Bukola Moyo Babajide is a digital transformation leader, advisor, and infrastructure builder operating between the United Kingdom and Nigeria. In 2020, she founded Female Techpreneur in the UK to strengthen execution capability, capital readiness, and institutional alignment within the technology sector. In this interview, she speaks on transforming the digital sector through her Female Techpreneur Founders Lounge, building a deliberate bridge between UK institutional standards and Nigeria’s innovation ecosystem.
You started your career in banking in Nigeria. What shaped your transition into digital transformation leadership in the UK?
My early career in banking exposed me to systems at scale how institutions manage risk, capital, and operational efficiency. But I also saw how legacy structures could slow innovation and unintentionally exclude emerging entrepreneurs. Banking taught me how economies function. Technology showed me how they evolve. When I later moved into the UK technology sector, I recognised that digital transformation was not simply about adopting new tools it was about redesigning how organisations make decisions, deliver services, and expand access.
My transition was less a career shift and more an evolution from understanding financial systems to helping organisations and founders redesign them for a digital economy. Today, my work sits at the intersection of technology, innovation infrastructure, and inclusive growth.
You operate between the UK and Nigeria. How do you navigate two different innovation ecosystems?
I see Nigeria and the UK as complementary ecosystems rather than competing ones. Nigeria represents one of the most entrepreneurial and solution-driven technology environments in the world driven by creativity, necessity, and market agility. The UK provides institutional maturity, regulatory stability, and access to global capital markets. Strengthening collaboration between both enables talent, ideas, and opportunity to move across borders. My role increasingly involves helping founders and institutions understand how innovation travels and how emerging-market talent can integrate into global systems without losing local relevance. Innovation is no longer local. Ecosystems that enable cross-border participation will define the future of economic growth.
What problem were you trying to solve when you founded Female Techpreneur in 2020?
I founded Female Techpreneur after recognising a recurring gap affecting both women building startups and professionals seeking to enter or grow within the technology sector. Across both groups, the challenge was rarely capability it was access to structured pathways. Talented women were developing skills and building ideas, yet remained disconnected from the networks, opportunities, and commercial environments where real growth happens. Female Techpreneur was created to close what I describe as the Invisible Brilliance Gap bridging the distance between potential and economic participation. We support women not only to launch ventures, but to transition into tech careers, develop in-demand digital skills, secure opportunities, and generate sustainable income. Inclusion is not simply about representation it is about participation in the economy.
As we prepare for International Women’s Day, what is Female Techpreneur bringing to the table?
This year, our focus is moving beyond awareness toward economic participation and decision-making. Through initiatives such as The Decision Room, we convene founders, investors, corporates, and ecosystem leaders in intentionally designed environments where partnerships are formed and growth conversations translate into real outcomes. International Women’s Day should not only celebrate progress; it should accelerate structural change and commercial opportunity.
Many programmes support women in tech. What makes your accelerator model different?
Many programmes focus on inspiration or preparing founders to raise investment. Our focus begins earlier. We help founders validate real problems, build viable solutions, secure their first paying customers, and establish sustainable revenue foundations. Investment should accelerate traction not replace it. By the time our founders consider raising capital, they are already creating value in the market.
What does it mean to “build infrastructure” for women in technology?
Infrastructure means success should not depend on luck, proximity, or accidental access to the right room. It is about intentionally building the rooms and the systems around them where women can access skills development, mentorship, professional networks, procurement pathways, and market opportunities that enable them to secure customers and earn sustainable income. True infrastructure ensures women are not only investment-ready, but commercially ready capable of building viable businesses and sustainable careers within the digital economy. Inclusion becomes real when women are economically empowered, not just present.
Why is cross-border commerce important for African women entrepreneurs?
Cross-border commerce fundamentally expands what is possible. Today, a founder can live in Lagos, build digitally, and sell to customers in the UK or globally. Geography no longer needs to limit opportunity but access to markets and trusted infrastructure still does. For many African women entrepreneurs, the challenge is not capability; it is market access. Enabling cross-border trade allows founders to diversify revenue, earn internationally, and build globally competitive businesses. When women operate across borders, they move from survival entrepreneurship to scalable economic participation.
You are developing a structured community savings platform for women. What gap does this address?
Access to early-stage capital remains one of the greatest barriers for women founders. Our platform modernises trusted community-based savings models using digital governance and transparency. It bridges informal financial resilience with formal digital infrastructure allowing women to mobilise capital within trusted networks while building financial credibility. The goal is simple: strengthen collective economic power in a structured, scalable way.
How can governments better support women in digital industries?
Governments can have the greatest impact by designing connected innovation ecosystems rather than isolated initiatives. In Nigeria, supporting women in digital industries is directly linked to economic diversification, job creation, and the growth of the digital economy.
Policies must connect digital skills development to employment outcomes, innovation funding to market access, and entrepreneurship programmes to sustainable commercial growth. Support should include procurement access for female-led businesses, clear pathways from digital skills into income-generating careers, and early-stage programmes that prioritise commercial readiness. Policy works best when it removes friction making it easier for women to start, scale, and compete.
What role should financial institutions play in strengthening female-led ventures?
Financial institutions have a critical role in redefining how risk is assessed. Many female-led ventures are underfunded not because of performance risk, but because of pattern recognition bias. Institutions can lead change by developing alternative credit models, advisory partnerships, and early-stage ecosystem engagement. Banks are uniquely positioned to move from lenders to ecosystem enablers supporting entrepreneurship as a driver of long-term economic growth.
What legacy are you intentionally building?
I am intentionally building systems that outlast individual success. My goal is to ensure that talented women entering technology and entrepreneurship no longer rely on chance introductions or exceptional resilience to succeed. Instead, they will enter ecosystems where pathways are clear, opportunity is structured, and participation is sustainable. If the next generation finds stronger networks, clearer routes to income, and faster access to opportunity because of the structures we built that will be the legacy.
