2017 Tutu Fellow 'Bosun Tijani moderated the Pan African Youth Innovation Forum Question and Answer session with Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates, titled Unleashing Africa's Innovative Future in June 2023. The panel and event was live streamed by the Africa.com. The hybrid event - both online and in person - looked at how science and innovation can accelerate positive change and contribute to a brighter future for Africa. The overall theme of the event was how to harness youthful energy, potential skills, talent, and passion to solve big problems.
Bill Gates was the featured guest. He said Nigeria's youth and that it had among the largest population of young people in the world.
Harnessing the energy and creative capabilities of young people was an opportunity for Nigeria. With the right investments in education, this group presented the country with a path to progress. urged leaders to keep the challenges of inequity in mind as resources are allocated. He said he had seen exciting work being done in Nigeria in the areas of education, agriculture and healthcare, as well as innovation in technology.
'Bosun Tijani is the founder and CEO of Co-Creation Hub Nigeria (CcHUB), iHUB Nairobi, and the Design Lab, Kigali. With education in Economics and Information Systems and Management, 'Bosun created Nigeria’s first open living lab for technologists, software developers, entrepreneurs, tech companies, investors, and other stakeholders in and around Lagos. He has since replicated this in Rwanda with the backing of the Rwandan government.
One of the questions Bosun asked Bill Gates was if you were to come back to the country in four years, what kind of progress would you like to have seen? Bill Gates said that a key goal of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was to support and track vaccinations in the primary healthcare system to reduce the rate of mortality among children. Additional topics touch upon included entrepreneurship and support of solutions to diseases like malaria.
You can watch the full keynote and Q&A below:
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