Cephas Experience At The Ogbomoso Digital Economy Summit

Sometimes ago, I had to make a decision: It's that I would attend every event that would make me become valuable to my immediate community. 

Even though, I'm a medical student and I've limited time, I've no limits except the ones I have decided to create for myself. 

Ogbomoso Digital Economy Summit is one of such events. 

As a volunteer and as an attendee, I was sure determined  to get the very best out of it. And sure, I did! 

It was on a weekday, a very busy Thursday, I had to quickly go to class to sort out my attendance.

I got to the venue quite early, almost everything had been put in place ,so there was really nothing much to do. 

I exchanged pleasantries with people I knew, took my seat and I was super ready to devour the insights from the speakers. 

Are you ready to read them? 

I'm sure, you are.

And in no particular order, I'll give my chronicle.  

Mummy Remi Odunsi: I've seen uncle JD talk about this woman a few times, and when she was particularly introduced, it was with lots of honour and accolades, from Pastor Tayo Shobowale, that made me even  pick more interest in her even though, I've never heard any word from her mouth before. 

 And when she spoke, she spoke as a mother, it was purely evident. 

While she said many things, one stuck and I can never ever forget it." If Ogbomoso people do not invest in Ogbomoso, outsiders won't!" That's really huge. 

I took it down to a personal level, and it's that we really need to start investing in one another, especially as friends. 

 We need to support the dreams of people around us trying to create solutions to problems.

And I had to think about, have I ever invested in someone that's trying to solve a problem around me? 

That got me thinking, what about you? 

"You can't talk about city growth without personal development, so develop yourself" She also added 

And should I talk about  the resilience of Uncle JD!  Even right there in the hall, that was tested, there was power outage, the program had to begin without sound. Yet, he looked unperturbed and super confident. 

While sharing his story, a part got me, especially for the current generation of youths, that all we want to do is japa.

  Uncle JD  had to look away from  all other global opportunities just to stay in Ogbomoso, if you ask me, that is a huge price to pay to see to the development of a city, funny enough, I don't even think he's an indigene of Ogbomoso. 

I saw a man burning with passion, with nothing out there that's sufficient enough to put it out. 

Uncle JD has preached resilience, sacrifice, value, and he's living it out, right it in our eyes for everybody to see. 

I think, that's the type of life I want to live. 

Meanwhile, I don't even know why I prefer calling him Uncle 😀😁

And for Mr Seun Aderibigbe, one of the hosts for the event, he's super good at what he does. His naturality and sense of humour captured my heart. Even without the sound system at the beginning, he captured the hearts of the audience and mesmerized us effortlessly at the start of the event. 

Yemisi Isidi: Another woman that won my heart after some few words. 

I could not imagine a lady leaving the comfort of United Kingdom to come settle in a place like Nigeria, oh, what audacity!

She had a touching story to tell. She shared the story of how she started her micro lending business and it failed woefully due to insufficient knowledge. 

Are you also failing today, Yemisi's story is that which can motivate you. She has since bounced back. 

In her words, she reiterated the fact that the best way to to get the initial funding for your business is family and friends, never underestimate them. I've never even  thought of that before. I think I need to start running to my friends and family now for funds for one of my business ideas, because over the years, I've underestimated them. Or what do you think? 

Before I leave Yemisi, she made some important statements.  Wanna read? 

Have a proper documentation of your ideas, and let it be top class.

And please, practice your pitch everyday, you never can tell, you can come across an impromptu opportunity to talk about it one day.

And now to the audacious Uche Aniche, the man with the whip that never spared me throughout his talk. 

He came with a proper definition of terms, he gave the boundaries for the digital economy.  While he yet talked, I realized a huge knowledge deficit in myself. 

What is an investor really looking for in a start up business? It's called the EXIT and not necessarily dividends. In short, what will be the financial worth of the startup in the next couple of years? Get that answer right and an investor will drop his money. That's the simplest way I can explain it. 

And the super confident Dr Kolawole Oladipo of Helix Biogen Institute shared his story on the journey to discovering the Covid-19 vaccine. 

In his words, 

Make good use of social media.

Use artificial intelligence for your work. 

And please, have a mentor. 

Never use lies to build your brand on social media. 

Indeed, it's from Ogbomoso to the rest of the world, that's exactly the story of Dr Kolawole Oladipo. His  work getting recognition from WHO is such a big win for him, his team, Ogbomoso, Nigeria and Africa at large. 

From Professor Ojo's story, it was very evident that Africa is indeed, the hub of intelligence.

He deals specifically in artificial intelligence, machine learning and others.  

He highlighted some of the products they've been able to create, especially as regards medicine  with the use of artificial intelligence.  

Mind you, for any field you're going to now, you need Artificial intelligence. Just grab it. Selah. 

And for the food that was served, it was super yummy, and I liked the takeaway pack too, I never disposed it, it's still very much usable and it's hanging in the corner of my kitchen. 😆

Meanwhile, I also discovered about the LushlyAgric. Whaaaat??  So you can grow tomatoes that'll look like Apples? Even on the soil of Ogbomoso.  I was more than surprised! So, if you see me selling their agricultural products soon, you should not hesitate to buy please. That looks like a subtle advertisement there, please don't mind the business minded Cephas.  

And from Micheal Tommy, his first slide caught my attention despite my fatigued body. What did he share? 

A picture of a Car that hit a bicycle at front, and instead of the bicycle to get damaged, it was the car that was damaged. 

And to the question, which country  do you think the bicycle and the car was manufactured? 

For the car, people echoed China!! 

And for the bicycle, there were several opinions, but Germany was more prominent.

Funny enough, it was later discovered that the car was manufactured by a company in South Korea. 

That's to tell you that people have several perceptions about a place and those things are not necessarily true.

Yes, We need to brand Ogbomoso and we are all out there to do it. 

Meanwhile, you need to brand yourself too. When people hear your name, what comes to their minds? 

Think about it

And from one of the panel sessions centered on Data analysis, I realized that data science is one of the hottest cakes in town now. If you're someone still considering whether to start a career in Tech, maybe you should consider Data analysis. 

Many thanks to Ennovate Lab and Uncle JD for putting this together. 

For now, let me stop here. I decided to make it simple for you to read.

Did you enjoy the read? I had to break it into simple terms for easy understanding. 

Drop your comments in the conversation box. Please, don't leave without dropping a comment. If you've issues commenting, kindly try again. 

And if you want more lessons from the summit, drop a mail for us at cephasinsights@gmail.com.

See ya'

Au revoir  👋👋👋