Dare Afolabi, Techbuild Africa
Dare Afolabi, Content Development Lead at Techbuild Africa, recently spoke with Wimbart about how his love for writing began in his school years and how the world should be aware of the solutions that Africans are developing.
What led you into journalism, and what would you be doing if you weren’t a journalist?
I was a science student from my secondary school days to the higher institution (University of Ibadan) where I studied Statistics, however, I spent my extracurricular activities engaged in campus journalism.
I recall that back in secondary school, I had developed this love for writing. I usually look at happenings around me, gather one or two resources and draft out stories from them.Getting to a higher institution my science background didn’t stop my passion for writing, thus I found myself doing campus journalism.
From covering events in my department and Faculty to writing opinion pieces about national issues, I was consistent for my duration of 4 years in school. By 200 level, I was already an inducted member of the Union of Campus Journalists (The umbrella body for all press organisations in higher institutions)
Despite graduating from school with a good result, pursuing a career in Statistics or something related wasn’t something I felt like doing.
I love to be very expressive with my writing, I love to be able to let people make informed decisions or get enlightened based on my thought piece translated into text. I need a career that will fuel both my passion and needs, how else can I get this done?
Taking a career outside journalism would most likely fulfill my needs, but not my passion. I can get my needs fulfilled to some extent while loving what I do, and it was journalism that could solve that.
If I wasn’t a Journalist, I would have probably gone into lecturing. Aside from writing, teaching is also what I love doing.
Before I secured admission into a higher institution, I was teaching science subjects as a private tutor and at tutorial centres, most likely, I would have ended up as a lecturer.
African businesses, especially the ones leveraging technology to offer innovative solutions to the challenges on the continent, are unique owing to how they tend to survive the seemingly harsh conditions of doing business in this part of the world.
When you’re researching stories, what compels you to work on sharing a particular story with your audience? Any hot trends we should look out for in the coming months?
As a journalist, you are not writing for yourself or based on what your mood dictates, the profession puts you in the spotlight to enlighten your audience, more like breaking the barrier of “ignorance”, while exposing them to angles they may likely never have thought of.
I am usually compelled by the need to let our audience make informed decisions, for instance, a story I wrote around Nigeria’s Presidential election was targeted at our tech community.
Based on the objective analysis made on each candidate’s tech policy, the electorate with a tech inclination would most likely make his voting decision based on what was presented.
Also compelled by the need to let our audience take deep thoughts on current trends, for instance, an article I wrote on the current layoffs in the tech industry.
There are always emerging trends that one has to deal with as the month rolls by, I personally take them head-on as they come up, but nothing is yet in the bag for now.
Africa has seen an emergence of disruptive solutions even beyond the continent, however, there are still other solutions that haven’t seen sufficient visibility.
Why is African business so unique and what makes it so exciting to report on?
African businesses, especially the ones leveraging technology to offer innovative solutions to the challenges on the continent, are unique owing to how they tend to survive the seemingly harsh conditions of doing business in this part of the world.
Unstable power supply, lack of infrastructure, unfavourable government policies amongst others are a bane to African businesses, yet they do well to survive.
This to me is the uniqueness of African businesses and their resilience to unfavourable conditions. I strongly doubt if an average foreign business can take such heat and survive.
What makes African businesses so exciting to report is the backstory of the entrepreneurs. How some of them, especially the tech-related businesses have against all odds built innovative solutions that are directly addressing problems in their immediate communities, I mean their rural communities.
These businesses have leveraged the power of technology to touch the lives of people in remote areas, either through financial inclusion for the unbanked or by providing last-mile solutions for health and agricultural-related challenges.
Which sectors or industries do you like to cover most and why?
The technology sector from the angle of startups, especially emerging innovative solutions in agriculture, finance, education, hardware, blockchain, and the like.
Over the years, Africa has seen an emergence of disruptive solutions even beyond the continent, however, there are still other solutions that haven’t seen sufficient visibility.
The world should know about these solutions, there ought to be a creative narrative about how Africa is deploying technology to solve its own problem. We shouldn’t sit and expect foreigners to write our own stories.
Why is it important that people around the world get to hear about young, growing companies on the continent?
As I mentioned previously, we need to own the narrative, we need to tell these stories for the world to see the level of creative innovation coming out of the continent.
Over the years, the African continent has seen various tech talents springing up from different hackathons and incubators birthing startups. We can’t overemphasise the potential of Africa’s young population in driving the economy of the continent.
The young African population is stereotyped as lazy and lacking the capacity to make an impact, in as much as some quarters might assert this to be true, the number of tech startups founded in 2022 alone was over 600 according to a Disrupt Africa report.
These startups recorded over 30,000 job creations. People around the world need to know that the young African population with tech skills has the capacity to turn around the economy, thus calling for deliberate investment in the continent’s tech ecosystem.
The growth of tech in Africa is leading to more innovation, job creation, and economic development
How can we encourage more people to join the writing community and dedicate their energy to telling stories about African tech and business?
First, there must be passion, that inner drive to see your writing skills make drive change, from here, we can then form a community of African storytellers interested in the continent’s tech and business.
The community can be online forums, social media groups. It fosters a sense of belonging, they know that they have mentors at the tip of their fingers.
We could also provide them with resources to get started, such as best practices for conducting research and how to be creatively unique in the art of storytelling.
Lastly, we should encourage a culture of inclusiveness for women and those from underrepresented communities.
