Building The Future Podcast

Onyeka Akumah is the CEO and co-founder of Farmcrowdy, an agric-tech platform.   Farmcrowdy gives Nigerians the opportunity to participate in Agriculture by connecting farm sponsors with real farmers for the purpose of producing high-quality farm produce.   Onyeka returned to Nigeria from India in 2016 and has since then worked with business like Konga, Wakanow, Jumia and Deloitte before going ahe...

Akin Alabi is the founder of Nairabet, an online sports betting platform.   Akin grew up with the hopes of being rich.  According to him, he wasn’t too particular about his profession as long as it was legal and it made him rich.   He started his career by selling ebooks, CDSs, audio tapes and manuals. In 2009, he launched Nairabet.   Last year, he launched his book...Small Business, Big Money. A...

Erik Osiakwan is an entrepreneur and an investor with 15 years of ICT industry leadership.   He is the manager partner in Chanzo Capital, a growth capital firm investing in Africa’s digital economy.   Erik is a consultant for the world bank. He has worked in 32 African countries setting up high-tech startups He serves on the board of Farmerline, Forhey, Teranga Solutions, Siqueries, Amp.it, SameLo...

Adeyinka Adewale is the co-founder  and CEO of Kudi.ai, a financial service provider that allows you pay people and businesses over messaging interfaces like Messenger, Skype ,Slack and Telegram.   He is a graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University.   Kudi.ai is not Yinka’s first foray into running a business, he was the co-founder and CEO of Sanwo Touch2pay, which started out as a payment platform fo...

Raphael Afaedor is the CEO and co-founder of Supermart, an online store for groceries and basic home amenities.   Raphael describes himself as a pan-african entrepreneur. He is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and a former CEO at Jumia. Raphael was a co-founder and co-CEO of Jumia and he set up Supermart shortly after he resigned.   Supermart.ng is an online grocery delivery service that...

Fikayo Ogundipe is the CEO and cofounder of ToLet, a real estate company he founded with his friends while in the university.   ToLet is a web-based platform for property, rentals and sales.   The founders all made a monthly contribution of N20,000 to start the business. Interestingly, they had to hit the ground running as there was a competitor they needed to beat to the market.   Starting out in...

Franz Struwig is the cofounder of iKubu,   Franz started out as a lover of technology before going on to study Computer Engineering at the University of Pretoria. He is a lover of technology, business and people.     He started with advising, consultancy, building products for others. Looking for interesting solutions to problems was the bane of the company. A totally random cycling day happened t...

Trevor Kimenye is the CEO of Ongair, a web based social CRM tool that enables businesses to interact and communicate with their customers on popular Instant messaging platforms from a single dashboard.   This  is a global solution built in Africa. Businesses, regardless of where they are stationed need to communicate with their customers. This is what Trevor and his team make happen.   The journey...

Rasaq Ahmed is the co-founder and CEO of CowryWise, an automated savings platform.   CowryWise aims to make savings worthwhile for everyone by making it simple to do and highly rewarding.   Rasaq has one of the most interesting stories in the Nigerian ecosystem. His family narrowly escaped death while they were living in the northern part of Nigeria.   They relocated to the south and that gave him...

Adia Sowho was the Head of Digital Media and Director of Digital Business at Etisalat Nigeria. She started her career as an engineer with United States Cellular, a CDMA operator in the US. She obtained her MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. After a stint at Deloitte Consulting, she returned home to Nigeria. Adia’s story is one that resonates with Nigerians who have spent a long time abroad...

Aisha Pandor is the co-founder and CEO of SweepSouth.   An online platform for booking, managing and paying for home cleaning services   Sweepsouth is the first South African startup to be accepted into 500 Startups.   Aisha did not start out as an entrepreneur, she is a scientist who  completed her PhD in Human Genetics at the university of Cape Town.   In 2016, Forbes Africa featured her as a to...

Odunayo Eweniyi is the co-founder at Piggybank.ng   She is also the Chief Operating Officer at SharpHire Global Limited, the organization behind Push CV, Piggybank and a new product in the pipelines.   Piggybank is an online savings platform that securely makes saving possible by combining discipline plus flexibility to make you grow your savings to reach your savings target.   The idea of Piggyba...

Chika Uwazie is the CEO of TalentBase.   TalentBase makes it easier for businesses to manage their HR processes such as payroll, benefits, staff evaluation and time tracking.   Chika joined the startup as the VP of business development immediately after moving back to Nigeria from the states. She has since then risen to the position of CEO and has gone on to represent TalentBase at 500 Startups.  ...

Catherine Luckhoff is a serial entrepreneur.   She founded her first business as a fourth year undergraduate. Her wide-ranging business acumen consists of  business development, mobile, big data, music, startups and innovation in Africa.   She now runs NicheStreem, an end-to-end solution for anyone including  content owners, artists and music enthusiasts who want to launch their own audio/music st...

Olamide Brown is the founder of Flying Doctors Nigeria.   Already, you understand how unique and important what she is doing is.   Millions of people have lost their lives because they could not be transported to the right doctor or medical facility in time. Her sister, was one of these people.   She decided to do something about it.   Flying Doctors Nigeria (FDN) Limited is a Medical Emergency Se...

On today’s episode, we have Demi Owoseje, founder of Majeurs Chesterfield.   Majeurs Chesterfield specialises in “preloved” leather and fabric furniture. They also deal with brands such as classic twentieth century pieces. They’ve got a fondness for Chesterfield sofas, and pride themselves in delivering nothing short of  stunning. Demi has an interesting story.  She has excelled in a male dominate...

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...

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...

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.   In today’s episode, you’ll learn:   How Michael’s sist...

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,  g...

#20, Edem Dotse   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 thi...

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. Akin Jones is one of the few startup founders that got multiple offers to join some of the best accelerator programmes in the w...

Okechukwu Ofili 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. Okadabooks has gone on to become one of the biggest digital publishing site in Africa for authors. I...