With the theme Tech Meets Tradition: Stories That Inspire, the founder of VOA Charity (Values of Affordable Education Charity), Dr Bisi Adekoya, organised the third anniversary of the yearly fundraising gala to make more children go to school or have quality education.
Speaking during the programme in Lagos, she said the theme was meant to compare what technology is.
“So the question is that do tech just start now?Oh no! I researched about Benin Kingdom of Nigeria back in those days, they were the most structured. They had underground drainage. They had light on the streets. At that time, Europe was in darkness. So, technology did not just come through the colonial masters. We had it before that time.
Even in medicine I have a sense of responsibility that it didn’t just start now. But we are marrying what we know and what we have learnt to what we are going to learn. Bringing our children on board especially the Gen-z. Do they think they own AI? Let them go and ask our forefathers. I will love to spend fifteen minutes with my grandfather who I have found out was a herbal medicine specialist. I am a pharmacologist. I want to take things further.”
She said that when she started her NGO, she only wanted to help one child and said that she has done it enough.
“But you have to look for ways to help when you hear the story of deserving children, but because of financial restrain, they can’t afford to go to school or get quality education.”
She added that her organisation is registered both in the US and Nigeria.
“We are doing well in five African countries and in the US. We are in Ghana, Nigeria, The Gambia, Uganda and Kenya. Next year we want to go further than this.”
She said that she has a deep sense of responsibility to be the change that she wants to see in Nigeria and in the world.
“So, thank you to all our supporters. Thank you to everyone who has been there. I believe we are going further. In 2027, by the grace of God we are coming back to Nigeria. And we are planning to host a Golf tournament. We can do it.
“We are also going to use it for the benefit of sponsoring more students for better education. Equity, education and representation matters. Bring our children on board especially the Gen-z.”
Dr Victor Olumuyiwa from University of Lagos said that the message they are passing across is to show the relationship between our tradition and technology and how tradition meets technology.
“And more importantly to show that we need to digitise our knowledge system and let us power AI that will work for Africa with our own knowledge system.
“We need data, we need content that captures our context and our cultures and we need to build AI model that will understand that. So that what AI will be generating for us will be very contextual. And apart from that it will helps us to also preserve our own culture and tell our children the right story about Africa.
“Because we have several languages in Africa and in Nigeria. And many of those languages are not represented in AI system. You know language and knowledge and culture they are tight together.”
He regretted that a lot of information are getting lost and our children are not even getting to know what really relates to them.
“What I would say is that like this initiative, government has to look for kind of funding to support people that are less privileged and give them the hope and the future. My own contribution is to train between twenty to fifty young students or pupils it depends. They will select them and we train them in tech.”
The CEO of Magic Carpet Studios, Ferdy Ladi Adimefe said that he produces animated movies for cartoon network and international guides.
“We also produce local stories for global market. We are also training African talents, so that they can produce as well, make games, create animation. That is what we are looking at. The new movie is actually called the Passport of Malamllia from the work of Cyprian Ekwensi. He wrote Anthills of the Savannah with a lot of stories. I read it in secondary school.
“It was part of our curriculum. I always wanted to make the movies. I got the right on the movies, I was working on it. The movie started in 19th century Kano at the time Kano was pretty much a world power. It had the great Kano wall before the British invasion. We had an opportunity to run that story, the beauty of it and share it to the world. That is what we are doing.”
He said that It is a 90 minutes length film. It is going to be in the cinemas. But more importantly, it is going to go round the world.
“We want to show the world the part of Africa the world haven’t seen. Because we owe it to ourselves to tell our own stories and don’t let people tell it for us. It is a romantic thriller. When a lover dies what become of the beloved. You are transformed or you heal.
Cyprian Ekwensi had this mystical powerful story that I felt the world needed to see. We are looking at from secondary school age upward. But we are very intentional to make it transgenerational. Because we know that a lot of our younger people haven’t seen a lot of animated films made from here. So they want to see it. But the story is about love about two lovers and it is about vengeance.
He is worried that no university in Nigeria trans people on animation.
“They don’t have it in their curriculum yet. I think that it is going to be important for us that we add those things because the world is changing. There is AI. Our universities are still stock in the past. We need to move along with the changes in time and let our children learn things that can help them to become relevant.”
