 It's a very special honor and pleasure for me to join you today at this first graduation ceremony of this extraordinary institution, the Nigerian University of Technology and Management, NUTM, the fulfillment of the dream of the place of transformative innovation in higher education. And perhaps more importantly, to witness the graduation of the first cohort of the NUTM Scholars Program. Congratulations to you all, the Class of 2021. I am privileged to have been a part of the NUTM dream from its inception, a best-in-class hub for learning and research to train the next generation of leaders in technology and management in Africa with a vision to be ranked among the top 50 global institutions focused on technology and management by the year 2030. This is an aggressive target but an important one because of the 100 most innovative universities compiled by Reuters and these are institutions that file more than 70 or more patents for the world's intellectual property organization. Within the first five years of the period of study, there are no universities in that top 100 located either in Africa, in South America or Oceania. This is a notorious deficiency but this deficiency is first a function of the lack of private or public sector results to build those sorts of institutions and only second is the issue of resources to create such institutions. But, thankfully, we have now found such a convergence. The founders of the NUTM themselves educated in the best universities in the world and well-established successes in the private public and civic sector have come together to do the heavy lifting of establishing a world-class institution of technology and management. This initiative is crucial because the most significant problems of this generation, especially in Africa, will require innovation in science, in technology, in the management sciences, especially entrepreneurship and innovative leadership if we are to stand a chance of resolving those problems. And I think sitting before us today, the graduates of the NUTM Scholars Program, we might just be beholding the men and women with the answers to some of the world's most significant challenges. And there are many challenges ahead. We need to invent and produce cutting-edge AI applications for education, for business, for medicine, for security. We need to design the educational innovation required to train millions of children in and out of classrooms all across the country and in our continent and provide the techniques for delivering opportunities in technology on scale. In agriculture, for example, we need to invent the advanced devices, precision agriculture methodologies, robotic systems that will guarantee the huge yield per acreage or volume in daily livestock to meet the food security needs of a country headed for the third position in global population size in a few short years. And we are waiting for the breakthrough and the treatment of peculiar African health challenges such as sickle cells, fibroids and cancers. There is very much to do and a very long way to go. But we know that groundbreaking innovation in technology or commerce will always be the product of the work of well-trained people, which is why the NUTM Scholarship Program was designed to offer leading-edge knowledge in technology, entrepreneurship and design, management perspectives in breakthrough leadership ideas, critical thinking and writing. The goal is to train and equip highly sophisticated crack technology innovation and management experts. And you are the first cut of that dream team. And we are holding our breath waiting for you to step into your destiny's flow. But three things I'd like you to take away. The first is that every major innovative breakthrough in science and technology or in the social sciences was a product of patient collaborative work, sometimes across nations. There is no innovation yet. No one has yet discovered the way around hard work and the sometimes long task of creating real and rare value. Second, the reason why most people will never attain significance is because they are only interested in themselves and their personal successes. But to earn significance, one must do something bigger than oneself. A big idea, a massive game changer, would always and should always be your target. All of this training cannot be for personal success. It just doesn't make sense. There must be something bigger than yourself that is waiting for you to set your hands upon. Third is developing a mindset that you are as good as anyone who has ever developed a game changing idea. And this is crucial. The testimony of all of those who are involved in your training is that you are as good and even better than some of the best in the world that we've ever encountered. Problem solving innovators are after all men and women, not spirits. And this is important because the way not to achieve is to have the mindset that is incapable of seeing big things and seeing the success of doing big things. Let me quickly tell you a story. Years ago, I sat next to a former governor of a state in Nigeria on a flight back from Dubai. He was governor of a fairly wealthy state, the small state. As he sat there, he said to me, because he had been receiving medical treatment in Dubai, he said to me, look at this Dubai, fantastic. These people are great. The roads are too good. The hospital I went to was first class. Everything here works. This is a fantastic country. They even manage to grow grass and grow flowers in the desert. What kind of people are these? As I listened to him, it dawned on me that he didn't realize that he could make his own state even better than Dubai. That those who built Dubai are men and women, are not spirits. That we could build good roads, build better bridges, and that he could build state-of-the-art hospitals at school. And that all of these things are possible. The first obstacle is conquering the idea that it is somebody else other than myself or yourself that will solve the problem that we are confronted with. That is the first obstacle that we must deal with. You and I are equipped, more equipped than even the generations before us, to deal with the problems that confront us. But let me, just before I sit, reflect on just how you got here, how you got here today. We've heard that you had to go through a pandemic, working through a pandemic, mass on to be able to get to this point today where you are graduating. And let me say to you that that is a metaphor of life and the things to come. You're always going to have to work through challenges day by day, some tough, some global, such as the pandemic, some local, such as in your own country, and the various challenges that your country faces. But at the end of the day, if you set about your tasks in the way that you set about this, working daily, hard work, and with the confidence that you've approached this, you will win every time. Let me again commend the founders and management and the academics of the NUTM for the great work that has brought us this far. And remind us that the hard work of delivering on the high-soring vision of this institution will require all that we can give every single day. Congratulations again to the graduates and to the family and friends who are here today. Thank you very much for listening.