By Bilesanmi Abayomi
The founder of Andela, and member of the Harambe Entrepreneur Alliance, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji harps on investment in Tech,and sciences as alternative to oil and gas.
Mr. Iyinoluwa stated this in his address at the Senator Tokunbo Abiru scholarship scheme ceremony with the theme: ‘Doing Good’ in Ikorodu, on Thursday.
Iyinoluwa, who was the resource person for the programme said “I have helped young people into the tech space through Andela while we place them in tech companies.”
In his word, he said over the last 50 years, our country has been indexed on oil resources, we have generally survived on the ability to drill out, sell it, and keep the money in Abuja, then share it.
That is how we have built the country. We are going to agree again that we might not need our oil, and start producing electric car, we can say it can not happen, that we are dreaming, but it can happen, he said.
“If we do not have an alternative plan we are in trouble if we are unable to get buyer for our oil.”
According to him, many of the countries we looked up to like Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc, they all know it is coming, so they are pumping a lot of money to technology start up, even under Andela recently some bank invested $200 million at a $1.b billion valuation. It is a real legitimate business. While the biggest investor is Mobatala, they invest to generate talent because when oil is gone our people can still be useful.
Andela will expand to the middle east so that they can have it as well.
He said what the senator is doing is very progressive. Normally when we do constituency project we try and build one block, but now 600 people are going to benefit from the scholarship.
He urged everyone not to stop there, that the greatest human resources that will sustain Nigeria, if we all want it to continue to sustain for the next 100 years is human resources – it is the young people.
This year the only section of foreign direct investment that grew was in technology. Almost $857 million was invested in Nigeria because of technology, every young people are the one doing it. So we need to invest and encourage them.
He urged the community politics to support the progressive work of Senator Abiru, to enable the development of our young people. If you build a tap or toilet, it can break down, but if you invest in young people they will carry it in the for the rest of their life while they come back and help others.