With each year, it becomes clearer to the editorial board at YNaija, the premium our annual New Establishment list places on the work of young emerging players in diverse field within Nigeria.
Providing that first wave of recognition for the work that the men and women of our annual lists do in the communities is important for their growth and for our commitment to support innovation, courage and personal excellence.
Many of the alumni of our lists have gone on to do fantastic things, proving yet again, that our lists sieve through the morass of activity and nepotism that clog our creative industries and highlights the hidden gems within.
This year’s list is no different; from multi-disciplinary artists securing prestigious placements, self-taught developers founding some of the web’s most celebrated platforms, entrepreneurs breaking barriers on social entrepreneurship and activists galvanising the globe into action, the New Establishment class 2019 has proven they have the mettle to take on the world.
Let us introduce you to them.
Entertainment, Culture, Technology, Advocacy, Media, Politics, Enterprise, Fashion
TECHNOLOGY
Ada Nduka Oyom (She Codes Africa)
There has been a huge drive for the inclusion of women into tech spaces, and this has led to many women stepping out from behind the shadows and documenting their own journeys and successes in tech. Ada Nduka Oyom of She Codes Africa is of such women trailblazing in Nigerian tech. She Codes Africa is a platform Oyom created to highlight the achievements and successes of women in tech and to offer them visibility in an industry that is often homogenously presented as male. She connects female developers and women in tech adjacent industries to opportunities within the community.
When Oyom isn’t championing other women developers, she partners with tech resource For Loop, running their highly educative podcast and serving as its host. She also runs GDG Lagos, a developer resource that teaches enthusiasts how to create using Google Tools. She is also in charge of developer relations for the Interswitch Group, a position that uses all of her skills and network to help developers better integrate within the financial services company. Oyom is making technology safer and more inclusive for women across the continent and her work couldn’t be more important or timely.
Iyanu Adams: (Web Developer & Entrepreneur)
As one of the first Google Ambassadors at the Ladoke Akintola University, Iyanu Adams proved himself a proficient leader and facilitator, organizing 50 Google Workshops across his campus that reached more than 1000 staff and students. That was the culmination of a long list of achievements and endorsements from local and international organizations that include AIKI Nigeria and Microsoft. These opportunities allowed Iyanu Adams implement his desire to introduce young people to technology and empower them through knowledge.
Technology remains at the core of Iyanu’s life, expressed through his various start-up adventures. He started NetBytes, a digital agency that provides digital marketing and web solutions for individuals and businesses. He also serves as a managing partner at Bitcom, a digital solutions company based in Lagos and is an active and vocal participant in the Nigerian tech community, advocating for more inclusion for careers and jobs that are traditionally ignored by Nigerian tech. He currently consults for the Osun State Ministry of Education and has partnered in the past with Google to bring the Google Teacher’s conference, an initiative to help teachers better utilize Google tools in their quest to educate. He is also the founder of the Striving for Greater Education technology initiative that uses technology to aid learning.
Niyi Aribi (Founder, CMapIT)
Founding a tech company out of Nigeria that quickly gains the respect and admiration of the international tech community is no mean feat, but Nigerians like Niyi Aribi somehow not only manage this but excel in the global space. Aribi is the co-creator of CMapit, an application that allows relative novices create quick maps and charts that can be integrated into documents with minimal skills. As the world becomes increasingly digital, the demand for maps and charts of this nature have grown.
Niyi Aribi’s CMapIT was conceived while Aribi was an intern at the World Bank and created out of a need to help Nigerians track social issues within the country and visualise the impact or lack thereof, of governance and government projects. By integrating for web and mobile use, cMapIT is accessible to wider audiences, does the heavy work of processing raw data to be fed into the application and allows developers build their own iterations and applications with its datasets. So far CMapIT has been downloaded more than 40,000 and given the Best Business Award by the Open Data Institute in London and the most innovative GIS company in citizen empowerment by the Geospatial Excellence Awards in India.
Aribi and CMapIT is launching its first tech hub to better engage with developers looking to create applications with the company’s API and demand better accountability from the government.
Jesudamilare Adesegun-David (Co-founder, Ennovate Labs)
A major hindrance to the growth of technology outside pockets like Lagos and Abuja is the absence of the basic amenities and the communities around which technology grows and progresses. To solve these problems, many have championed the establishment of technology incubators and innovation hubs, spaces where young people have access to good internet, technology, power and other developers from which they can learn and spar ideas.
Ennovate labs, co-founded by Jesudamilare Adesegun-David is overturning the status quo in Ogbomoso, Oyo state. Adesegun mentors and connects young developers with potential clients while creating a space where technology and innovation is celebrated. Himself a chapter director of Start-up Grind, Adesegun-David’s’ is committed the establishment and growth of indigenous technology brands. He is also invested in the push to decentralize technology in Nigeria and bring technology through hubs like Ennovate Labs to the communities who are least likely to access them otherwise. Ennovate labs is doing this through Teenovate¸ it’s youth oriented coding boot camps, Code Force, its exhaustive core technology incubators committed to training 2000+ developers in the next decade to meet the international demand.
That is how you lead movement.
Abiodun Adereni (Help Mum, Innovation)
Abiodun Adereni’s journey to becoming a Google Impact Champion for 2018, started nearly a decade before when he student Veterinary Medicine. During his visits to his hometown, he was disturbed by the high mortality rates of mothers and babies, specifically due to a strain of Zoonosis called Toxoplasmosis, often caused by women interacting with semi-feral pets during their pregnancies. Toxoplasmosis is a disease primarily found in cats and able to cause mutations that result in congenital defects in babies. These conditions were heightened by the absence of a primary health center in his hometown and the unwillingness of the government to change this.
When Adereni was chosen for the Tony Elumelu Foundation annual entrepreneurship drive, Adereni chose to begin work on his solution to this problem, which was to simply equip pregnant mothers to care for themselves and deliver their babies safely in the absence of proper medical care. The end result was HelpMum, a mobile-based application which delivers timely information about vaccination and pre-natal checkup dates, awareness about possible health complications during pregnancy and general natal health information to mothers in their indigenous languages. Adereni founded the start-up and launched the application in 2017.
Adereni’s application was so groundbreaking, Help Mum was chosen as a Google Impact Awards winner for 2018, an affirmation of the important work both men are doing in improving healthcare for all women.
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