Femi Iromini has been active in the African tech ecosystem for the past 5 years. As a young student, he ran many businesses— at one point, he performed due diligence for foreign investors looking to invest in African startups. Now he’s focused on improving the Nigerian education system and the employability of Nigerian graduates.
To understand how he got here, let’s look at his life’s journey.
Reading Gifted Hands by Ben Carson at an early age sparked Iromini’s interest in medicine. This interest was also encouraged by his secondary school teachers. He was the best student in chemistry, physics and maths so naturally, they all thought he would do well to study medicine. 
He secured admission into the university and had begun studying medicine for some months before his father pulled him out of school. 
“He just told me that he didn’t think the school was meant for me,” Iromini told me.
Fortunately, Iromini got into university at a young age so taking an involuntary gap year wasn’t too big a deal. 
Switching to Geophysics 
Iromini’s switch to geophysics is a story that many may relate with. It involves a rich uncle and a desire to be as rich as the said uncle. 
One day, while he was at home, this uncle came around. As they played chess, Iromini asked him what he did for a living. He worked with the oil company ExxonMobil and he had studied geophysics.
Iromini recalled, “When my uncle mentioned geophysics, I thought to myself, ‘This must be God speaking to me.’”
With the career prospects of geophysics looking promising, he decided to study geophysics. 
A year into studying geophysics at Obafemi Awolowo University, he started questioning whether he had made the right choice.
The answer to that question came during a field trip to Ekiti. The students and lecturer had gone out to identify some rocks and minerals. 
“During this field trip, a professor leading the delegates carried a boulder. I could see he was passionate about it. He then said if you really want to succeed as a geologist you need to fall in love with rocks. You need to romance rocks.”
“I was at the back, watching and listening. I didn’t find that appealing. I told myself there are better things in life to romance than rocks.”
None of his lecturers back at school were passionate about rocks and they didn’t answer field questions with certainty. By the end of the trip, he knew he wasn’t going to end up in a career related to geophysics.
That trip became a turning point for him and pushed him to attend a variety of non-academic events. He got into a number of social impact and entrepreneurial programs like the One Young World, Goldman Sachs Program, World Business Dialogue and Global University Initiative. These programs expanded his mind and opened him up to a world of possibilities.