Nestled within the rolling hills of southwestern Nigeria, Ekiti State is healthier often known as the “Fountain of Information,” a title its folks embrace with satisfaction. Training is not only valued right here; it’s deeply woven into the material of on a regular basis life.
“In nearly each household in Ekiti, you’ll discover somebody with a Grasp’s diploma or a PhD,” mentioned Esther Ajayi, a state authorities official in Ado Ekiti.
Now, the state is channeling that deep-rooted educational custom into a brand new ambition: making ready its youth to steer in synthetic intelligence (AI) and different rising applied sciences.
As of 2024, regardless of being Nigeria’s fifth-smallest state, Ekiti has the third-highest literacy fee in Nigeria at 95.7%, and an out-of-school fee of solely 9% making it the third most literate state within the nation after Imo and Lagos states.
The state authorities, guided by future-oriented policymakers and grassroots tech entrepreneurs, is leveraging this mental legacy as its launchpad for progress in one of many world’s most transformative applied sciences: AI.
Making an ICT match for AI
Fourteen months in the past, a serious reboot started at Ekiti’s Ministry of Innovation: the systematic revival and future-proofing of the state’s ICT coverage.
“We introduced again from the lifeless a long-standing ICT coverage,” mentioned Commissioner of Innovation, Science, and Digital Economic system, Seun Fakuade. “It took intense, multi-disciplinary conversations with colleagues throughout ministries, introspection about the place we stood, and a transparent concentrate on what the long run calls for.” Fakuade was eliminated in a cupboard reshuffle on Sunday, August 10.
Moderately than merely updating an outdated doc, the ministry rewrote the coverage, constructing in flexibility for yearly opinions and anchoring it firmly in current and future digital realities, together with a strong AI element overlaying knowledge governance, ethics, infrastructure, schooling, and AI use circumstances in governance, enterprise, and public providers.
Fakuade believes AI should serve three pillars: government-to-government, government-to-business, and government-to-citizen interactions. “AI is such a strong drive; it would outline our historical past, the best way the inner combustion engine modified the world,” he mentioned. “It’s non-negotiable that Ekiti participates and advantages from the fourth industrial revolution.”
Talking AI in Ekiti’s voice
Commissioner Fakuade’s most passionate present mission is exclusive: constructing a big language mannequin fine-tuned for the Ekiti dialect—a uncommon and bold endeavor.
“Go browsing as we speak and ask the largest AI fashions to talk Ekiti: they’ll wrestle,” he mentioned. By partnering with native stakeholders, the state is documenting tonal nuances and native expressions, coaching AI to “correctly translate as an Ekiti particular person talking Ekiti language, not some phoneticised imitation.”
This AI-powered language financial institution carries deep significance. It gives a option to safeguard oral histories and cultural identities in a digital age the place many languages are susceptible to vanishing with the passing of older generations. In keeping with Ethnologue, 454 languages have already gone extinct in latest centuries. UNESCO warns that not less than 40% of the roughly 6,700 languages spoken as we speak are both already misplaced or dealing with extinction.
The Ekiti language financial institution allows a future the place filmmakers can animate genuine Ekiti voices, companies can construct voice bots with native credibility, and academic assets attain college students of their mom tongue.
“If Google—or anybody—needs to purchase out the state’s knowledge, they need to pay,” Fakuade mentioned. “We may have invested in our language, our information, and it’ll serve generations but unborn.”
Infrastructure: the actual engine below the hood
Nice concepts want infrastructure. Within the case of Ekiti, it’s fibre optics, broadband, and dependable energy. The state had roughly 1,178.04 km of fibre‑optic cables deployed as of 2023, making it one of many least coated.
“We will have the very best insurance policies and the very best concepts, but when there is no such thing as a connectivity, how does the world entry them?” requested Fakuade.
In 2021, throughout the administration of former governor Kayode Fayemi, Ekiti turned the primary state to embrace the ₦145 per linear metre agreed for proper of approach by the Nationwide Financial Council, after slashing its ₦4,500 charge. That call is regularly paying off with telecom operators deploying infrastructure throughout the state. IHS Towers and MTN Nigeria had been the companions that labored on the Ekiti Web Infrastructure for Public Establishments, also referred to as EKIREN, throughout the universities in Ekiti. There are ongoing talks with IHS Towers and Geniserve for a state-wide fibre cable deployment.
The state can also be investing assets to energy this widespread connectivity, authorities operations, and public colleges. Fibre optic cables join the State Secretariat, the Governor’s workplace, and an annex. The Ministry of Innovation and Digital Economic system, which advantages from the web infrastructure, has now gone fully paperless in all its operations. Public Establishments like Afe Babalola College (ABUAD), Ekiti State College (EKSU), Federal College Oye-Ekiti (FUOYE), and lots of secondary colleges have additionally been linked by fibre optic cables.
Nonetheless, Fakuade is clear-eyed about challenges: “Infrastructural stack for enabling AI is just not the place it must be, and this isn’t only for Ekiti, however Nigeria at massive. However in Ekiti, we have now a head begin and a political will to shut the hole.”
Constructing a self-sustaining information economic system
Ekiti’s best export could be its brainpower. However that energy additionally poses a problem for tech hub founders within the state, who’re wanting to see the expertise they nurture stay native and drive the expansion of Ekiti’s digital economic system.
Lekan Ojuwole, who runs KinPlus Applied sciences, one of many 10 tech hubs within the state, says that of the greater than 1,000 folks he has educated in AI and software program improvement, most relocate to Lagos, different components of Nigeria, or abroad for work. Solely a handful keep again to work remotely for overseas corporations, be a part of native firms, or begin their ventures in Ekiti.
“Our focus now’s on constructing AI merchandise that may encourage our trainees to remain in Ekiti,” Ojuwole mentioned. “We will’t all go to Lagos or Abuja. We want extra folks right here, constructing the long run from throughout the state.”
The mind drain additionally implies that tech firms should import skilled expertise to work on particular initiatives. PurpleBee Applied sciences, the biggest tech hub positioned inside Ado Ekiti, has engaged software program engineers in Lagos and outdoors the nation to work on a few of its huge initiatives, a number of occasions.
“The expertise is right here—however we nonetheless want extra skilled builders regionally to execute huge initiatives,” mentioned Omotayo Idumoye, PurpleBee’s COO.
The federal government’s imaginative and prescient of constructing a self-sustaining information economic system anchored by the Ekiti Information Zone could also be a option to flip that mental capital inward. The Information Zone, which is more likely to open in 2026, will function a “Life Sciences Information Hall” adjoining universities, a educating hospital, and Ado Polytechnic.
“You’ll be able to fly into Ekiti and do enterprise with the Information Zone, with out visiting the metropolis,” Fakuade mentioned, beaming. “We’re laying fiber, upgrading requirements of dwelling, and upskilling the folks.”
Training reform begins early. Strong robotics, digital abilities, and AI pilot packages start as younger as age seven in Ekiti State, which is modeled after schooling techniques like Singapore. 400 college students, aged 7 to 14, graduated from a robotics course in July. The larger plan is to pilot, optimise, after which mainstream these packages throughout all colleges within the state with improvement companions just like the United Nations Improvement Programme (UNDP).
“The long run is a baby educated in Ekiti being globally aggressive with anybody, wherever,” Fakuade mentioned.
However as Fakuade is the primary to confess, challenges stay. “We have to retool not simply our college students, however our academics—many had been educated on programming languages now thought-about out of date, and never all have the gear or abilities required. Good intentions alone received’t suffice.” He emphasised the necessity for systemic trainer coaching, partnerships, and wage reforms to draw high-caliber educators who can train next-gen tech.
Innovation with native roots
The Ekiti State authorities is leveraging partnerships with homegrown tech hubs comparable to McKodev Tech Lab, Kinplus, and PurpleBee Applied sciences to deal with essential abilities gaps in digital and AI literacy. These collaborations replicate a deliberate shift towards community-based innovation, the place coaching packages are rooted in native realities—restricted entry to energy, knowledge, and capital—but designed to fulfill world expertise requirements. With focused assist and institutional backing, these hubs are delivering hands-on coaching in programming, software program improvement, and AI, reaching tons of of younger folks throughout the state and past.
McKodev Tech Lab, based by Banji Akole, is growing “Afrocentric” applied sciences: options designed particularly for African contexts. Rejecting the one-size-fits-all strategy of overseas tech imports, McKodev trains software program engineers with a curriculum centered on native relevance and sustainability. Over 200 builders from Ekiti and neighboring states have come by this system, gaining foundational abilities and sensible expertise by real-world initiatives. One of many lab’s flagship improvements, OctopusVAI, allows small enterprise house owners to generate absolutely practical web sites—full with content material and visuals—in simply minutes utilizing AI.
After years of bootstrapping the enterprise, the corporate is now searching for enterprise capital funding to scale its AI ambitions. “The kind of packages and options we’re constructing into OctopusVAI isn’t one thing we are able to fund on our personal,” mentioned Akole.
Kinplus, led by Lekan Ojulowo, has taken an identical strategy, scaling its attain by collaborations with the state and federal establishments just like the Nationwide Data Know-how Improvement Company (NITDA). With greater than 1,000 younger folks educated in software program and app improvement, the hub is now integrating AI into its curriculum. A brand new mission makes use of generative AI to create unique imagery, exposing trainees to the intersection of creativity and machine studying, and positioning them for alternatives in design, media, and digital content material creation. Regardless of continued challenges with expertise retention, Kinplus stays centered on creating causes for tech expertise to construct their futures inside Ekiti.
Do-it-yourself AI instrument already in use in Ekiti public colleges
PurpleBee Applied sciences, based by Dapo Oriola, illustrates how AI might be harnessed to drive public sector transformation. Its flagship innovation, the PurpleBee Consequence Vault (PBRESULT), constructed by a neighborhood workforce of software program engineers, is an AI-powered consequence administration platform developed by groups in Ekiti and past. Now deployed in 20 public secondary colleges, the system digitises grading, centralises scholar information, and provides dad and mom and academics real-time entry to educational efficiency knowledge. Training officers additionally profit from a centralised dashboard that gives prompt visibility into scholar populations, trainer allocation, and general faculty efficiency, enabling quicker, data-driven selections throughout the state’s schooling system.
Moderately than constructing tech management from infrastructure alone, Ekiti is cultivating a decentralised innovation ecosystem powered by its folks.
However the imaginative and prescient is just not naïve. Commissioner Fakuade and Ekiti’s younger tech leaders are candid concerning the obstacles: infrastructural gaps, insufficient trainer reskilling, and protracted outflow of native expertise to wealthier cities or nations. “Change administration is important. Systemic reform, incentives, and an entrepreneurial ecosystem are how we’ll leap,” Fakuade mentioned.
This report was produced with assist from the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Improvement (CJID) and Luminate.
Mark your calendars! Moonshot by TechCabal is again in Lagos on October 15–16! Be a part of Africa’s prime founders, creatives & tech leaders for two days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward concepts. Early fowl tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot.techcabal.com
Elevate your perspective with NextTech Information, the place innovation meets perception.
Uncover the most recent breakthroughs, get unique updates, and join with a world community of future-focused thinkers.
Unlock tomorrow’s tendencies as we speak: learn extra, subscribe to our e-newsletter, and develop into a part of the NextTech group at NextTech-news.com
