Meet our 25Under25 winners for 2018
Meet the people who are making a difference in their community – they’re both dreamers and doers.
ACTIVE CITIZENSHIP & GOVERNMENT ENGAGEMENT
DARE ASOBELE (EXECUTIVES HELPING INITIATIVE)
He started the Executives Helping Initiative in 2013 as a Law student at the University of Lagos. The idea was to help make a difference in the society. He just wants to make a difference and he is opened to partnerships. He is currently passionate about mental health hence why they started a special project called Anti-Suicide and Depression Squad, hoping to make a difference in the mental health space.
AGRICULTURE
GOODNEWS EKWUEME (HONEY DYNASTY)
Honey Dynasty is a registered commercial Bee farm and honey production company in Nigeria. They are into production, packaging and sales of honey and other bee farm products such as royal jelly, bee’s wax, propolis, pollen, venom and life bees. They have been in operation since 2016, purchasing quality and unadulterated honey from local bee keepers, packaging and selling to retail outlets and end users. They are focused on leveraging on the vast opportunities available in the agric industry to contribute their quota in growing the Nigerian economy; to create employment opportunities, to tackle the unfortunate issue of honey adulteration, to create quality awareness of the benefits of honey and it’s by-products to the human health, industries and the society at large, to export to other countries and to make profit.
ARTS & CULTURE
YETUNDE SALIMON-AKANDE (BEADORNED BY YETTIE)
Be adorned by Yettie is a fast growing fashion brand. “BeAdorned” (for short), which started in 2014 and was incorporated in 2017 focuses on the creation of handmade ready to wear, bespoke, afro centric, and urban African pieces made out of passion and creativity. Contemporary fashion fused with modern African trends describes the brand better. The brand is solely aimed at promoting African culture through fashion and design.
BEAUTY & MAKEUP
GRACE OKOLI (SHANYI ORGANICS)
She is a serial entrepreneur, God lover, inspirational speaker, organic enthusiast, modest fashionista, lifestyle blogger amongst others. Her journey to self discovery and entrepreneurship started in 2015 from a seemingly bad situation or delay in being mobilized for the compulsory national youth service corps. The one year delay led her to self discovery and later the identification of a problem/vacuum in the organic beauty industry in Nigeria. After much research, formulations and testings, she launched her first business Shanyi organics in January 2016, an organic beauty brand that focuses in the formulation and sales of hair and beauty care products targeted at the afro textured woman and her family.
CREATIVE WRITING & CONTENT CREATION
FEMI BABBS (SCION MAGAZINE)
He is a pharmacist, writer, publisher and author. He is the CEO/founder of Scion Magazine Nigeria, one of the most widely recognised youth based magazines in the south-west. He is also the author of the book; “Beyond the Grades”, a book focused mainly on the creativity of youths and their diverse abilities to make a name for themselves.
E-COMMERCE
PRECIOUS ENIAYEKAN (SPARKLE GLOBAL)
Sparkle Global is a Nigerian Fashion Company. It started in 2013 as an online retail company with the mission to help people get high quality fashion items and accessories at affordable prices. Soon, it grew into a multifaceted brand offering fashion related services and items to a diversified clientele from high end luxury brands to high quality affordable fashion items and accessories. Their vision is to make all customers look and feel good about themselves regardless of their fashion budget.
EDUCATION
IBIYINKA AMOKEODO (PROJECT 17)
She is the co-founder of Project17, an organisation that sets to teach the Sustainable Development Goals at all levels because of her vision to help achieve the goals in Nigeria by 2030. She also wants everyone everywhere to be aware of the global goals and she’s doing that through several projects. She is also a member of the Oxfam Youth Advisory Board. She is passionate about humanity and the development of her country, Nigeria.
ENERGY & SUSTAINABILITY
RITA IDEHAI (ECOBARTER)
She is a conscientious young lady who is always striving to gain better knowledge and information. She founded Ecobarter, a waste resource recovery and repurposing enterprise, out of the zeal to proffer sustainable solutions to socioeconomic and environmental problems. She is a Tony Elumelu Foundation 2017 Alumni.
ENVIRONMENT & INTERIOR DECORATION
TIANA TOLORUNLOJU
She is a creative, young and smart individual who puts her creativity into designing signature furniture and home interiors. Her content for social media is also highly educational and she shows that she isn’t just in the business for herself, but also to share knowledge and encourage new designers.
EVENT PLANNING
IFEOLUWA IBIYEMI
She is a young girl who learnt the art of decoration and event planning from her university days. She had always dreamt of setting up her own event company, thus Estib events was birthed right from school. Estib events offers professional event services for birthdays, weddings, etc and also provides clients with vendors who provide exceptional event services. The goal is to create long lasting, beautiful memories and change the notion that “there is nothing like a perfect event”, while also creating job opportunities for professionals as well as side jobs for young people.
FASHION
BLESSING ODOEMENA (ZIKORAH AFRICA)
She is a 24 year old graduate of physics from the Federal University of Technology, Owerri. She is the founder, designer and creative director of Zikorah, an African inspired women’s wear clothing brand that focuses on bringing innovation to African fashion and beyond through its unique, versatile and affordable fashion pieces. Zikorah which is an indigenous Ibo name meaning “show the world” was established in 2017 and currently caters to the wardrobe of young and middle-aged women in Africa and beyond who seek to embrace the African culture. Zikorah currently has its headquarters in Lagos and is currently expanding beyond Nigeria, Africa and globally as well.
FINANCE & FINTECH
SYLVIA UDEMEH (BRIDGEBOOKS)
She is the founder and managing partner at Bridgebooks, a smart accounting and payroll solution for SMEs in Africa. By championing financial literacy and inclusion in Africa, she is helping SMEs build financial structures that can enable them to accelerate business growth and become channels for economic sustainability in Africa. Since the launch of Bridgebooks in April 2018, it has over 300 subscribers with more than 45% in their first month subscription. Bridgebooks is building a community of financially literate business owners and closing the financial inclusion gap for SMEs in Africa.
FOOD & DRINKS
OYINKANSOLA MAKINDE (SWEET TINGLE LTD)
She is the Chief Executive Officer of Sweet Tingle Limited, a fast rising finger foods, grills and cocktails catering outfit which she started in 2013. An enterprising individual, she has been involved in business management since 2005 recording modest strides. She enjoys cooking and everything about the kitchen and she does it without stress. Sweet Tingle has comfortably handled finger foods and cocktails catering at events for both corporate and individual customers including banks, educational institutions, high net worth individuals and many more. When she isn’t catering, Oyinkansola enjoys seeing movies and playing monopoly.
HEALTH & SKINCARE
AMANDA AFOLABI ( DARA NATURALS)
She is a TV Presenter at Ebonylife TV and the founder of Dara Naturals, an organic skincare company. She studied Computer Information Systems at Babcock University, but on graduation decided to follow her passion in the media industry and started off her career at 19 on Rave TV Channel. She then moved to work at Ebonylife TV co-hosting Moments Z, a pan African TV show for millenials. At 21, she decided to veer into another passion of hers which is Organic skin care and she started off her business called Dara Naturals. She is a go getter and believes the only limitation we have as humans is in our mind.
HOSPITALITY & TOURISM
TOMIWA TALABI (LAGOS LIFE)
He is a social media influencer and the CEO of Lagos Life, an online platform that showcases the true essence of Lagos. He is also the brain behind “Explore Lagos Tours”, a tourism company under the Lagos Life umbrella with the main focus to help people experience and explore the city of Lagos.
MANUFACTURING & LOGISTICS
OREOLUWA SHONIBARE (WII CREATE)
He is the Co-founder of Wii CREATE, a content, design and print company that provides its services to corporate and individual clients. He and his cofounder, Donald Onwochei have since then pushed the limits of prints and design opening new markets from Universities to start ups and Non-Governmental Organizations. He is a value driven entrepreneur with an eye for gaps in markets and industries. He holds a strong belief that Nigerian millennials will play a big part in the development of the country. He is also the founder of Amb Designs – a graphic design agency which was set up while he was at University.
MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS
FIYIN GAMBO (CLIQ MEDIA)
He is the CEO of Cliq Media and co-founder of White space. His mission is simple, “to give you never seen before images on the big screen.” He does this with his company, Cliq media by honing spectacular technologies like visual effects (popularly known as film tricks) to tell African stories differently. His films have been recognised nationally and internationally with features on BBC, Ebony life TV, Channels, Punch Newspapers and many more. He’s been dubbed “Africa’s youngest Action Film director” by many with appraisals for industry experts in Nollywood and Hollywood alike, with a recent private screening of his film preview to Former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Fiyin Gambo is almost done obtaining a B.Eng. in Civil Engineering at Covenant University. He dreams that very soon there would be long queues in Chinese and American cinemas for Nigerian movies.
MUSIC
OSWALD OKOJIE
He owns a record label that has successfully made an impact in the entertainment industry over the years. The label is changing the face of the Nigerian music industry and is a leader in the Nigerian entertainment industry.
PHOTOGRAPHY
UMAR FARUQ (THE UNPUBLISHED GALLERY)
He is a self taught street and fashion photographer whose work revolves around documenting reality through everyday images of people, places and aesthetics. Documentary using mostly monochrome as his preferred palette, his works include “Once upon a night in Lagos,” “100 men & what they wear” as well as “Ibadan: A narrative under construction” which is an ongoing project dedicated to changing the brown roof narrative ascribed to Ibadan where he’s presently schooling. He is also a published photographer, having shot both cover photos and editorial content for The Lens Magazine in 2017. Al-Faruq curates his works on Instagram @theunpublishedgallery and he’s , the Founder & Lead strategist of The Rookie Club, an arts non-profit dedicated to encouraging a conversation-driven arts community.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
CHIAMAKA OBIAGBAOSO (PEN-IMPACT WRITING AND PUBLISHING ENTERPRISE)
She is a trained biomedical scientist in the field of Anatomy and a professional health systems and programs strategist. Over the past two years, she has served as a Health Systems Planning consultant to various organisations including UNICEF Nigeria, various state ministries of health, as well as the Federal Ministry of Health in the ongoing National Strategic Health Development Planning for 2018-2022.
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP
REGAL SET (BOOK DRIVE, CU)
The BookDrive CU is hinged on Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals; Quality Education. The goal is aimed at achieving inclusive and equitable quality education for all which will require increasing efforts, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia and for vulnerable populations, including persons with disabilities, indigenous people, refugee children and poor children in rural areas by 2030. In a bid to be a part of this World-change movement and promote Nation building, the Regal set saw the need to take up the project and enact it in Nigeria. The vision is to ensure that all Nigerian boys and girls complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes in line with target 4.1 of the Goal 4.
SOFTWARE & DESIGN
ANTHONY ONIGBOGU (ORBIT BROTHERS COMMUNICATION)
He has a B.Eng. in Electronic and Computer Engineering with experience directly relevant to Consumer IT/Engineering Space. He is a serial entrepreneur and currently the MD/Principal Consultant, OBC Group. He co founded OBC in 2016 with the motive to utilize and publicize Nigeria’s indigenous designs and local expertise in the development of world class technological and engineering solutions in an effort to help build a sustainable digital future for the nation. He has been involved in other successful start up businesses and intends to create a Chinese driven Economy with OBC by spiking an increased awareness and patronage of African/IT Engineering designs and solutions with respect to innovation, technology and Engineering.
SPORTS
MARYLOVE EDWARDS
She is a 13 year old girl who started playing tennis at the age of 4. She has become the youth star of Nigerian tennis.
TECHNOLOGY
FRED OYETAYO (FRESIBLE)
He is the CEO of Fresible and serves on its Board of Directors. He is responsible for setting the overall direction and product strategy for the company. He leads the design of Fresible’s service and development of its core technology and departments. He is credited with an Artificial Intelligence powered legal software for the enhancement of legal practice in Nigeria. Prior to resuming full duties as the CEO, he was an Associate at Probitas Partners LLP in Lagos and the Law Firm of Olujinmi & Akeredolu.