THEWILL DOWNTOWN NOV 07 EDITION by THEWILL NEWSPAPER

VOL 1 NO.39 • NOVEMBER 07 – NOVEMBER 13, 2021

IYINOLUWA ABOYEJI Your friendly neighbourhood fintech and startups guru

VOL 1 NO.39 • NOVEMBER 07 – NOVEMBER 13, 2021

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VOL 1 NO.39 • NOVEMBER 07 – NOVEMBER 13, 2021

Photo: Kola Oshalusi @insignamedia Makeup: Desire Onyema @desire_makeover

EDITOR’S NOTE

igeria tends to get bad press around a wide range of subjects: bad governance, corruption, advance fee fraud, collapsing buildings, etc. But it is always a relief to hear the country being mentioned positively as a hub for innovations in financial technology (fintech). What a long way we’ve come! I remember back when we had to pay for everything using cash, and then came the transition from cash to card systems. Boy, those were trying times! Now, making payments through online banking or using a debit card seems like a process that has always been, with most of us wondering, ‘How on earth did we survive without it?’ “ Tally number anyone?” It’s interesting the process you have to go through to build such a platform. Our cover personality, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji a fintech and startups guru, speaks about how difficult it was starting what is arguably Nigeria’s favourite tech unicorn, Flutterwave. I found something he said very interesting; they knew Nigerians trusted the banking system, so they partnered with these banks to gain credibility, which in turn, got users to trust them. What an interesting strategy! Even more interesting is the fact that they gave up 70% of their potential revenue to these banks, knowing that they were coming from zero, and so keeping 30% was a good deal for them. Today Iyinoluwa, or “E”, as he is popularly known in the industry, having done his part setting up Flutterwave, has since turned his attention to Future Africa, a new venture that invests in founders who are looking to solve hard problems in large markets. You have to read his interview; it really is an eyeopener. The other pages in this issue also focus on the intersection between technology and everything in our lifestyle including fashion, beauty, and even movies. Don’t miss Downtown Confidential; we have a very interesting piece that covers heightening your pleasure using technology. One, in particular, allows a partner to control the device from anywhere in the world. Thank you technology! ‘Come’ to that on pages six through to seven. From fashion and technology to the latest inventions in beauty, and the movies that predicted certain technology would be available in this era, this issue promises to be quite an interesting one. So tell a friend to tell a friend. Until next week, enjoy your read.

Onah Nwachukwu @onahluciaa

AUSTYN OGANNAH

PUBLISHER/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Editor: Onah Nwachukwu @onahluciaa Editor-at-Large: Chalya Shagaya Senior Lifestyle Editor: Ayodele Johnson Writers: Kehinde Fagbule, Tilewa Kazeem Graphics/Layout: Olaniyan John Digital Media: Oladimeji Balogun Guest Art Director: Sunny Hughes ‘ SunZA’ www.thewilldowntown.com thewilldowntown thewilldowntown

CONTENTS

COVER IYINOLUWA ABOYEJI YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD FINTECH AND STARTUPS GURU

SPECIAL FEATURE TECH BRO: THE GENDERNEUTRAL LABEL OF ENDEARMENT FOR PEOPLE IN TECH

Cover story images by Godson Ukaegbu

Location: Villa Monument, Victoria Island, Lagos

14-15

LIVING ECO-FRIENDLY WAYS OF LIVING

FASHION WEARABLE FASHION

TECHTALK CODE OF CONDUCT: FIVE TIMES TECHNOLOGY HAS AIDED SOCIAL JUSTICE

06-07

DOWNTOWN CONFIDENTIAL TECH PLEASURE

REVIEW 5 MOVIES THAT PREDICTED THE FUTURE

Odun Ogunbiyi @oddbodandthecity

- Contributing Editor Odunayo Ogunbiyi is an ex pharmacist with a passion for food and pampering. Writing about her exploits wherever in the world she may find herself is just her way of staying sane in this zany world.

Boluwatife Adesina @bolugramm - Contributing Writer Boluwatife Adesina is a media writer and the helmer of the Downtown Review page. He’s probably in a cinema near you.

BEAUTY TECHNOLOGY & THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY

WHAT YOU SAID INSTAGRAM @credatyosar

David Nwachukwu @ebube.nw - Contributing Writer David Nwachukwu has always been immersed in fashion from the age of 10, watching a Dior by Galliano show on television. His work in fashion stretches across media, marketing, brand communications as well as design.As a fashion & lifestyle journalist, David has tracked key industry data for various publications including Industrie Africa, Culture Custodian, Haute Fashion Africa, and HELLO! Nigeria. A Geography graduate from The University of Lagos, David consciously aligns this background in environmental advocacy and sustainable development with the need to promote a more ethical fashion ecosystem. He currently oversees strategic communications at Clean Technology Hub.

Efua Oyofo @efuastar

Soft life ambassadorial duties.

@fan.fury Flamez for the king always

@tyma413

- Contributing Writer Efua has always enjoyed telling stories. A writer and cultural storyteller, Efua Oyofo helps clients tell their most compelling story. She focuses on social impact storytelling, and hosts a podcast: This African Love, exploring the culture of dating - and helping people develop more effective ways to navigate relationships in today’s world.

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LIVING

Eco-friendly Ways of Living BY AYODELE JOHNSON

ith so many environmental issues to contend with across the globe, there is no better time to make conscious decisions with regard to the way we live. Several building projects going on in Lagos have the megacity looking like a construction site. The building drive also means extra air pollution for Lagosians. Leaving things unchanged promises huge consequences for wellbeing. All the same, you can make a routine out of useful hacks that ensure protection from pollution in your home. Intentional living on your part could reverse any damage that is being done through indoor air pollution.

Letting in Air

Host a Houseplant A way to make your residence habitable demands from you the attitude of cultivation. By growing a curious houseplant for instance. The presence of one in your living room promises a treat since such plants will be bringing their natural behaviour of converting CO2 into oxygen. Nursing a plant is a welcomed therapy to enhance mental wellbeing and it would also block air pollution from making a base out of your residence. Instead, you are surrounded by cleaner air.

It is all about positioning. How you arrange your apartment to let in air. It is likely that the shortage of space to expand and make tweaks have you feeling cramped. Fortunately, there is a way out with air purifiers. They safeguard your indoor environment from pollution. Should this not be available, air conditioning systems installed in your home creates a scene where the air feels clean and you can experience free-flowing air.

Clean, Moderated Energy Around here, natural gas processing is considered the cleanest source of energy. It can power cars and the technology you use at home for cooking. When it has been domesticated, natural gas makes it into cylinders that power household meals. Embracing such a clean energy source beats other fossil fuel-sourced pollutants like kerosene or the burning of precious trees but only when applied in moderation. If not, you will have a daily host of indoor air pollution which families can do without. To moderate excesses in your living space, you can decrease the amount of gas in use while you have your cooker turned on in the kitchen or nearby lawn where delicious dishes are made. That could significantly lower any health threats arising from indoor air pollution.

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Outside Help Careful, thoughtful actions can make the quest for an eco-friendly environment something that is achievable. Doing this hinges on adopting better ways to organise your surroundings. Trees planted around your house are more important than ever. They could help with creating room for indoor cooling. This works when the breeze they generate from the outside makes it into your interior. They are worth paying attention to if you are to get away from heatwaves.

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FASHION

Horizon Earphones LOUIS VUITTON & MASTER & DYNAMIC

Horizon Earphones Louis Vuitton and Master & Dynamic (N410,880)

Connected Watch Tambour Horizon Monogram LOUIS VUITTON

Connected Watch Tambour Horizon Monogram By Louis Vuitton (N1.1million) The French fashion house ran a campaign in 2017 that saw them, for a short time, turn their Tambour collection into a smartwatch capable of a series of functions. At the time of its release, it sold for about $2,700, that’s approximately N1.1 million in this present day.

Apple Series 7 Hermès (N457,309) Creating the Apple Watch Hermès was a result of Apple’s vision of presenting a smartwatch as a fashion item as well as a technology item. That is the exact purpose of the Apple Watch Hermès.

Series 7 APPLE & HERMES

Wearable Fashion W

BY TILEWA KAZEEM

ith tech spreading its tentacles into fashion, seeing items retrofitted with new-age technology (capable of saving lives) became a highly profitable niche. Technological companies soon saw endless possibilities of making life better, swaggering up your personal style and their bank accounts. The ‘wearable fashion’ trend h as grown into a multimillion-dollar market. Now, it is safe to say that fashion and technology are woven together with prominent fashion houses teaming up with tech companies in a bid to showcase fashion and tech as a lifestyle. Let’s take a look at five moments fashion and tech have worked together to give us innovation and style.

Cit-e By Google & Yves Saint Laurent (N408,000) In 2019, Tech power player Google and couture fashion house Yves Saint Laurent joined forces to create the Cit-e backpack. Priced at N408,000, multiple touch sensors are built into the strap of the backpack, and the bag can be controlled using the Jacquard mobile app on any Android or iPhone.

Cit-e GOGGLE & YVES SAINT LAURENT

The best is to be expected when Louis Vuitton teams up for a collaboration. Together with Master & Dynamic, they deliver on better builtin features like, Active Noise Cancellation, and Ambient Listening Mode, and up to 10 hours of battery life on a single charge, that’s u p to 30 hours on the whole.

Eyewear II Huawei & Gentle Monster (N160,000) This ingenious piece of eyewear is very Tom Cruise-esqe. It is reminiscent of the dark sunglasses Bond-like characters have on when walking away from an explosion. Fitted with a single mic, you can have over-the-phone conversations more discreetly in a crowd. Swipe-based controls for skipping tracks and high-quality wireless recording capability wrap up its cool features.

Eyewear II HUAWEI & GENTLE MONSTER

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THEWILL DOWNTOWN

FASHION DOWNTOWN CONFIDENTIAL

Tech Pleasure BY TILEWA KAZEEM

rossing paths with a sex toy for the first time as a man can feel emasculating -maybe at first for some- you’d argue that a vein-embellished sexual stereotype wouldn’t leave you a little vain but it does. It does for a brief moment until you realise that it’s a set-up you shouldn’t fall for. I remember when my clique of friends stumbled upon a dildo. You know how for every group friendship, there’s a Steve Stifler, the one who shuffles women like a dealer at a casino, scrambling and washing them like a deck of cards. A drunken one-night-stand of our assigned womaniser had forgotten her dildo and was too embarrassed to come back for it, so it sat on the table like memorabilia. They had all seen it before I did and the wow factor had dissipated in them but it very much had me in its jaws.

Its intimidating structure painted a picture of what Bruce Banner’s penis would look like mid-transformation into the Incredible Hulk. Aggressive and belligerent it stared back at me. It looked animated like it was ready to quarrel. I tried to pump myself up but it saw right through me. Its tip looked like it was gesturing yinmu at me and it was Blaq. Not black, not ebony but Blaq with a Q behind the A. I eventually built up the courage to pick it up and it was a quick build because I could feel a roast coming for wasting time with a hint of reservations, so I wrapped my hand around what would have been its vein stripped latex torso.

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The first thing that flew into my head and escaped through my mouth was ‘and later women will say size doesn’t matter’ and then the whole room reluctantly muttered ‘Abi o’ in unison like they had all shared their thoughts amicably amongst themselves. They were wary of being viewed as “less manly” and I opened the faucet of all those thoughts that have a way of sneaking up on you and it took an unsparingly veined, rubber sex toy with rotors as testicles to put a dink in that armour--some knight and shining armour -- but are they wrong for feeling that way? It’s normal to get sucked up into that vortex of self-doubt when you compare yourself to another person or in this case, an inanimate object. Specifically, if that thing is ahead of you technologically. You’ve lost the fight before you were born. Look at sex toys like a piece of meat you’d normally slap beside a meal. They add the required calories and energy, giving you pleasure and satisfaction while enhancing the meal. But that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy chicken or beef alone. What kinda life would that be if you couldn’t enjoy turkey, especially if it’s grilled with the right BBQ sauce? I certainly don’t want that world!

Dear men and women, vibrators, sex dolls and dildos aren’t here to replace you, rather they are here to further heighten the pleasure you both feel. You have more going for you than an elastic veiny kondo and also personal experience has taught me that it’s not by the size of what you are packing but by how you use it. That’s all the validation you need. All eggplants matter! That way, you wouldn’t spiral into the midst of your insecurities, sexual or otherwise. In addition to treating erectile dysfunction, genital arousal disorder, hypoactive sexual disorder, and orgasmic disorder, sexual toys may also work to treat symptoms of various disorders.So you see, introducing a sex toy into your relationship would do you more good than harm sexually. If you are strongly considering sex technology that will take your discreet time with your partner or alone to a 100 then, here are a few types and a guide on what goes where.

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DOWNTOWN CONFIDENTIAL

ESCA 2

Iconic Bullet One Touch Vibrator JIMMYJANE

Vibrators

Sleeves

These buzzers are for genital stimulation. Massaging the clitoris, vulva and vagina with these types of toys would have her beggingfor more. The power of controlling a woman or a man’s pleasure is very intoxicating. When using a vibrator to stimulate men, however, points to focus on are the testicles, nipples (works for women too) and anus. Some of these pleasure machines can be inserted into the body while some are just meant to perambulate around the genitals. Open communication between partners is strongly advised when trying sex toys for the first time. Coming up with safewords is not a bad idea as well. Jimmyjane Iconic Bullet One Touch Vibrator is great for flying solo or cosy time with your partner (s). The Esca 2 however, on the other hand, redefines what you know as long-distance pleasure allowing partners to take control of each other‘s orgasms from anywhere in the world.

Masturbation sleeves, penis sleeves, or striker as they are also called are tubular sleeves that are soft and suit your penis perfectly. They often come in different sizes, shapes, and textures, so that you get more sensations and pleasure when wearing them. The vibration or suction option is available in some strokers. The F1s Developer’s Kit Red LELO and the AutoBlow A.I. are high tech sleeves that would spruce up your orgasms.

AUTOBLOW A.I.

The F1s Developer’s Kit Red LELO

Suction Toys

Dildos As far as dildos are considered, there are three possible points of entry which are the mouth, vagina and anus. They come in different colours, shapes and sizes. Some vibrate and are bent, while some are curved like a Beckham freekick to help hit the G-spot or prostate. Lelo Ella Double-Sided Dildo or the Le Wand Bow Wand Metal Dildo are some great dildo choices.

Bow Wand Metal Dildo LE WAND

Suction Toy ROSE Ella Double-Sided Dildo LELO

Cock Rings Rechargeable Vibrating Cock Ring JE JOUE MIO LUXURY

Share Couples Vibration Ring LOVELIFE

This sex accessory is mainly used to help have lengthier and rock hard erections by stopping blood from flowing back into the penis. Made out of silicone it sits over the shaft and sometimes around the testicles. A few of them come with an inbuilt vibrator to pleasure the woman as well. An example would be the Je Joue Mio Luxury Rechargeable Vibrating Cock Ring.

Although relatively new to the market, they are flying from shelves to the sheets and women are absolutely loving them. They give an ultra-intense feeling of sucking with waves and vibration. One of the many suction toys called the Rose made it to the news some months after users took to social media to testify of its power, sensation and suction. Aside from the Rose, the Lelo SONA is also another option.

The Sona LELO

Faux-Tongue-Like Toys Unlike suction toys, this device mimics the movement of the tongue. Its tongue-like silicone edge acts as a tongue during cunnilingus. Capable of moving in circles and different patterns, that along with vibration can feel almost like the real deal. The Sqweel 2 Oral Sex Simulator has 10 tongues on a wheel with your name on it. But if you don’t like multiple tongues, opt for the Lelo Ora 3. Ora 3 LELO

Oral Sex Simulator THE SQUEEL 2

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COVER

IYINOLUWA ABOYEJI

Your friendly neighbourhood fintech and startups guru You have probably interacted with technology before picking up this edition. There’s no debating how much easier it has made our lives. Once upon a time, it was impossible to cross legs, seated on your sofa as you shop for groceries and have it delivered to you pronto, or hail a taxi and it arrived exactly where you were within minutes to take you on your trips; all of these happening without you having to join long queues at the ATM just to withdraw cash and settle your bills. This was a problem Flutterwave, through Iyinoluwa Aboyeji’s guidance, solved. It was a defining moment for digital financial transactions in the country. After debuting his first tech startup as a teenage undergraduate at the University of Waterloo, the almost-Lawyer turned Venture Capitalist (VC) returned to Nigeria after graduation to awaken the tech industry by co-founding an institution that ensures that we never run out of technical talents, Andela.

Cover story images by Godson Ukaegbu Location: Villa Monument, Victoria Island, Lagos

ou debuted your first startup at 19. How did you get started so early?

Yes, it was called bookneto.com. It was super naive of us but basically, the idea was; at the time, we were using an online learning platform called Blackboard which a lot of schools used. It was very ugly, annoying, difficult to use, and didn’t allow for a lot of interaction between the students, perhaps for good reasons. This was at the University of Waterloo, Canada in 2010. It’s a school that is pretty well known for cooperative education and Blackberries. The founder of Blackberry was a dropout from my school, he flunked out of campus in a flex move and decided to build the phone right on campus. I was initially trying to be a competition lawyer, I was big on it, I wrote a bunch of case law and all that stuff around competition law.

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DOWNTOWN’s editor, Onah Nwachukwu, and writer, Kehindé Fagbule, sat with the serial Tech Entrepreneur, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, to talk about his full-circle relationship with technology from getting inspired by Mark Zuckerberg to inspiring Mark Zuckerberg’s first Nigerian visit. I made a very good friend named Pier on the first day of school, orientation day. I started to learn a lot more about startups and got super obsessed with them. A little bit later, the movie ‘Social Network’ came out, Pier and I went to watch it, and that just sort of snowballed and we started to look for a company to start. I brought in some money, he brought in the technical skills and we started to grow a team but the business we were trying to build was not realistic in the sense that we were students at the university and we were trying to build the university’s learning management system. ...And was that the beginning of your tech involvement? Yes, because I came back to Nigeria and I thought maybe Canada’s problems were too interesting.

Your experience in the startup and funding space must have taught you some important lessons. Would you mind outlining a few? The most important thing you could do as someone who’s trying to build a start-up is solve a real problem. Solve a problem that keeps people up at night. For instance, problems like room decor ideas aren’t real ones, whereas questions like “What am I going to eat tomorrow? How do I get a job? How do I do my laundry?” These are the questions that we go to bed thinking about. That is my first principle. The second principle is to find the best possible team you can because start-ups are so hard that the key thing is just to

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COVER you for a lower price which is what happened because we started a price war and now the revenue share is almost the other way around. Even the card networks got involved and they started to give us the technology for almost free.

The most important thing you could do as a founder is solving a real problem that keeps people up at night. ‘What am I going to eat tomorrow? How do I get a job? How do I do my laundry?’ These are the questions that we go to bed thinking about ”

be the best team. No sacrifice is too great to make to get the best people who are as committed as you are to building something. The third thing I’ve learnt is that if something is hard, that’s actually where you want to spend most of your time. This is because it is the only lasting competitive advantage. Ninety-five percent of people don’t bother to do things that are very hard, so you don’t have to worry about competition because nobody wants to do it. How difficult was it to start up Flutterwave? It was very hard, and for a lot of reasons. First was that we had a very big company in our space, Interswitch. Second of all, no one has ever done this without a bank or a group of banks backing them, so we were going to be the first one to buck that trend and we didn’t have the money for the licence. So we had to think very quickly on our feet. For example, we had to partner with the bank that was willing to allow us to use our software for their benefit and since they had a banking licence, they could do whatever - although that’s changing now. So we had to give up 70% of our revenue to the bank. The game plan was always: work with this partner, perfect the technology, be in the market, and then when you go to other banks who see the success that you have achieved with this partner, they will be willing to attract

Tell us about your time at Flutterwave. Why did you leave your role as the Managing Director? It was crazy. When we started it was just four people in a tiny room in Venia hub in Lekki and the majority of our time was spent talking to clients about why we should partner with them and also talking to large payment companies. But the biggest thing was we were like a small python trying to swallow elephants because what we took on for the banks was much larger than what most people would have at the time and that’s what is the seed to our growth because it was just like once we could get that working, we just exploded. From then, we kept our distance from the rest of the competition, because we took a fairly inorganic approach to growth. But that meant that it was also very crazy. When I was leaving, my major thought was “Wait, you guys are moving way too fast.” The main reasons why I left are one, we hit our goals a lot earlier than we thought we would. Secondly, for me, I came in not as a founder/CEO in the traditional sense, the founder is Gbenga Agboola, it was his idea, I just helped him refine it and do all the business development work because he wasn’t quite positioned to do that at the time, but it was his company. So my job basically was to help him get off the ground, stabilise, and then hand over the keys. So once I did that, it was a case of, we (the company) had like $20 million in the bank, we’d done everything we ever said we would do..., ‘so here you go’, I handed him the keys. It was always part of the plan. The other two reasons were, I had just gotten married and the pace of work required that I had a real rethink as my wife was also pregnant. What I had always imagined I’d do was be a stay-at-home dad. The third reason was that it was a good time for me because right at the time I left, one of my mentors (Madam Obi Ezekwesili) announced she was getting into the presidential race, so I had to go help her. It was like all the stars were aligning for me to leave at that time.

What was your vision for Andela before its creation and how far would you reckon it has come in meeting your expectations in 2021? It was an infraction point but Nigeria has always been a tech centre. If you go back to the 90s, there were Tara systems, system specs, we’ve built world-class technology from here. People don’t know that Nigeria was the first country to figure out how to put images in the SQL tables. But we wouldn’t have databases with people’s faces on them if not for Tara systems. So what do you reckon is the reason why this hasn’t been documented? No one has taken the time to document. It takes time, and everyone is building. Also, journalism is really expensive. Unlike in the United States where you have institutions that have lasted hundreds of years that can tell a reporter “go figure out the history of tech in Nigeria,” we don’t have those resources here. People who normally should do it can’t, the people who are doing it are too busy making history, right? They can’t go recording the history they are making; they will look like douches *laughs* What was your vision for Andela? Speaking to the point you made, yes, Andela was a big infraction point and the idea with Andela was very simple: how do you raise 100,000 technology leaders, who then, in turn, transform the continent. And you know the model was really simple, there is this incredibly valuable technology skills and education that prepares

If you go back to the 90s, we’ve built world-class technology from here. People don’t know that Nigeria was the first country to figure out how to put images in the SQL tables ”

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COVER

You hear a lot of people say “This is Andela!” which really means this is not Nigeria. From day one, our goal was to build an alternate reality for young technology leaders in Nigeria where they could see ‘A Nigeria that worked and was technologydriven,’ and they could now take that and replicate it into society ”

people for leadership and it’s not usually cheap so the biggest challenge is, ‘how do you pay for it?’ If they have this extremely valuable skill, they will be able to pay for their own education. So how do you bring those two ideas together? Where we were going ultimately was a physical campus, building out a huge community of technology people. We used to call it an alternate reality, even back then. You hear a lot of people say “This is Andela!” which really means this is not Nigeria. From day one, our goal was to build an alternate reality for young technology leaders in Nigeria where they could see ‘A Nigeria that worked and was technology-driven,’ and they could now take that and replicate it into society. Speaking of the evolution of technology in Nigeria, just how difficult was it to get people’s trust with Flutterwave at a time when not a lot of people believed in technology payments and were always wary of sharing their card details online? It was more strategic than anything else. What we understood was that people wouldn’t trust a new player especially at our size, but we knew people trusted banks. So the first implementation of Flutterwave was building an SME payment system for one of the banks. People trusted that their banks could take their card details, after all, the bank gave them the cards and that was kind of the way to start to break through that behaviour. Also, we got Uber on the platform; they really liked the services that we rendered because those services realistically couldn’t take cash from you, so you had no other choice but to put in your card details. It was more of a strategy than anything that we specifically did because I don’t think we could have gotten people to trust us otherwise. Let’s talk about people with ideas trying to pitch to Venture Capitals(VCs) like yourself. What are some of the errors that young founders make when trying to pitch to prospective investors? One has to give founders a lot of grace with some of these things. Good VCs can look beyond that stake and see if there is a substance in what you’re doing or not.

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The other thing is that you have to come with a sense of value and realism. I see a lot of people think of venture capital as a reward for good pitching and that’s not really how it works. For good VCs, it doesn’t matter how good or bad your pitch is if you are not solving a problem. ...But you could argue that someone could win you over. It’s one thing to be able to communicate an idea well, but at the end of the day, I invest in businesses, not pitches, and so what I want to understand is “How have you proven this can be a business?” Not “How well can you pitch?” Many people come to us with a very ugly desk, I’m not saying you should do that; it helps your case if you can be articulate, but it’s not the whole thing. And I find that a lot of people would, for example, not do an MVP(Minimum Viable Product) or run a prototype, but just spend a lot of time and money perfecting their pitch. That’s definitely not the way to get me on your side. The third thing is to build a great team. You are one of the pioneers of the Startup Bill. Pioneer is a very strong word but I definitely was in strong support of the startup bill. Tell us in a nutshell what this is about. You have a lot of young people in the space. A lot of engagement, activities, from the government’s

end particularly and there isn’t any laid down system guiding what happens when government and startups interact. There had to be some framework at some point and one of its principles is that there’s an understanding from both ourselves and the government that startups had to be known; we need to know who you are. Secondly, startups have to be getting something from the government for all their work and they have to encourage startups to get to some level of scale through incentives. But I think what is most important is that the industry has to be included in the decision-making of the government as it concerns the sector. The most interesting part of the bill is the technology and advisory council where essentially any decisions that affect any tech company have to be brought to for delegation before it can become legislative agenda. So it is just a meeting of the minds between the government and startups, pioneered by the President. What are your thoughts on the NITDA bill that requires tech companies operating in Nigeria to get a licence, pay pre-tax profit levies? That was in the past. I don’t even think it’s been read. That was a draft that was leaked, thankfully it hasn’t been passed. Whenever you get on a consultative path that doesn’t include startups, you’ll end up in the wrong corner of the world because there are so many things that people think startups are that we aren’t. The other thing that the government needs to understand is you are competing for your startups. Most of your startups are incorporated in Delaware, build offices in Rwanda or Ghana, live in London, so they are Nigerians in name and operations only. If you want the country to grow and be part of this startup revolution that it started and nurtured, you have to make your regulation more common sense so that people don’t

The government needs to understand that they are competing for their startups. Most of your startups are incorporated in Delaware. If you want the country to grow and be part of this startup revolution, you have to make your regulation more common sense so that people don’t feel that they have to leave Nigeria to pursue their startup dreams and make tons of money for foreign countries who didn’t contribute anything ”

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COVER feel that they have to leave Nigeria to pursue their startup dreams and make tons of money for foreign countries who didn’t contribute anything. Every industry has been trying to own the narrative of the new oil. We are not trying to do that. I saw a lot of those publications and I was like ‘Technology is not the new oil’, it is people. My colleagues in the industry can disagree with me but I think what makes the technology industry work is that somebody did the hard work of building all these talents that have now gone ahead to build all these institutions. People did that work for ten years before we saw anything. So I think it’s a focus on young people and talent that is the new oil, it has nothing to do with technology. Let’s talk about crypto. Despite its ban, people still find their way around it. What are your thoughts on the decision to ban it? Yes, finding alternative routes is the nature of technology. Are there any ways for potential startups to leverage this? Is there any silver lining anywhere? When those decisions were being made, one of the things we consistently told the government was that they were better off at least understanding what the cryptocurrency folks were doing by creating legitimate channels, rather than calling it off and plunging the industry into the dark. Because peer to peer remains a viable way, I think that what has happened in that space has created many ways that people are now engaging to deliver a strategic platform for decentralised finance. So a lot of the trades are happening on the other side of the transaction and not on the Naira. A lot is going on in this space and it seems like it’s under the radar and I think the bank accelerated the growth of the industry rather than what people thought would happen. The introduction of the eNaira comes after banning cryptocurrency. Do you think this was all planned and is it viable? Well, it depends on how they push it. It’s very easy to say it’s not viable but it is a technology and if they keep it as open as crypto, they could see significant usage. It could be disruptive if they let it. I don’t think it was planned, but I think that was their preferred solution to introducing it because the problem that they were

No, I’ve never really coded. I mean I know enough about it now having been around the industry for a long time but I’m supposed to be a lawyer ”

I’ve always been in politics. I think one of the biggest misconceptions people have about me is that I first got into politics with Madam Obi (Ezekwesili), but I wrote a lot of speeches for Buhari in 2015 ”

having with crypto was there are obviously several fundamentals that were out of the government’s control including the black market exchange rate. Crypto was taking advantage of those loopholes and they wanted a more centralised system of control but what a lot of people don’t fully understand about the way the world of technology works is that if you want control, you give things away. For example, Facebook is free but many people think the internet is Facebook because Facebook is free. So Facebook has an inordinate amount of control over our lives because they literally give the product away. Distribution and control are typically opposing forces when it comes to technology. If you want more control, you have to distribute further. Is it true that you don’t code? No, I don’t, unfortunately. I’ve never really coded. I mean I know enough about it now having been around the industry for a long time but I’m supposed to be a lawyer *laughs*. If you aren’t thinking about the next business or project, how do you spend your time? I spend a lot of time with my daughter, she’s two years old. I spend time with nature, I like taking long walks by lakes or beaches on my own, thinking. I think and read a lot. I’m not really a social animal. Is your daughter going to learn to code? I don’t know, it depends on her if she wants to learn how to code. Any traits of being in the technology space? She’s two years old, anything is purely accidental or just trying to mimic us. She can use a computer though, she can turn it on. She also can navigate a phone very well, she can turn it on if she knows the passcode, gets to Netflix and YouTube on her own. She’s really good. I think it’s mostly because that’s our pacifier for her, we just give her a phone like ‘we don’t have time for you, entertain yourself’ *laughs.*

Tell us more about your new venture, Future Africa. The big idea with Future Africa was that we want to turn Africa’s biggest challenges into global business opportunities by investing very early in founders that are looking to solve hard problems in large markets. That is our mantra. Tell us about your delve into politics. You worked on Madam Obi Ezekwesili’s campaign. I’ve always been in politics. I think one of the biggest misconceptions people have about me is that I first got into politics with Madam Obi, but I wrote a lot of speeches for Buhari in 2015. How come everyone was thinking it was the Red Media guys? I worked for them *laughs.* Have you ever considered getting into politics? We could use someone with your forward-thinking mindset. I don’t think I will ever do an elective position but I intend to do public service. I’d like an executive role, to be the head of a critical parastatal as a civil servant somewhere. If you are not a minister, you don’t have to be political. If you run an agency, you’re just applying the law. That’s my mindset when it comes to politics. Let’s play a one-word association. I’ll say a word(s) and you are going to reply to me with the first word that comes to your head…. Twitter ban. Silly *laughs*

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THEWILL DOWNTOWN

VOL 1 NO.39 • NOVEMBER 07 – NOVEMBER 13, 2021

BY BOLUWATIFE ADESINA Movie Review:

MOVIES THAT PREDICTED THE FUTURE Not all science fiction films age well, and often the predictions they make are hilariously misguided. 1987’s The Running Man, for example, contended that in the year 2019, we’d be watching battle royale-style murder on live television. 2019 is also the year that The Island predicted human clones would be farmed like cattle for their organs — and that film hit theaters a mere 14 years ago. Some classic sci-fi films did make rock-solid predictions that proved eerily accurate decades later. In this article, I’ll be revisiting some of these films, the technologies that they predicted, and just how accurate they were.

1. Flying Cars - Blade Runner (1982) Only a few sci-fi movies are as revered as Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, a film that put cyberpunk and sci-fi noir on the big screen for the first time. The movie goes big on audacious predictions for the year 2019, including snakes on the verge of extinction, fully humanlike androids, and space colonies. Flying cars have been part of our “promised future” since the 1950s. And engineers have tried. Among the many attempts at flying cars, there has been the 1947 ConvAirCar Model 118, little more than an automobile with wings, and 1990’s Sky Commuter from Boeing. While we don’t have flying cars quite yet, they’re definitely, at long last, coming. A number of companies are readying what are essentially “passenger drones” — electric powered, self-flying, vertical takeoff, and landing vehicles that look like oversized drones. These drones can ferry passengers without the need for a pilot. Boeing, AirBus, and Chinese company eHang are all developing oversized drone flying taxi services, and some are just a couple of years (in theory) from operation, and Uber has already announced the first five cities that may start flying.

2. Military Drones - Terminator (1984) James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster The Terminator gave us a lot of reasons to lie awake at night — a self-aware computer that triggers nuclear Armageddon, relentless killbots, and some truly terrible 80’s fashion. Mixed in with

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all that are visions of the future that reveal Hunter-Killer drones — in essence, military flying drones armed with weapons. By the early 1980s, the military already had extensive experience with “target drones” — radio-controlled unmanned vehicles that could be shot down for target practice — and reconnaissance drones, launched from ships and aircraft. But it wouldn’t be until the “war on terror” in the 2000s that the US military would fulfill the predictions of The Terminator and deploy UAVs — unmanned aerial vehicles— with weapons on board. The MQ-1 Predator, first used in 2001, is the first known military drone capable of firing weapons that were triggered remotely by ground operators. And lest you think that the autonomous Hunter-Killers of Sarah Connor’s nightmares are pure fiction, the US military is even now grappling with the question of fielding artificially intelligent drones capable of making their own firing decisions.

Scan this with your camera to access the playlist (Apple Music)

Scan this with your camera to access the playlist (Spotify)

Playlist for the week

Engelbert Humperdinck - Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

It Might be Time - Tame Impala

Buju - Never Stopped

SALES - Getting It On

Erick the Architect - I Can’t Lose

King Six - These Days

Buju - Ogechukwu (feat. The Cavemen.)

Nujabes_ Cise Star_ Akin - Feather (feat. Cise Starr & Akin from CYNE) King Geedorah - Next Levels

3. The Truman Show (1998) - Reality TV

4. Minority Report (2002) - Targeted Ads

The Truman Show, in which Truman Burbank (Carrey) unwittingly stars in a reality TV show that the entire world is obsessed with is a startlingly prescient piece of commentary on the Kardashian-fueled reality TV era, except The Truman Show came out in 1998. There was some reality TV then but reality TV was nowhere close to the powerhouse that it would eventually become.

Back in 2002, the notion of targeted ads was a small but still vaguely creepy aspect of Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report. Now Facebook (Meta?) has picked up the mantle, and it is thoroughly intrusive; search out tips on how to start a garden, and next time you update your Facebook

Free Nationals ft Mac Miller ft Kali Uchis - Time

Madlib - Road Of The Lonely Ones

status you’ll get an ad for shovels. Minority Report also predicted gesturebased computing; though the Nintendo Wii or Oculus Rift are decidedly less flashy than the tech Tom Cruise and his colleagues work with, it’s still the same concept.

5. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - A Whole Lot We’re used to Siri-like interactive computers and the International Space Station now, but director Stanley Kubrick predicted them decades earlier. His film, 2001: A Space Odyssey is full of futuristic tech that would eventually exist, including iPad-like tablets and video calling. As impressive as all the gadgets are, perhaps the most prescient idea the film had was the concept of Space Tourism. We have to wonder if SpaceX or Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic would exist without 2001 existing first.

VOL 1 NO.39 • NOVEMBER 07 – NOVEMBER 13, 2021

THEWILL DOWNTOWN

BEAUTY

TECHNOLOGY &

THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY BY ABDUL PANTI

odern technology is rapidly enabling firms to innovate in a highly competitive industry and fulfill everchanging consumer wants, from hyper-personalisation in skincare and foundation to 3D-printed make-up. While huge beauty companies make technological acquisitions to gain a competitive advantage in a crowded sector, tech behemoths like Google and Amazon are getting drawn to the high margins offered by partnerships, consumer analytics, and online shopping. We are truly living in the era of digital beauty. Technology has now been integrated and become an intrinsic component of the industry, thanks to some new inventions. These new inventions have been developed through the years to create a history of culture in beauty that enhances the looks of people who wish to enhance and boost their natural beauty for various reasons. This collection of six beauty technological innovations may just have you scrambling to purchase them, in order to help enhance your natural looks. They have come about due to generational growth in the beauty-technology industry, enhancing what we thought was impossible. At this rate, who knows where we might be in a few short years.

Dr Dennis Gross Face Mask This dystopian shield-like face mask has most likely been spotted on Instagram. It employs light technology to eliminate wrinkles and acne, based on Dr. Dennis Gross’ in-office lasers. The mask uses 100 red lights to enter the skin’s dermis and encourage collagen formation, while the 62 blue lights target acne germs and prevent future breakouts.

Gross Face Mask DR. DENNIS

HiMirror Mini

A haircare and skincare appliance that performs all of your beauty treatments in one go. Beauty equipment powered by technology that will transform your beauty regimen by giving individualized treatments that absorb deeper, faster, and more effectively than traditional products. With a boost function and a gold finish, ONE Gold provides enhanced application and elevates your regular beauty regimen. It is not only attractive but also useful, as it is ergonomically built to ensure optimal comfort when used for haircare treatments.

If you enjoy looking at yourself in the mirror this is certainly for you. This Amazon Alexa-powered mirror is able to let you know if your routine is getting results by monitoring the changes in your skin over time. It helps you track your products and analyze your skin after facials and other clinical skin treatments to see what is really working for you. It also helps you assess your skin‘s condition including wrinkles, dark circles, and dark spots so that you can effectively and efficiently target problem areas and move toward your beauty goals.

One Gold Skincare & Haircare Device REDUIT

L’Oreal Perso(Now YSL Rouge Sur Mesure)

Mink 3D Printer Mink is the world’s first 3D cosmetics printer, and it will be available later this year. It’s made to turn photographs into wearing cosmetics, whether they’re from social media, a scan, or your camera roll. The procedure is straightforward: download an app, import your photograph, and then print a make-up sheet to achieve the colours you desire.

One Gold RÉDUIT

Glo Brilliant Teeth Whitener

This device uses real-time data and trend analysis to dispense skincare products specifically suited to the consumer. The beauty of the Perso is that you can do this all in the comfort of your home. The new Perso product by L’Oreal, now under the name, Rouge Sure Mesure, and the brand, Yves Saint Laurent (YSL) can create a lipstick, of your choice from the cartridge in the device. 3D Printer MINK

Hi Mirror Mini

Rouge Sur Mesure YSL

If you care about your appearance, you undoubtedly care about your teeth as well. This teeth whitening appliance might help you get rid of those coffee and tea stains. Clinically proven to whiten teeth up to five shades lighter in five days, Glo Brilliant is the only at-home teeth whitening system that combines heat and blue LED light to give you faster results without sensitivity.

Teeth Whitener GLO BRILLIANT

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VOL 1 NO.39 • NOVEMBER 07 – NOVEMBER 13, 2021

THEWILL DOWNTOWN

TECHTALK

Code Of Conduct: Five times technology has aided social justice BY KEHINDÉ FAGBULE

hink about the #EndSARS and the immortalising that followed. Then think about the Biafran war and the lack of proper documentation that is available to us today. Speaking of wars, the American Civil war has inspired numerous documentaries over the years; and it happened over a hundred years before the Nigerian civil war. Let’s not get too dark here. The point is that technology has always been a tool for preserving our heritage, the fights for how society should work, speaking out against the ills, and providing us with the information we need to make good decisions based on antecedents.

Despite its power to amplify the masses’ cry, the evolution of technology goes beyond the social media age. I reckon that if Martin Luther King Jr was alive today, we would have been a part of his prophetic lifetime; I trust my people in Alabama would have provided us with the opportunity to join the walk in Selma via Instagram Live. Just how important is technology’s impact in expediting today’s cry for social justice? Here are five innovations (or moments) that have been put in place to literally save lives or sometimes enhance the quality of it.

1. AMBER Alert In 1995, a nine-year-old girl, Amber Rene Hagerman was abducted in Arlington, Texas. Four days after her abduction, near midnight, Amber’s naked body was discovered in a creek behind an apartment complex with severe laceration wounds to her neck. Her murder remains unsolved. Amber Alert Statistics In June 1996, legislators created a nationwide registry of sex offenders after an “Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act” was proposed. To combat the child abduction epidemic at the time, the first fully automated Alert Notification System (ANS) was created to notify surrounding communities when a child was reported missing or abducted. Alerts were sent to radio stations as originally requested but included television stations, surrounding law enforcement agencies, newspapers, and local support organizations. These alerts were sent all at once via electronic means such as pagers, faxes, emails, and cell phones with the information immediately posted on the Internet for the general public to view. They were called ‘Amber alerts.’ Although originating in the United States in 1996, AMBER, which is a backronym for “America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response,” has been adopted globally. Countries such as Canada, Mexico, and Australia all launched their own Amber alert services. The alert service was also created in Europe, maintaining the same name “AMBER Alerts” with top countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, Ireland, and so on. Developing countries such as Malaysia and Ecuador have also implemented the system, however, they chose to call it different names Nurin Alert and EMILIA Alert respectively. Statistics backing the effectiveness of the system have been applauded. Thanks to the Amber alerts’ swift nature to dispense information to communities through technology, the retrieval rates keep soaring high.

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2. GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that lets people raise money to cover a variety of events, from parties, tuitions, and graduations to major accidents and illnesses, some of them sustained during protests. Life presents several uncertainties and for a lot of people, some of these challenges are simply unfixable using their income - so they try to raise funds from friends and family. With the creation of GoFundMe in May 2010, crowdfunding procedures have been expedited as people now have the potential to reach billions of people around the world and source funds in virtually any currency. People can now afford to study in Ivy League schools, tend to very pricey medical bills and even get attorney services to fight their legal battles. In March 2017 GoFundMe became the biggest crowdfunding platform, responsible for raising over $3 billion since its debut in 2010. All of these are done on a simple website.

GoFundMe tuition crowdfunding page

VOL 1 NO.39 • NOVEMBER 07 – NOVEMBER 13, 2021

THEWILL DOWNTOWN

TECHTALK

f someone did something that hurt you and concurrently broke the law, the first thought that comes to your head is ‘how to get justice.’ In most parts of the world, that is a question that more often than not never gets answered.

The criminal and civil justice systems in countries all over the world get clogged with multiple entries daily, ensuring that some cases don’t get attended to; the ones that do, drag on their feet for years. With the emergence of social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, deeply immersing themselves as a compulsory fixture of our daily interactions and essentially livelihoods, people have over time harnessed its ability to serve as a platform to aggregate voices and create a widespread awareness to the ills and injustice that would have otherwise been swept under the carpet. These are some of the biggest movements to have been created and sustained on social media platforms.

3. Me Too Movement The #MeToo movement is a social movement against sexual abuse and sexual harassment where people publicise allegations of sex crimes. Similar to other social justice and empowerment movements based upon breaking silence, the purpose of “Me Too”, as initially voiced by sexual assault survivor and activist Tarana Burke as well as those who later adopted the tactic, is to empower sexually assaulted individuals through empathy and solidarity through strength in numbers, especially young and vulnerable women, by visibly demonstrating how many have survived sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace. Before the movement, people never exactly knew (or bothered to learn) what constitutes sexual harassment. Since its amplification, apprehending sex offenders has become much quicker as is the education that has now been forced on people, especially men who are mostly perpetrators but don’t even know it.

Black Lives Matter Protest

4. Black Lives Matter Movement

MeToo founder, Tarana Burke

Police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people have always been life constants as we have come to know. Before the emancipation of the first black man from the shackles of colonialism and its by-product - slavery, this was seen as the norm, hence, it wasn’t always a crime to lynch people of African descent. Since the fight for racial equality started getting pushed to the forefront of social conversations, black people all over the world have found their voices to demand the same privileges that white people enjoy. To unionise the demands and outcry, a strategy was introduced. The birth of a political movement that echoes black people’s struggles. Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement protesting against incidents of police brutality and all racially motivated violence against black people. The movement began in July 2013, with the use of the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin 17 months earlier in February 2012. Eight years later, the hashtag has become one of the most popular politically charged hashtags globally as it’s been known as the first line of response and a tool for black people who suffer casual racism daily to call the world’s attention to it.

5. End SARS Movement In America and European countries, black people are the biggest victims of police brutality, owing to racial profiling. In a similar fashion in Nigeria, cases of police brutality are on a steady rise. For so long, the Special Anti-Robbery Unit of the Nigerian Police Force has abandoned the purpose of its formation (which is to focus on robbery and theft) and instead targeted young Nigerians. This got to a melting point and in October 2020, youths all over the country took to the streets to make their concerns known. How do you speak to the government for a quick resolve? An even bigger question: how do you seek the involvement of the rest of the world? Coin a hashtag and watch it spread like a wildfire. The #EndSARS became so powerful, it got to every nook and cranny of the world with everyone getting involved in numbers. The series of bipartisan decentralised protests which lasted for two weeks was mostly funded by goodwill people all over the world via cryptocurrency as donors contributed to the cause by donating Bitcoins which kept the movement going for as long as it did. Even though the societal ills might take longer to fix, technology has helped with the enlightenment that equips the average person with the necessary information to make good decisions. When we are not busy trying to make the world a better place, we are either on Tinder searching for our next date or LinkedIn trying to get our next job. The range is limitless. We are still a society far from where we ought to be as far as justice is concerned. However, with the constant integration of technology in our daily fixture, we have managed to create platforms for the incessant dialogues which can only lead to the realisation of the problems and ultimately solutions to them.

EndSARS protest

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THEWILL DOWNTOWN

VOL 1 NO.39 • NOVEMBER 07 – NOVEMBER 13, 2021

SPECIAL FEATURE

TECH BRO: The gender-neutral label of endearment for people in tech

BY KEHINDÉ FAGBULE

ne of the biggest Venture Capitalists in Nigeria, our cover man, talked about the culture at Nigeria’s Silicon Valley, a tech campus he co-founded. “This is Andela!” He said they’d always remind each other with an undertone implying an alternate reality.

When you spend a mighty portion of your time behind screens trying to put together a bunch of codes in languages that are far from conventional, or you are tasked with selling a tech product to people who normally aren’t exactly open to changing the ways they do things, you have to trap yourself in a different bubble from the rest of the country. You are thinking on a completely different level from the rest of us. To enunciate this perceived difference, a phenomenon started online. They got a label: Tech bro. “Tech bro” was one of the smear nicknames given by the media against Mr. James Damore, a former Google engineer, who wrote an internal memo describing the sex differences between women and men. He started by saying women aren’t suited for tech jobs for biological reasons. He also went on to say that men had a higher drive for status, that Google’s commitment to hiring more women was actually bad for competition and he went on to say that the gender pay gap is a myth. These sexist remarks earned him the moniker “Tech Bro.” It refers to the “cool kids,” especially men, working in tech sectors like Silicon Valley. “Tech bro” became a label for the typically shy nerds working for startups, who spent more time with their computers than they do having basic human interactions. That doesn’t deter people generally as we find other things to love about them ranging from their creative intellect, problem-solving skills, quiet lifestyle despite their mostly healthy financial statuses and for some, their style - something tech bros aren’t supposed to have. The label which has now become gender-neutral as women in tech have come to own it just as much as the men, cue: Odun Eweniyi’s Twitter display name. Here are some of Nigeria’s top tech bros.

Mark Essien Hotels.ng Title: Software developer, Startup investor, CEO of Hotel.ng Known for: Founder of Gnumm and Ingolingo, TEDx speaker. Alma Mater: Federal Government College, Ikot Ekpene

Ire Aderinokun BuyCoins Title: Front-end developer, Google developer expert, Co-founder, COO, and VP Engineering of BuyCoins. Known for: Author, Techcabal, Nigeria’s first female Google Developer Expert, Founding member of Feminist Coalition. Alma Mater: University of Bristol

Dr. Omobola Johnson A4AI Title: Technocrat, Honorary Chairperson of the global Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) Known for: Former (and first) Minister of Communication Technology, former Managing Director for Accenture, Nigeria, cofounder of a women’s organization, WIMBIZ. Alma Mater: University of Manchester, King’s College London, Cranfield University.

Ezra Olubi Paystack Title: Software developer, Chief Technology Officer, and Co-founder, PayStack Known for: Human Rights Activism, LGBTIQ Advocacy, Entrepreneurship, IT, PayStack.

Timi Ajiboye Helicarrier Title: Software Developer, Co-founder of BuyCoins Africa, CEO of Helicarrier. Known for: Author; “The Little Bitcoin Book: Why Bitcoin Matters for Your Freedom, Finances, and Future.” Alma Mater: University of Lagos, Lagos State (incomplete)

Odun Eweniyi PiggyVest Title: Co-founder and Chief Operations Officer of PiggyVest Known for: Activist, Co-founder of Feminist Coalition Alma Mater: Covenant University

Alma Mater: Babcock University Illishan Remo, Ogun State

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