that helps young African women achieve their professional goals with engaging online content and pan-African events.

On the podcast today, we have Michael Ocansey, the CTO and Co-Founder of AgroCenta.  Michael runs an interesting business. Agrocenta aggregates small holder farmers in rural farming communities, and give them access to market, capital and resources. Agrocenta aim to sign up 1000 farmers and working on 1000 hectares in Ghana.  And they are barely scratching the surface of opportunity!