2020
2020 Y.I.L Fellows
Nigeria’s Young Innovation Leaders
EXCELLENCE
We selected people that have shown a track record of excellence in their personal development, career and academics.
MASTERY
Our fellows have some level of mastery in a hard skill. Beyond getting a university/ polytechnic education, they have obtained further training in some skill.
DIVERSITY
Our fellows are graduates from 31 disciplines and from 15 States of Nigeria.
Ogochukwu Okeke is an budding data analyst and sustainable energy enthusiast who is passionate about designing innovative solutions and affecting policies that promote energy access and boost economic growth and development. She is the co-founder and president of “The Energy Club, University of Ibadan”- an organization aimed at building the next generation of energy professionals and proferring solutions to pressing energy challenges. It is also aimed at building capacity through industry experiences, promoting youth participation in the sector and creating an avenue where youths can meet and interact with industry professionals. Very passionate about driving impact in the African continent,she currently serves as a director at CHAMPSPRO Africa-a platform committed to the development of youths to propel positive change in the African continent. Her vision is to create an Africa where youths are at the forefronts of the actualization of SDG 7-clean and sustainable energy- necessary to drive ground breaking social and economic growth and development.
Nwachukwu David is a young geoscientist with an interest in environmental sustainability. He holds a bachelors degree in geology, from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He is an emphatic public speaker and a team leader with various academic and leadership awards. David is a key facilitator of the TrailBlazer Group: a group of passionate speakers who seeks to inspire positive change among Nigerian youths. Having served in various positions of leadership, both in the academic and secular world; he has successfully supervised several community development projects and has was won awards as a result. David is very passionate about innovative leadership. His goal is to gain relevant innovative management skills that will help him become an evidenced-based 21st-century leader. The belief that a life well-lived is one spent on contributing to the advancement of humanity: leaving people and systems better than you find them drives him.
Omotayo Kayode unlocks the communication lines between people, processes and systems to ascertain data integrity. With over 2 years in public accounting, Omotayo has experience in financial audits, internal controls evaluation, data analysis and process improvement. So far, Omotayo has been involved in audit engagements of reputable companies including public-interest entities in the Energy and Natural Resource sector. Omotayo holds a Bachelor of Economics degree from Obafemi Awolowo University and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria. She currently works with KPMG Nigeria, where she opines on the integrity of financial statements of various companies and makes recommendations to clients’ on improving internal processes to achieve seamless financial reporting. She is on a mission to become a thought leader providing industry insights on the accelerating value of data and the digital data ecosystem, all in a bid to improve the value of financial reporting for all stakeholders
Oluwasegun is a young medical graduate of the University of Ibadan where he finished as the 2019 best graduating student with Distinction and numerous academic and leadership awards. He is a 2018 Harvard Crossroads Emerging Leader, a 2018 Dorcas Cancer Foundation grant winner, a 2019 Rhodes Finalist and received the 2020 YIL Scholar award. Beyond his keen interests in cancer care and research, Oluwasegun is passionate about expanding opportunities for less privileged students to get access to transformational education leading him to co-found The Ganglion Initiative, an organization that provides career guidance and mentorship for students in secondary schools in Nigeria. He wants to be a Physician-Scientist-Innovator using cutting edge tools, skills and technologies to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges, particularly in medicine and education. He enjoys hiking and enjoying the beauty of nature, and loves to watch/play football.
Favour Aiyegbeni is a first-class graduate of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ibadan. She was given the Amelia Earhart Award for being the best female undergraduate student of the Faculty of Technology. She has recently been selected to participate in the leadership training of YALI Regional Leadership centre for West Africa (YALIRLCWA). She is very passionate about space technology and robotics and artificial intelligence. She has won several competitions like the Professor Ayodele Awojobi Design Competition (TEAM HIVE) and has represented her university in Hult Prize Nationals 2017 in Abuja. Her team for the Nigerian Women Techsters hackathon had the best project for that cohort. She has held several positions such as being the financial secretary of her department, the performance Evaluation manager for HIVE, the AI/ML lead for Women Techmakers and the head of Judges Recruitment for the Hult Prize University of Ibadan. She gives back by volunteering in STEM BELLE an NGO that encourages young girls in STEM.
Christiana Okere is passionate about agribusiness, social entrepreneurship, and the use of technology to enhance learning. She is co-founder of Indigi Foods, a company that addresses malnutrition by processing neglected indigenous grains into nutritious and affordable consumables. This led to her selection for the TEF Entrepreneurship Program. She also serves at a special education program for the Chibok girls and was recently presented a Gold staff award for her dedication and outstanding achievements. In 2019, Christiana was selected among the top 10 Rhodes scholarship finalists for West Africa. Prior to this, she was part of the first cohort of the African Presidential Leadership Program, a six-week continent-specific leadership, and development program training 100 African Youth leaders for scaled impact under the purview of the World Youth Forum and the Egyptian Presidency/Chairmanship of the African Union. Christiana believes that social entrepreneurship is a major key to driving Africa’s development.
Lawal Ogunfowora is a data analyst and researcher with an interest in electronic fabrication and design using novel organic materials. He had his Bachelor’s in Chemistry at the University of Ibadan where he was the Best Graduating Student in his department. For his academic excellence and extracurricular involvements, he was nominated for the Young Innovators Scholars Award and awarded the Opportunity Funds Program of the United States Consulate through which he has secured several Ph.D. offers. He handled independent projects while an undergraduate and worked on several collaborative ones at the Federal Universities of Technology at Akure and Minna in Nigeria postgraduation. Currently, he is learning data-science to improve his data manipulation skills and because of the high-end projects he built, he has been awarded the DataQuest COVID-19 financial aid. When the world starts spinning again, Lawal would be resuming as a Ph.D. student in Material Chemistry at Purdue University.
Temilade is a problem-solver who is passionate about education, technology and women-in-technology. She is a recent graduate of mechanical engineering at the University of Ibadan. She has developed interest in product management, data science and machine learning. She is the co-founder of Xchange, an EdTech platform that leverages on artificial intelligence and price-sharing mechanism to make learning accessible, affordable and more interactive, especially for the African youth from low-income communities. Xchange is the winner of Mentor4Edu global e-learning challenge 2019 and top 10 union bank EdTech challenge 2019. Temilade is one of the four Nigerians accepted for the 2020 Harvard Business School Crossroads emerging leaders program. She was also part of the 100 African women accepted to attend the first-ever women in machine learning conference in Ghana. She is presently the project lead of the upcoming 2020 StudentBuild Summit for 5000 African students and also a Data Science Fellow at the German Institute of Business and Technology, Accra. She is the Google Women Techmakers ambassador for Ibadan. She has volunteered for several organizations which is one of the things she enjoys doing as her way of giving back. Temilade aspires to be a business leader assisting with the advancement of technology in Africa in the nearest future and also making an impact and inspiring people.
Amarachi Onuorah is an outstanding communicator with profound interest in language research and education. She is a graduate with First Class Honours in Linguistics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Amarachi is passionate about quality education for all and sundry and believes in achieving excellence through diligence, consistency and creativity. She has worked in various educational institution as a language teacher, librarian. As such, she is experienced in writing, teaching, translating and editing. She has gained several certificates of recognition and recommendations from the positions held. Her vision for life is to impart the lives of people and create positive change through education. She has studied and gotten certificates on Applied Linguistics and TESOL; and Leadership of Education
Technology from the University of Leicester and Chartered College of Teaching respectively.
Oluwakemi Omowaye is trained in social research, project management, and report writing. A highly prolific and creative individual; she possesses the ability to leverage knowledge, adapt to diverse situations, and lead inclusively. She has over two years of experience in social entrepreneurship and capacity building which was borne out of her willingness to learn and create innovative responses through her acquired expertise. Currently, she works with the German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture, Germany where she co-facilitates decentralized post-harvest processing of underutilized species into innovative value-added products for improved food and income security in Nigeria. She actively contributes to rural development and food security in her local community through experimentation, business planning, and market assessment strategies. Oluwakemi volunteers with Junior Achievement Nigeria, a non-profit organization that equips youths in Nigeria with financial and entrepreneurial skills as a way of inspiring young minds to live up to their potentials.
Olatunbosun Lawal is a young Financial and Data Analyst with strong passion for unlocking financial and economic capital for poor households and SMEs in Nigeria and Africa. He is a First Class Economics graduate from Ekiti State University and a former Federal Government of Nigeria Scholar. Currently, he is a CFA level 1 candidate and has earlier barged the CFA Investment Foundations Certificate. His ten-year vision is to commit, through policy recommendations and making, to efforts that reduce poverty in poor households by increasing their access to financial and economic capital. He hopes to contribute to publications that address problems of Exchange Rate, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Capital Acquisition for SMEs in developing nations.
Boluwatife is a medical doctor in her internship year who graduated from University of Ibadan in 2019 as the Best Graduating Female Student with a distinction prize in Psychiatry, among others. She developed an interest and passion for mental health advocacy and has co-authored multiple award-winning papers in a bid to strengthen public policy and positively impact the outcome and prognosis of mental disorders. With a strong background in research and an excellent clinical acumen, she hopes to elicit a paradigm shift in the perception and treatment of mental health problems while reducing the rate of recidivism by developing and testing new medications and promoting the understanding of mental health problems.
Marvellous Olusegun has four years of experience in the nonprofit sector and earned his degree from the University of Lagos in Nigeria. He is the co-founder of The Invasion Group, a nonprofit organization based in Lagos Nigeria which focuses on reducing the mortality rate from NCDs in Nigeria. He is also a Managing Partner at Mentors In Nigeria Initiative- A mentorship platform that provides supportive relationships to young people in Nigeria. He is a 2018 fellow of the USAID Young Africans Leaders Initiative (YALI), a Watson scholar (USA), an Internet Ambassador, 2018 Hult Prize Unilag Campus Director and a 2018 UN Millennium fellow. He also became one of the first few Nigerians to receive the most prestigious royal award a young person can receive “The Princess Diana Award” from the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Cambridge. Marvellous enjoys focusing on the topics of improving public health, capacity building, social entrepreneurship, and advocacy
NWAKPA ANTHONY CHUKWUDI is a Medical Laboratory Scientist with specialty in
Medical Microbiology. He obtained a Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science (B.MLS) degree in 2015, from Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki. He has served in University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu and Taraba State Specialist Hospital (TSSH), Jalingo as intern and corps member Medical Laboratory Scientist respectively. He is currently serving as a Graduate Assistant in the Medical Laboratory Science Department of Ebonyi State University, where he is the Faculty representative in the University ICT Committee among other roles. He is a data science and AI enthusiast, and equally has deep interest in innovation and leadership as tools for solving contemporary problems.
Raphael Clara graduated as the Best Student of the department of Public Health, Class of 2019, Federal University of Technology Owerri with a First Class Honours.
She has a great passion for Health, education and women empowerment seeking opportunities to make social impact while building a career in Global/Public Health. She is a technologically savvy and enthusiastic person and this has spurred her interests in health technologies. Clara has worked directly with top notch organizations like TakenMind and Dataville Research LLC. She works directly with the Young Readers Library, Abuja as a Read Advocacy Partner (RAP) to mentor kids in order to spur their love for reading and writing. Presently, Clara is a World Literacy Foundation Ambassador representing Nigeria in a global initiative to advocate and fund-raise for literacy in the world. Clara sees herself working on the front lines of some of the most pressing global issues of our times focusing more efforts on creating human centered designs that her technologically inclined which can help address contemporary healthcare issues in the world.
Kayode Bamidele is a top-performing and impact driven Agricultural engineer with 5 years of training and knowledge about machinery and food manufacturing industry practices. His training and experience cover areas including but not limited to assessment of the environmental impact of intensive agricultural production methods, food and crop storage technology, engineering properties and processing of agricultural materials. Kayode holds a Bachelor’s degree in Agricultural engineering from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta and a Mini-MBA from the Lagos Business School Venture in Management Program. He has a keen interest and suitable background in research, value chain analysis, bioresource engineering, food and bioprocessing engineering and his goal is to help address emerging environmental issues of food security, climate change adaptation, resource conservation and restoration of degraded lands in Nigeria and Africa at large. Kayode has an outstanding record of both professional and academic excellence. He is a 2019 fellow of the Young Professionals Bootcamp, a recipient of the 2015 MTN Foundation Science and Technology Scholarship award, 2019 ENA USA/Canada Scholarship award and First City Monument Bank Flexxtern Internship award (2019).
Rachael Emmanuel is an emerging researcher, an ardent tutor and a fashion enthusiast. Her intentional interest and beaming passion for teaching prompted her to create an online platform where she serves as an instrument for development for her students. Rachael is committed to empowering young minds on self-development, teaching them about act of service as well as etiquette and counseling young minds with knowledge on reproductive health and human rights among others. She is an advocate of SDGs and has volunteered in different capacities which include charge for quality education (teaching) and carrying out actions against gender based violence (movement). Rachael holds a Bachelor’s degree in human physiology and is currently a public health postgraduate student in University of Ibadan. She aspires to be a medical scientist in the biotechnology industry where she aims to conduct researches that are channeled towards improving public health and reducing global health disparities in more pertinent ways.
Obaro’ Clement Johnson is a young professional interested in achieving tangible result and making measurable impact through effective management. He’s a Nigerian and has a Bachelors Degree in Botany from Delta State University. He has garnered experience through volunteering and taking up different roles that have strengthened his ability to successfully manage projects from start to finish. He currently manages growth for a waste management startup and in 2019, he organized a tree planting and environmental sensitization project that attracted the attention and collaboration of Oyp State Ministry of Environment and other public and private organizations. His vision is to keep building capacity and disseminating value across different sectors by ensuring that organization goals and objectives are achieved through management. He envisages contributing to the transformation of the waste management sector and using new innovations and community focussed solutions to tackle the challenges faced in the waste management sector.
Ezeh Adanma is a forward-thinking individual who believes in continuous learning and improvement. She holds a bachelors degree in Geology from the Premier University of Ibadan. She’s also a scholarship awardee of the prestigious Pan African University where she is having a MSc. in Petroleum Geoscience. She is skilled in Project Management and Geophysical-data interpretation. Her innate and acquired leadership skills enable her to work well as a pacesetter and team player on group tasks. She has led in various capacities which include being the Vice President of Faculty of Science Students Association, University of Ibadan. She is a budding entrepreneur that launched "Shades of Me". An online fashion store aimed at providing quality clothing items, accessories and related services at one stop. One of her platforms of giving back to society by creating decent jobs. She is a teenage enthusiast and is passionate about creating positive change in her country.
Abolaji Adewumi is a budding Lawyer with demonstrated interests in Finance, Intellectual property, and international diplomacy. She enjoys learning and understanding new and intelligent perspectives; this is why she takes on activities that would gear in the part of self-development. As a civic-engagement and SDG enthusiast, Abolaji is a two-time director at the Junior Chamber International, University of Ibadan, where she works keenly to advocate and actualize SDG 6- clean water and Sanitation. Having undergone several internships in top-tier law firms and occupied various value-adding and leadership roles, Abolaji has come to realize the importance of garnering innovative skills necessary for impact making and solving societal problems. Abolaji is a 2019 Scholar of Nigerian Higher Education Foundation, a top-ten finalist of the Afrinvest Internship Programme, a Senior Analyst at Student finance Club and an experienced participant in Model United Nation Conferences.
Emmanuel Erasmus Sulai is an ICT enthusiast with over 5 years of experience in the industry; he specifically focuses on website development and social media marketing. Currently, Emmanuel is the Director of Operations at I.M. Technologies, where he leads a team of developers who strategically help business owners get more customers and increase their revenue using A.I. Technology. He also volunteers as an ICT staff at CNECOF, an orphanage home within his locality. Emmanuel holds an NCE in Computer/Physics Education and is in his final semester of studying B.Sc. Computer Science at NOUN. Because he so much believes every business should leverage ICT if they want to be more profitable in the 21st century, Emmanuel focuses on consulting businesses. In addition to being an Open Source Leader of the CommonWealth 100, he is an ISERH Associate Ambassador, a YALI alumni, licensed TRCN member, as well as a rare Global citizen. Having passed through several leadership and capacity building programs over the past years, Emmanuel got equipped with a lot of practical knowledge with which he has been making impact in his community. As a result, he has been involved in several advocacy campaigns targeted at nation-building, gender equality, drug abuse, suicide prevention and even the ongoing war against covid-19 global pandemic. He was opportune to carry-out these advocacy campaigns with varieties of local and international organizations, including YALI Network, ISERH, Youngstars Foundation, YODES, NVG Covid-19 Gombe State, and several others.
Adejoke Adewusi is a public health nutritionist with a passion for infusing innovation into the public health nutrition space. Her pursuit for positive impact in the nutrition sector in Nigeria led her to working actively in rural communities and urban slums; essentially to facilitate projects involving marginalized and vulnerable populations. Adejoke is a founding member of the non-profit, Impact Nutrition Africa. She coordinated various projects which include the “Feed A Mouth” project in Olosun Village, Oyo State and “Makoko Malnutrition and Malaria Eradication Project” in Makoko, Lagos. Adejoke is also a research contributor with Future Foods Africa, Winner of Youth Assembly global impact challenge at the 25th youth assembly in New York, USA; and an ideator with the start-up, Dietplans4u, a dietary servicing company providing evidence-based nutrition therapy to clients. Adejoke enjoys active volunteering and has participated in projects such as Nutri-garden Ibadan, Walk for Nutrition Ibadan, IFAN Food Relief drive, Ibadan Kids and Nutrition survey. She obtained a bachelor of science degree in Human Nutrition and Dietetics from the prestigious University of Ibadan. She is currently enrolled in a post graduate program in Human Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Ibadan.
Kehinde Oloriade is a versatile individual driven by an interest in Leadership, Technology and Psychology with a background in Healthcare. He believes the path to sustainable growth for Africa in the 21st century, is to groom a healthy, motivated and productive workforce with a global outlook. To help achieve this, he founded Leaders’ Tribe Africa, a growing community of over 200 young African professionals where he provides access to niche opportunities and helps curate career building advice. He is a graduate of Medicine and Surgery from the University of Ibadan with additional certifications in Neuro-linguistic Programming, Leadership and Healthcare Management. Kehinde was a national scholar (as a student) and is a YPB Fellow (2017). He currently volunteers with the Training team of the Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) and on the board of Slum and Reproductive Health Initiative (SRHIN) where he contributes to the content development of SIMBIHealth, Africa’s flagship Artificial Intelligence-driven sexuality education mobile application and chatbot.
Adebowale Adetola is an aquaculturist, an environmentalist and a fisheries educator with a vast knowledge and experience in the fisheries sector. He is a serial volunteer, obsessive on achieving the “Clean water sanitation and sustainable life below water” SDGs. He was twice an awardee of the Lagos state scholarship award during his undergraduate. He bagged a bachelors degree in Aquaculture and fisheries management from Federal university of Agriculture, Abeokuta in 2018. He is passionately leveraging on the knowledge and skills he possesses to create capacity building among the youth through technical innovation and advancement to empower them with knowledge required to fight against ecosystem pollution in our environment and the aquatic bodies. He is an indispensable member of numerous local and international NGOs that see to the sustainability of the environment and Aquatic resources. Recently, he was awarded an Agribusiness Champion in Nigeria by the Young African Leaders Initiative Network (YALI).