Silas Adekunle, 26, created MekaMon, the first gaming robot in 2016, according to CPAfrica. During the launch of the new technology, the CEO of Reach Robotics sold 500 robots and earned $7.5 million.

Adekunle secured a deal with London Venture Partners for $10 million in 2017. His company also partnered with Apple for exclusive sales of MekaMon, which the global tech-retailer priced at $300, according to The Guardian.


The Nigerian-born engineer began his education in Lagos, his hometown before moving to the United Kingdom as a teenager. He attended the University of the West of England and majored in robotics. Adekunle became the leader of the university’s robotics program. He began his company with a focus on combining robotics technology with gaming.

Through Augmented Reality technology, users can create personalized experiences with MekaMon. As a result, many of the robots have been bought for kids’ use as oppose to other robots on the market that are geared to an adult male audience.

“It’s a whole industry shift, looking for products that can entertain their kids, but also products that can teach them,” Adekunle told Forbes. He made the publication’s 30 Under 30 Europe 2018 technology list.

This past year he has already earned $10 million in additional funding.

deomelo:




www.nairaland.com/attachments/7885481_silasadekunle_photoforbes974x660_jpeg6bc91dd61e0dd5d627acecc899dd8331








Silas Adekunle

CEO of Reach Robotics

26-Year-Old Nigerian Creates First Gaming Robot

vanbonattel:


Is he a Christian?
Innocent question.

deomelo:
[s][/s]


Confine your religious headaches, bigotry and tribalism to your fellow Igbos, this thread is not the place for such odious and ignorant silliness.

Flutterwave recently concluded an extension of its Series A funding round, with key participation from global payments company Mastercard, CRE Ventures, Fintech Collective, 4DX Ventures, and Raba Capital, among others.

Flutterwave kick-started its Series A round over a year ago in July 2017, when it raised an initial $10m. Key investors at that time included Green Visor Capital and Greycroft Partners, both of which remain Flutterwave’s biggest investors regardless of the new round.

With this latest round, Flutterwave has now raised a total of $20m to date. As part of the deal, Green Visor Capital Chairman & General Partner and former CEO of Visa, Joseph Saunders, has joined the Flutterwave Board of Directors.

With rumours already flying around over the weekend, the circumstances surrounding Iyin’s stepping down and Olugbenga’s appointment seemed unclear. However, the new CEO confirmed to Techpoint that “there are no issues”.

“Because of the next phase of growth of the company, Iyin has chosen to step down for personal reasons, nothing else,” Olugbenga confirmed to Techpoint over a phone conversation.

Olugbenga alluded to the move being part of an original transition plan; something that Iyin himself was probably privy to from inception.

“It’s just like the next thing that should happen is happening. This speaks to the fact that Flutterwave is not just a one-man organisation; the company is bigger than anybody right now”.

Iyin himself seems quite positive.

“It’s been amazing working with the Flutterwave team to build another great African company and I’m excited for the future under its new leadership,” he said in an official statement.

Iyin’s focus for now will be on “giving back to the startup community I owe so much of my success to”.

According to Olugbenga, at the current scale of the company, it was important to have somebody else (in charge) “who can pretty much step in to take us to the next level of growth”.

If there was any “somebody” who best fit the description, it would be Olugbenga. Not only is he equally a co-founder of Flutterwave, he also has vast experience in the financial services space. A seasoned fintech engineer, he has worked for Paypal, Google (Wallet) and a number of Nigerian banks over the past decade.

One of Olugbenga’s first tasks will be to oversee Flutterwave’s impending expansion to 15 African countries. The fintech startup currently operates in Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Flutterwave’s mission is to build “modern payments technology and infrastructure for Africa to enable people and businesses to connect with the global economy”.

The currently 70-man team serves almost 24,000 businesses and individuals using its solution to process payments across Africa.

World Wide Web Foundation names Nigeria’s former ICT Minister, Omobola Johnson to its board



[b]Dr Omobola Johnson has been appointed as the newest member of the World Wide Web Foundation Board of Directors. Her expert knowledge of technology policy and life-long commitment to enabling connectivity for all will provide invaluable guidance for the Web Foundation as we fight to ensure everyone can access the web and use it to improve their lives.

Omobola, who is currently a Senior Partner at TLcom Capital LLP, brings over 30 years of ICT experience across the private and public sectors. From 2011-2015, she served as Nigeria’s Minister of Communication, where she developed the country’s ambitious 2013-2018 National Broadband Plan, and worked more broadly to bring down the cost of internet access in Nigeria. During her time as Minister, the percentage of people online in Nigeria nearly doubled, growing from 24% of the population in 2010 to 43% in 2014.

Under her leadership, Nigeria became the first African country to join the Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) — a global coalition, led by the Web Foundation, working to make broadband affordable for all. Since 2015, Omobola has served as A4AI’s Honorary Chair, where she has provided the Alliance with strategic policy guidance and has led high-level advocacy efforts to drive down the cost of internet. She will continue in this role through October 2018.

Remarking on her appointment, Dr Omobola Johnson said:
[/b]

Remi Dada started out aspiring to become a rapper with early influences from the likes of Eminem and Kanye West. As he became older, he realised that his passion for rap music was centred around creating something out of nothing; whether it was creating a product, a building or an experience that other people can interact with.

And so the passion for rap was replaced by a stronger passion for design. This led him to pursue a career in architecture. He got a degree in architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Remi Dada at the Techpoint office
Remi Dada
After getting his first degree, Remi quickly realised that architects were marginalised in the industry because they failed to acquire business skills so he decided to enrol in business school.

With the passion for design still burning in his heart after business school, he turned down a high-paying job at Oracle to take on a job at an American fast food restaurant named Chick-fil-A.

“The Oracle job was going to pay me a lot of money, however, it wasn’t a job that would allow me to do the things that I was passionate about and I got an opportunity to do that at Chick-fil-A,” he recalls.

At the restaurant, Remi was responsible for transforming the space’s user experience and he loved every part of it.

The Homecoming
After acquiring skill sets and experience in both design and business, Remi decided that it was time he began to look for opportunities back home in Nigeria. He had at the time spent 12 years in America and was convinced that he could thrive in his home country.

He got job offers from two companies, both Silicon Valley giants; one, an international design and consulting firm and the other, a multinational technology company with branches all over the world. Remi chose the latter.

“It was even more exciting because it wasn’t just Google, it was Google in Africa so I was super pumped up”

And so leaving all his things in the United States, he immediately moved back to Nigeria, not sure it was the right decision but sure it was going to change his life course forever. He was right.

For a new entrant into the tech world, Remi fit in just fine and began to learn the ropes of the business of getting technology into the hands of Nigerians. His team was responsible for developing and building Google products for Nigeria and Africa has a whole.

Tailoring a product initially developed for non-Africans to an African’s needs can be a herculean task, however, through extensive quantitative and qualitative research, Remi learnt to better understand the needs of the African as regards the use of technology.

“We were spearheading the research and getting very fantastic insights that gave us very good information to the point where we had directors flying in to experience Nigeria.”

Remi Dada at the Techpoint office

“For example, the 18-year-old Nigerian girl is different from the 18-year-old girl in California. They have different needs and use the internet differently. They’ve been introduced to the internet differently. Some of them in Nigeria have only had mobile phones. They have never used computers. Internet is a challenge, data is a challenge so these are things that allowed me to market and build products”.

After hitting so many milestones on the product marketing team at Google after three years, Remi became the B2C Product Marketing Head at YouTube Sub-Saharan Africa, a role which he held for almost two years before leaving to start Spacefinish.

Remi Dada’s recount of his experience at Google is one most people would wish they had in their careers. “The highlights of my experience were localising products like Google Search and YouTube and being part of the team that brought the Google CEO to Nigeria”

Building Spacefinish
I came, I had impact and I was now looking for my next adventure. So naturally, I had fallen back into the first thing I was doing which is designing”

One of the reasons why Google is one of the most innovative companies in the world is that it gives its employees the opportunity to work on side projects.

The strategy called “20% time or project” is designed to give employees one full day per week (20% of their time) to work on Google-related passion project of their choice. This strategy birthed many Google products we now use including AdSense, Google Maps, Google Talk, Gmail and of course, Google Nigeria’s cool office.



Since design was his passion, Remi chose designing the Google office as his side project. Using insights gathered from his colleagues and his personal experience from working in the space, he successfully built one of the most innovative work spaces in Nigeria. From then on, he began to get requests to design other offices. And so, Spacefinish was born.

One down, hundreds to go
After designing the Google office, Remi’s first official project was Andela’s EPIC tower. This was unlike the side project he had done at Google, an entirely different experience for him.


Andela’s EPIC Tower
Even though the aim is to bring the Silicon Valley office style to Nigeria and tech companies are more open innovative spaces compared to traditional companies, Spacefinish is not restricting its services to only technology companies and startups.

Within one year of running Spacefinish, Remi has led his 7-man team to design the offices of a number of Nigerian companies and banks including Stanbic IBTC’s Blue Lab, Sterling Bank, Ventures Garden Group and 21st Century Technology Limited amongst others.


Stanbic IBTC Bank’s Blue Lab
They also getting increasing requests from companies in other industries including hospitals and schools. Remi says Spacefinish’s inability to keep up with these requests is one of the biggest challenges his company faces.

“We have had to turn down so much work from a lot of people”.

To solve this challenge, Remi Dada believes he has two options; to either scale gradually or scale aggressively. However, how do you scale in construction and designing with minimal talent at your disposal?

Remi is working on building a curated platform for talents ranging from software engineers, architects to product managers.

“If we can curate 1% of these talents, we can have a platform that allows us address the demand”

The future of Spacefinish
As more companies are incorporating Silicon Valley styled offices, Spacefinish aims to be at the forefront of the movement globally in years to come.

“I see spacefinish as a company that has truly influenced how office spaces are functioning in Africa and globally. Spacefinish would be the go-to place for innovative workspaces with offices in Tokyo, London, New York and all over the world. The vision is always to build a global company and we’re just starting in Nigeria”

ImperialYoruba:


Whatever Nigeria manufactuted was destroyed by your piracy and sub standard below quality cheap substitutes you import and flood Nigeria with.

If Nigerians had sense Ibo should never be credited as enterprising at all. You destroy industries.

deomelo:




Mastercard invests in Flutterwave, as Iyin Aboyeji bows out as CEO

deomelo:
This ex-Googler is responsible for designing some of the coolest Nigerian office spaces you know



























Remi Dada, is the founder and CEO of SpaceFinish, and a former Google Product Marketing lead for Sub-Saharan Africa.

totit:


Wow!

Amazing !!!

DabuIIIT:

Yesso,very amazing

DabuIIIT:


Yesso,very amazing

BabaRamota1980:


We've caged you in the irrelevant achievements. Everyday you lay an irrelevant egg, but we are hopeful.

laudate:


So dis thread still dey?! I am impressed! But wait first..... Please what do you mean by an 'irrelevant egg?' I no fit laugh again..!

Addressing journalists in Lagos on Wednesday, the Chief Executive Officer of ENYO Retail and Supply Ltd, Mr Abayomi Awobokun, stated that despite the challenges confronting the sector, his team of investors is ready to expand beyond its present market share of one per cent in near future.

According to him, “there are negative stigmas affecting the downstream sector. Past events have given it a bad name. There is a general distrust between the customers and the marketers. Nigerian economy is also another challenge. Nigerians don’t buy fuel for luxury like driving from Lagos to Akure just for sightseeing. They buy fuel for essentials and not pleasure.

“There is also the challenge of lack of basic infrastructure. Moving of products from the depots to the filling stations is very challenging. But despite all these challenges, there is still room for growth.”

Awobokun reiterated the company’s commitment to Nigeria and outlined its achievements in less than two years of operation in the country.

deomelo:
This ex-Googler is responsible for designing some of the coolest Nigerian office spaces you know



























Remi Dada, is the founder and CEO of SpaceFinish, and a former Google Product Marketing lead for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Konquest:


^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^


Brilliant guy... very creative interior
designs from SpaceFinish!

West side rocks!

Gokada
‏

@GokadaNG


Coming to you sooner than you know! Beating the traffic and doing more with time spent in gridlocks just got more interesting. GBoat is here! Watch this space for more details on how to use this service #GBoat #Gokada

deomelo:


Deji Oduntan

Founder of Gokada

Who is your target market and what types of clients/customers patronise your business?
We supply our disposable tableware to large wholesalers, caterers, and we also sell direct to consumers online. We are lucky enough to supply people like Soho House as well as some of the largest catering products distributors in Europe.