At some point in the middle of the night, Olusegun Adeleke was walking down the stairs toward his bedroom, trying to force himself to sleep after hours of restlessness, when a thought arrived that didn’t feel like his own. It was the seed of PAAQ, which stands for Please Ask Any Question, a platform connecting knowledge seekers with verified experts …
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Precious had a clear plan: become like Ben Carson, the American neurosurgeon. She applied to study medicine at the University of Lagos, Obafemi Awolowo University, and the University of Ibadan. None of them took her. OAU offered her zoology instead. She negotiated her way into a physiotherapy programme and found she actually enjoyed it. Then COVID-19 hit, and everything stopped. …
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Most branding agencies will tell you they help companies grow. Seun Koshoedo, founder and Chief Visionary Officer of Xcentrique Media, says they do something deeper: they give brands a soul. In a market where African companies are either chasing global trends or struggling to translate their identity into something customers actually connect with, her seven-year-old agency has carved out a …
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When you see that 11,000 people follow Rita Enosegbe on X, It’s hard to imagine that she had only 11 followers a few years ago. It was a frustrating time for her. She had failed at network marketing, struggled for 11 months as an affiliate marketer, and had just lost the opportunity to pursue her master’s degree in the UK …
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Sharon Ariyo-Adeoye has always been good at convincing people. “As long as I can remember, I’ve always been somebody who is confident about persuading people to believe or be involved in things that I do or things that I believe in,” she says. That natural gift led her into tech during the era when it “was the new rave.” She …
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There’s something quietly revolutionary happening in a corner of Lagos. While most Nigerian developers are building apps like fintech solutions, e-commerce platforms, delivery services, AbdulAzeez Olanrewaju is building something different. He’s building the tools that other developers use to build those apps. It’s a rarer path, a harder path, and if you ask him about it, he’ll tell you the …
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Idris Olubisi never imagined he’d become a DevRel or a backend engineer. He was focused on getting a lucrative job in the oil and gas sector after completing his university degree. By chance, his final year project required him to do some software engineering. Just when he started, his laptop got stolen. Despite this setback, he decided to use his …
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Thani Oluwaseun knows what it feels like to be depressed and not know where to find help. “I’ve been depressed myself in the past and knowing how difficult it can be,” Thani reflects. “I was able to pick myself up, but not everybody can. That’s why some people go into substance abuse.” His experience with depression left him with a …
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Tosin Olugbenga grew up in Ekiti State, Nigeria, where academics were the pinnacle of success. It was only natural that after completing his first degree at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, he pursued a master’s degree in physics. His path seemed clear: get a PhD, become a lecturer, and join the ranks of the academics he admired, but the Nigerian …
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It started with a casual offer between friends. Nengi Sagbe, a medical student and product designer, had run out of practice questions while prepping for exams. Sitting across from her was Richard Eradiri, a software engineer who’d spent five years building apps for Nigerian banks but was itching to create something of his own. “I could just build something for …
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Ronald Eguh was the kid everyone called when something broke. A frozen phone, a dead laptop, mysterious Wi-Fi issues—he fixed them all. “I was the family IT guy,” he says with a laugh. Naturally, he wanted to study computer engineering. But like many Nigerian kids, what he wanted didn’t matter as much as what looked prestigious. His family pushed for …
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From a young age, Kelvin Omereshone’s interests marked him as a maverick. Unlike other children in Delta State, Nigeria, who listened to popular songs, he gravitated toward classical music. This distinct interest hinted at a mind that would chart its own path. At 10, his curiosity led him to search his father’s briefcase. Inside was a notebook filled with code …
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In Nigeria, participation in the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is compulsory for every graduate. But for Benjamin Olamide Shotola, that one-year period became an opportunity to do something different. He chose to forgo the scheme and, in doing so, changed the course of his life. Using platforms like HubSpot, Udemy, and Coursera, Benjamin taught himself email marketing. Having the …
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If you traveled back in time to ask young Mandy Basterman what she wanted to become, she’d have said a lawyer. Mandy, who is now a VoIP/IT Technician, even started law classes at the university. But her studies came to an abrupt halt because of the high cost of legal education. Parting from her desired career path was extremely difficult, …
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For as long as he could remember, computers had always fascinated Eric Aprioku. However, when his parents enrolled him in a computer school, it was as if his fingers were cursed. “I seemed to have an unrequited relationship with hardware because I spoiled every single system I tried to fix.” He was close to giving up when he discovered Python …
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The Geek Circle The Voice of Africa’s Tech Community