Editors Pick

African Changemakers, Editors Pick

How Oluwatobi Fagbohungbe Is Professionalising Quality Engineering in Nigeria’s Tech Sector

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As Nigerian technology companies scale across millions of users and multiple markets, one constraint has become harder to ignore: products that grow faster than the systems meant to keep them reliable. Failures that once passed as technical hiccups are now reputational risks, regulatory issues and balance‑sheet problems. That pressure point is where Oluwatobi Fagbohungbe has built his career. For nearly a decade, while much of the conversation around African tech talent centred on software developers, Fagbohungbe focused on a less visible but increasingly critical discipline: quality engineering and software testing. Through initiatives including Qace Academy and TestForge, he has helped shape a pipeline of professionals trained not just to build software, but to ensure it works at scale. Building From a Skills Gap Fagbohungbe’s work did not begin with venture capital or institutional support. In 2017, as Nigeria’s startup ecosystem expanded rapidly, he observed a recurring disconnect. Training programmes were producing learners, but companies were still struggling to hire job‑ready quality engineers. Rather than launching a platform, he started teaching. He worked informally with peers and early‑career professionals, emphasising practical testing skills, workplace expectations and exposure to real projects. Over time, that informal effort evolved into a structured community. Today, graduates from his programmes are employed across Nigeria’s fintech and consumer‑technology sector, including at Andela, Moniepoint, Interswitch, Flutterwave, OPay and MTN. The metric that matters is placement, not participation. Training for Deployment, Not Certification Qace Academy was not designed as a conventional bootcamp. Its focus has been on addressing a persistent weakness in African tech education: the transition from training to employment. Instead of framing testing as a checklist‑driven function, the curriculum emphasises systems thinking, business risk and user impact. Trainees are taught how products fail, why failures matter commercially and how quality affects trust as platforms scale. That approach reflects a broader shift within African technology companies. As products expand across borders and regulatory environments, quality failures increasingly translate into compliance exposure and financial loss. By combining mentorship, portfolio development and interview readiness, Qace Academy positioned itself less as a training provider and more as a talent pipeline aligned with employer expectations. Mentorship as Market Alignment The same thinking underpins the QaTechBro Mentorship Program, now in its fourth year. Early‑career professionals are paired with active practitioners, including mentors working outside Nigeria. The objective is calibration rather than motivation. Participants gain insight into global standards, hiring benchmarks and the realities of distributed work. The programme functions as a bridge between local training and international market expectations. TestForge emerged as a complementary layer. Rather than operating as a traditional conference, it serves as an access mechanism. Scholarships and funded placements into Qace Academy programmes link community engagement directly to opportunity. As automation and artificial intelligence gain traction, TestForge has also become a forum for reframing the role of quality engineers. Fagbohungbe presents AI not as a threat, but as a pressure point that raises the bar for judgement, system awareness and ethical responsibility. A System, Not a Series of Projects What distinguishes Fagbohungbe’s work is not any single initiative, but how they connect. From early exposure to structured learning, mentorship and professional integration, the programmes operate as parts of one system. Even Qace Academy Kids reflects this long‑term view, introducing logic and quality fundamentals early rather than attempting to retrofit skills later. The model offers a broader signal for Africa’s technology ecosystem. Sustainable talent development may depend less on chasing new tools and more on building pathways that reflect how careers actually form. Why It Matters As African fintech and consumer platforms mature, quality engineering is moving from the background to the centre of product strategy. Reliability, compliance and user trust are no longer optional features. Fagbohungbe’s contribution sits squarely at that intersection. It is not promotional or headline‑driven, but structural. His work suggests that the next phase of Africa’s technology growth will be shaped as much by depth as by scale. And that the builders strengthening foundations may ultimately have as much influence as those building the most visible products. In that sense, Oluwatobi Fagbohungbe is not just running programmes. He is helping redefine what readiness looks like in Nigeria’s technology sector, one quality engineer at a time.

African Changemakers, Editors Pick

Inside GB Agboola’s Playbook for Building Africa’s Payment Rails

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On a good day, paying an African business should feel as easy as sending an email. In practice, it rarely does. A merchant in Lagos selling to a customer in Nairobi. A startup in Accra charging cards from London. An enterprise in Johannesburg settling across multiple currencies. The promise of digital trade is there, but it often breaks down into familiar friction: incompatible payment methods, uneven regulations, slow settlements and failed transfers. That problem is where Olugbenga “GB” Agboola has spent most of his career. As co‑founder and Chief Executive Officer of Flutterwave, Agboola has helped build one of Africa’s most consequential pieces of financial infrastructure: payment rails that quietly move money across borders, currencies and systems. It is the kind of work most people only notice when it fails, and the kind that determines whether Africa’s digital economy can scale at all. Agboola may not the loudest figure in African fintech. But his work sits at one of the sector’s hardest truths. Commerce cannot scale smoothly if money cannot move smoothly. A Builder From the Systems Layer Agboola’s professional trajectory points to someone comfortable operating deep in the systems layer. Before Flutterwave, he worked on fintech products at global firms including PayPal, gaining exposure to how payments infrastructure works at scale. Flutterwave was founded in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Agboola and Adeleke Adekoya, with Aboyeji as the first CEO and Agboola initially serving as CTO. The idea itself was straightforward. The execution, however, was not. Africa’s internet economy was growing rapidly, but cross‑border payments between businesses remained fragmented and expensive. Each new market required rebuilding integrations, renegotiating bank relationships and navigating different regulatory regimes. Flutterwave leaned into an infrastructure thesis: abstract that complexity away and let merchants focus on selling. The CEO Seat Came With a Different Job By 2018, Flutterwave had become one of the companies used to explain Africa’s fintech momentum. That same year, Agboola stepped into the CEO role. His mandate was clear. Expansion beyond Nigeria and a sharper focus on fixing cross‑border payments across the continent. Flutterwave’s positioning evolved from a promising startup into a pan‑African infrastructure company. That shift became impossible to ignore in February 2022, when Flutterwave raised $250 million in a Series D round, pushing its valuation above $3 billion. The round was a global signal that Africa’s infrastructure‑led fintechs could attract serious capital and scale rapidly. But in payments, the real test often begins after the valuation headline fades. Scale brings scrutiny, and infrastructure companies are judged as much on controls as on growth. When Scale Brings Heat Flutterwave soon entered a period of public scrutiny, marked by allegations, internal turmoil and cross‑border legal challenges. For a payments company, such moments are existential. Bank partnerships, regulator confidence and enterprise trust are all at stake. This is the part of fintech building that rarely makes glossy pitch decks. Payments companies operate in regulated, high‑trust environments. When pressure mounts, systems and governance are tested in real time. During this period, Flutterwave also worked to strengthen its regulatory footing at home, securing a Switching and Processing Licence from Nigeria’s central bank. Licences at this level are quiet symbolic. They shape how a company is classified, who it can partner with and how regulators view it as it evolves from startup into infrastructure. The Bet He Is Still Making Flutterwave’s story has included rapid growth, controversy and the kind of scrutiny that follows any payments platform once it becomes too important to ignore. Through it all, Agboola’s focus has remained consistent. He has chosen to stay in the hardest layer of fintech. The one where success is measured not only by visibility, but by whether money moves cleanly, securely and predictably every day. It is not glamorous work. It sits at the intersection of regulators, banks, merchants and markets, each pulling on the same system. But it is the work that makes everything else possible. As Africa’s digital trade expands, the founders who matter most will not be those who promise disruption alone. They will be the ones who can keep the rails steady through growth, scrutiny and change. GB Agboola is still building for that standard.

African Changemakers, Editors Pick, Founder Stories

Odunayo Eweniyi: The Operator Who Made Saving Cool Again

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 At the start of every year, millions of Nigerians open a notes app and write the same promise: I will save more. By February, reality intervenes – rent is due, transport costs spike, family needs appear unannounced. Saving becomes aspirational rather than practical. Odunayo Eweniyi built her career by refusing to ignore that reality. As co‑founder and Chief Operations Officer of PiggyVest, Nigeria’s largest digital savings platform, Eweniyi helped turn saving money from a good intention into a repeatable habit for more than six million users. Not by moralising discipline—but by designing for how Nigerians actually live, earn, and spend. However, PiggyVest grew by treating that reality as the starting point, not an excuse. And at the centre of that work is Odunayo Eweniyi, co-founder and Chief Operations Officer, one of the operators who helped turn saving money from a wish into a routine many nigerians can actually keep. A Familiar Idea, Executed Relentlessly PiggyVest’s origin story is notably unglamorous and that is precisely its advantage. Launched in January 2016 as Piggybank.ng, the company started with a single focus: savings. Investments came later, after a rebrand to PiggyVest in 2019. The sequencing mattered. While many fintechs raced to expand product suites, PiggyVest chose depth before breadth. The core insight was simple: Nigerians already save. They just do it informally—through kolo, rotating savings groups, and self-imposed restrictions. PiggyVest didn’t attempt to replace those habits. It digitised them, added structure, and removed friction. That restraint reflects Eweniyi’s operational philosophy: innovation works best when it feels familiar. When Operations Become the Product In fintech, trust is not a slogan, it is an outcome. And outcomes are operational. As COO, Eweniyi sits at the fault line where ambition meets execution: delayed withdrawals, support backlogs, policy breakdowns. These are not theoretical risks; they are existential ones. A savings platform does not get second chances. PiggyVest’s early identity was built around consistency. Users could save daily, weekly, or monthly, mirroring irregular income patterns. But convincing someone to save is only the beginning. Once you accept their money, you inherit a promise: it must be secure, accurately tracked, and accessible when expected every time. That promise is operational, not marketing-led. Under Eweniyi’s stewardship, PiggyVest focused less on hype and more on reliability, gradually converting trust into routine. Quiet Capital, Clear Signals PiggyVest’s funding history mirrors its strategy. In 2018, the company raised $1.1 million, led by LeadPath Nigeria, with participation from Village Capital and Ventures Platform. It was not a headline-grabbing round, but it sent a clear signal. At the time, PiggyVest was still early, still focused, still committed to a single behavioural shift: helping people save consistently. Growth would come later. In a market that often rewards noise, PiggyVest chose iteration. When the Numbers Speak for Themselves Today, PiggyVest no longer needs to explain its relevance. In 2025, the company reported ₦1.3 trillion paid out to users, a 56% increase from ₦835 billion in 2024. Its user base crossed six million. These are not vanity metrics; they represent repeated financial behaviour at national scale. People download apps out of curiosity. They only trust them with money over years if the system works. Crucially, PiggyVest reached this scale without trying to be everything at once. Savings came first. Investments followed only after trust was established. Designing for Real Life, Not Ideal Users Much of consumer fintech assumes tidy financial lives—predictable income, stable expenses, surplus cash. Nigeria rarely offers such conditions. PiggyVest’s product logic reflects lived experience: small amounts, automation, intentional friction against impulsive withdrawals, and group-based structures that resemble offline savings circles. Informal systems are not alternatives to banking in Nigeria, they are the system. PiggyVest’s innovation was not disruption for its own sake, but better rails for behaviour people already trusted. Building Beyond the Balance Sheet Eweniyi’s influence extends beyond PiggyVest. She is also a co‑founder and general partner at FirstCheck Africa, an early-stage investment platform backing startups founded or co‑founded by women. The move is less about branding than ecosystem correction. In African tech, access to early capital remains uneven. Writing the first cheque often determines who gets to compete. By shifting from founder to early investor, Eweniyi is helping reshape participation, not just outcomes. The Power of Boring Done Well African fintech has no shortage of ambition. What it lacks are enough builders who win by making discipline feel achievable for millions. Eweniyi is not a loud symbol or a motivational trope. Her work is quieter and more durable. She represents a class of African founders who understand that the most transformative products are often the least glamorous: systems that hold, routines that repeat, and trust that compounds. In a market obsessed with speed, Odunayo Eweniyi built endurance.

Africa Focus, African Changemakers, Editors Pick

How Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka Are Rewriting Africa’s Defense Story

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When African governments think about securing power plants, mining sites or national borders, the instinct has long been to look outward. Imported systems, foreign contractors and long procurement cycles have defined the continent’s defense infrastructure for decades. Nathan Nwachuku and Maxwell Maduka are building in the opposite direction. The Nigerian founders of Terra Industries are part of a small but growing group of African entrepreneurs tackling one of the continent’s hardest problems: how to protect critical infrastructure using locally built, locally operated defense technology. Their bet is that security, like payments or energy, works best when it is designed close to the realities it serves. Founders Building for the Hardest Layer Founded in 2024, Terra Industries reflects its founders’ appetite for complexity. Defense technology is capital‑intensive, highly regulated and politically sensitive. It is not a space that rewards quick wins or surface‑level innovation. But Nwachuku and Maduka chose it anyway. Rather than building consumer software or light enterprise tools, they focused on the systems layer of security. The kind that operates across land, air and water. The kind that must work continuously, quietly and without failure. Their approach combines hardware and software, integrating surveillance drones, automated watchtowers, unmanned ground vehicles and maritime monitoring systems into a single operational platform. At the center is ArtemisOS, Terra’s proprietary software layer that allows security teams to detect threats in real time and coordinate responses with fewer personnel. For the founders, the objective is reliability. Local Manufacturing as Strategy, Not Symbolism One of Terra’s most deliberate choices is where it builds. The company operates a 15,000‑square‑foot manufacturing facility in Abuja, where much of its hardware is produced by African engineers. For Nwachuku and Maduka, this is not a branding exercise. It is a strategic decision aimed at reducing dependence on imported defense systems while building technical capacity locally. In a sector where supply chains are often global and opaque, local manufacturing gives Terra tighter control over deployment, maintenance and iteration. It also aligns with the founders’ broader view that Africa’s security infrastructure should not be permanently outsourced. Investor Confidence in a Difficult Category That vision has attracted serious backing. Terra Industries recently raised $11.75 million in funding led by U.S. venture capital firm 8VC, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Lux Capital, SV Angel, Leblon Capital, Silent Ventures and Nova Global. The round signals rare investor confidence in an African defense‑technology startup operating at an early stage. Alex Moore, a partner at 8VC and board member at Palantir, sits on Terra’s board. His presence places the company, and by extension its founders, within a global conversation about data‑driven security systems and modern defense infrastructure. For Nwachuku and Maduka, the capital is a tool, not a milestone. It will be used to hire more engineers, expand manufacturing capacity and deploy Terra’s systems across additional African markets. Why Their Timing Matters Africa holds close to 30% of the world’s critical mineral resources, yet insecurity continues to slow infrastructure development and industrial expansion. As global supply chains look increasingly to the continent, the cost of insecure assets is rising. The founders see this clearly. Their argument is straightforward: security infrastructure is economic infrastructure. Without reliable protection, power plants stall, mines shut down and transport corridors fracture. By building security systems designed for African conditions and governance realities, Nwachuku and Maduka are positioning Terra not just as a defense company, but as a foundational layer for long‑term growth. Building Quietly, Building Hard Things Terra Industries is still early. But its founders are operating in a category where patience, discipline and credibility matter more than speed. Nwachuku and Maduka are not trying to out‑market global defense giants. They are trying to out‑understand the terrain, the risks and the institutions they serve. In African technology, the most consequential founders are often those building in spaces few are willing to touch. Defense is one of them. And Terra’s founders are building there, deliberately.

eni
Culture, Editors Pick, Startups

How Iyinoluwa Aboyeji Built Two Unicorns and Helped Ignite Africa’s Tech Revolution

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In the global conversation about Africa’s tech renaissance, few names command the respect, data points, and track record of Iyinoluwa Aboyeji. Before he turned 30, he had already done what most founders spend a lifetime chasing: he helped build two unicorns that reshaped digital infrastructure across an entire continent. Today, he stands as one of Africa’s most influential ecosystem architects, a builder whose work has rippled from Lagos to Silicon Valley boardrooms. Aboyeji, known simply as E, is not just a startup founder. He is a force multiplier. An operator who understands markets, momentum, and the infrastructural gaps that hold back scale. And more importantly, a founder who walks away at the height of success to build what the ecosystem needs next. At 33, he is already a living blueprint for the next generation of African entrepreneurs. A Builder From First Principles Iyin’s entrepreneurial journey began long before the headlines, long before the billion dollar valuations, and long before African tech became a magnet for global capital. Raised in Lagos and later educated at the University of Waterloo, he absorbed two contrasting worlds: the extreme inefficiencies of African markets and the tight, efficient execution culture of Canadian tech hubs. That contrast shaped his thinking. He became obsessed with infrastructure: the invisible rails that make innovation possible. And that obsession would later produce two companies that fundamentally shifted how Africa moves money and builds jobs. The Andela Experiment: Can Africa Build Talent At Scale? In 2014, Aboyeji co founded Andela, a talent accelerator built on a radical premise: that Africa’s young population could supply the world with world class technical talent. With support from the founders of L5 Labs and a partnership with Jeremy Johnson, Andela became one of the most ambitious social–economic experiments in modern African tech. The company raised hundreds of millions from global investors and secured early backing from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Andela went on to become a unicorn, validating a thesis many had overlooked: African engineers could compete globally when given the right structure, curriculum, and opportunity. But at the height of its rise, Aboyeji did what few would dare. He stepped aside and walked toward a new frontier. Flutterwave: Building the Rails for a Digital Continent Africa’s economy was digitizing, but the infrastructure that allowed money to move between businesses was fragmented and slow. In 2016, he co founded Flutterwave to solve that. The idea was simple: build the payments pipes for the continent. But the execution was monumental. Flutterwave became one of the fastest growing African fintechs in history, powering payments for multinationals, small businesses, and emerging startups across dozens of African markets. By 2021, the company reached a three billion dollar valuation, making it one of Africa’s top unicorns and a central node in the continent’s digital commerce engine. Once again, Aboyeji stepped back after the foundational phase, choosing not to stay for the glory but to build the next critical institution. Future Africa: Turning Builders Into a Movement After Andela and Flutterwave, E had a new mission: help the next generation of African founders get the early capital and knowledge that he never had. He launched Future Africa, a fund and community investing in mission driven founders solving Africa’s biggest challenges. The platform has now backed dozens of startups across fintech, climate, agriculture, health, logistics, and education. What makes Future Africa different is not just capital. It is the idea that builders are the best people to back other builders. And the results prove it: the fund has already produced several high growth ventures and seeded founders who are solving real problems for millions. E is not creating a VC firm. He is building a movement. Why Global Investors Are Paying Attention Aboyeji represents something global investors rarely find in emerging markets: a founder with repeat unicorn scale track record. His influence extends beyond boardrooms into policy, innovation ecosystems, and the cultural imagination of African entrepreneurship. He is shaping how talent is groomed, how capital flows, and how founders think about scale. For global allocators trying to understand the next decade of African innovation, E is one of the most credible operators to watch. The Legacy He Is Writing Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is part of a rare category of founders who build infrastructure, not just companies. Andela built the talent rails. Flutterwave built the payment rails. Future Africa is building the capital rails. Three layers of one long term vision. Not every generation gets a builder who sees an entire continent not for what it is, but for what it could become. Africa’s digital economy today owes part of its architecture to the decisions he made, the risks he took, and the companies he walked away from so he could build again. In the story of modern African entrepreneurship, Aboyeji is not just a chapter. He is one of the authors.