so we all have a great startup story, right? Right, good. I too, and we particularly love the underdog ones, you know, where a small entity makes it big despite all the odds, where many giants are slayed before a resounding success. Well, I'm convinced that there's nowhere where this narrative is more captivating or where it echoes more profoundly than in the countries and communities of Africa. Africa has been portrayed over and over again through the length of outdated myth. The world only sees us as a continent that is plagued by poverty, insecurity, and lack of innovation, you know, a land of endless potential that forever remains unrealized. But yet, underneath the tired stereotypes, a new reality has emerged, one where ambitious Africans are writing their own stories as builders and as innovators. We have the youngest population in the world, with over 60% under 25, and this youthful energy, combined with increasing access to technology as we see it today, has become the perfect recipe for a tech revolution. We are no longer waiting for

the future we are actively constructing. Our greatest resource is not the gold, the oil, the diamonds, or the platinum. It has always been the people. How do I know this? I spent the last couple of years bringing African tech talent founders and founders together through events I organize and also hosting a series on YouTube called Founders Connect. Through Founders Connect, I have interviewed over 80 African tech entrepreneurs who share their stories with me, their lessons, their challenges, their victories. So, I'll tell you some of those stories. One of them is one of Nigeria's tech mavericks, her name is Fun Opek, we call her Auntie Fun. She's the founder of Min One, and in 2018, she decided to tackle the issue of internet connectivity in Nigeria. And she ended up laying the first privately owned undersea cable in West Africa, stretching 7,000 kilometers all the way from Portugal in Europe to West Africa. This bold move resulted in a surge of internet speeds in the country. For context, the earlier cables had 800 GB.

in capacity but one L by minan one came with 10 terab that was over 1,000% increase in capacity. The results an explosion of tech startups in Nigeria that have now become the lifeblood of our economy. This initial trickle that started at the time of anun kept growing into a massive current of new startups by meid to late 2010. An example is another of my favorite stories pigs. It's the first online savings and investment app in Nigeria, and it was founded in 2016 by Suto Andos and the serial entrepreneurs. Piggest has helped over 4.5 million Nigerians to save well over $1.4 billion. That's a lot of money. Imagine the impact they have made in the lives of people, and the momentum kept going and going and going even further in 2020 when pack a company that helps businesses get paid easily online became one of Africa's biggest startup Source. The founders Asbi and Sha Kilad were the

first Nigerians to get into white combinator, and in 20 when they sold their company to stripe for $200 million. I mean, they made a lot of money for themselves, obviously, but also they returned, 1400% ROI to their early backers, many of whom were local investors in the country, thus giving money back to the ecosystem that has allowed them to invest in more companies. And they respect, they believe in just how big Nigeria's economy could go. I think if the earlier pioneers like anti-fun, L.A. Spark, what Pack did was that they set a raging fire across the entire Nigerian ecosystem because their acquisition did not just raise headlines, it also resulted in the Pack Mafia. It's similar with the PayPal Mafia, right? Very similar as they've gone to create iconic companies. There are now at least 10 former Pack staffers that have spawned out their own ventures. They're building fantastic solutions in open banking, tech tent, outsourcing. They're building fintech, neobanks. They're building ond.

demand food and grocery solutions. They're basic, pushing the boundaries of what is innovation in Africa. 15 years ago, the text in Nigeria was so nent that people say it was practically non-existent. But I kid you not, if you walk through the streets of Lagos today, you see a tone of young people who are attending 10 conferences, who are collaborating co-working spaces, who are brainstorming ideas in cafes. And let me be clear, right, let's not make a mistake. I'm not this entrepreneur I'm Awakening. I'm talking about is not a localized event. It's a panafrican revolution because what is happening in Lagos today, it's happening across the entire continent. In East Africa, there are companies like Tiga Foods that's connecting consumers, vendors, and suppliers to high-quality product food and retail services. There are fintech businesses like kopo Copo that's helping other businesses accept digital payments easily while also providing access to credit. In South Africa, companies like Stitch are pushing the frontiers in areas like open

banking the World Views Africa from a place where our struggles are amplified, but then our VES are minimized. The result is everyone is missing this reality of a continent of doers, of creators, of builders. And I'm not just talking about local players who only build regional solutions, because the builders of my generation, we have the boundless ambition, but also the ability to build technological powerhouses that will put Africa on the global stage, just like our music artists are doing so. Vis yourselves, I don't think it will be long anymore before we stop comparing African startups to their Western counterparts, but our Western counterparts will begin to benchmark themselves against the wave of unicorns that's coming out of the African soil. Thank you.

The Innovators Building Africa’s Thriving Tech Scene | Peace Itimi | TED

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