 Well, we'll be going straight away to Nifemi, who is going to be taking us on a ride with his panelist. Nifemi, hi. Hi, thank you very much. Amazing. Good day, everyone. Like you said, my name is Nifemi, and I'm here with two wonderful experts in the technology space where we're going to be talking about, you know, the potentials, the boundless potentials that technology has to offer this great country, Nigeria. So to my left, I have Kunle and David, who are technology experts in the financial technology space and in maritime security. So real quick, I think the first thing I'll be posting to them is a question around what are the potentials that you two see that are untapped in, you know, in leveraging technology to improve the state of the Nigerian economy. I'll start with you, Kunle. Okay. Hello, everybody. My name is Kunle. So technology, basically, it's, there's no bound, there's no boundary. You know, there's no class, there's no class in technology. It's for everybody to learn. There's no, how would I put it? There's no where you cannot reach with technology. You can do anything. I mean, to maritime security. And in my space, we have technology as well. We have sonaridas, all these things, and we build things and have people that can build things as well. So in terms of like, and education-wise, I think Peter will be movement will do a lot when it comes to education-wise. A lot of people can learn from what we do and what we can achieve more. There are a lot of gifted Nigerians that only given the opportunity, they will do a lot with technology. Thank you very much, Kunle. David, over to you. Any thoughts you'd like to share real quick? Okay. Thank you, Nufemi. Thank you for the conveners for bringing us here. Happy to share our thoughts around this. Technology is quite a very passionate subject I'd like to speak about, because technology, it's nothing without adaptability. So what technology has been able to do is to simplify processes. Technology is not meant to bring in new things, but technology is meant to simplify existing things. There are a lot of areas which technology can actually make things a lot simpler for the people. Typically within my space, which is the fintech space, we've seen how technology has been able to help us include people, take financial access to the remote areas where insecurity has hampered a whole lot. Technology through financial inclusion, you're able to provide digital financial services to the un-served and un-deserved, which is very, very critical. As you know, also in the recent trends, a lot of banks are closing down their branches and they're leveraging on agency locations in ensuring that financial services gets to the last mile. So this is something very, very critical. We're moving away from the traditional brick and mortar banking to technology-led banking systems, where the woman in McAfee can actually have access to financial services and also that man who is in Duman, Nasrawa State, has access to the same services you can access in Lagos. Quite interesting times ahead and I'm very excited about the movement and the initiative they're using technology in solving problems. That will be in a minute or two. Alright. Thank you very much, David and Kule. I think just to take it a step further, another interesting subject that I would like to get your opinion on is around digital identity, because as David was speaking, you did talk about financial inclusion and if we take a step back to look at some of the hindrances to financial inclusion today, you would find out that digital identity has played a major role in inhibiting how quickly the financially excluded have been captured. So in your opinion, what are some things that we need to be talking about, we need to be looking into as far as digitally including the digitally excluded Nigerian concerns. So for instance, putting into perspective, we have the NIN today, which is now the national driven identity forum, but prior to that we had the BBN, which was the identification that was pushed by the financial services industry. Right now there's some sort of synergy that is trying to happen in that space where you can't even get a BBN if you don't have NIN and all that. So the question is what's the role that you think digital identity is going to play? And for me, it's a question of what other potentials exist when we're able to tackle that problem? You could even tie it up into how digital identity could be the first step to digitizing the next election. Okay. All right. So in terms of digital identity, there's so many areas you can tackle into. For instance, I was talking to a young man the other day and he built a software that identifies with the blind. So how can the blind man transfer money? So he used voice recognition in terms of, you can, the blind man can talk into his phone and his phone, his app, want to identify his voice and be able to transfer money based on his voice. So if we do that as well, in terms of even election, because you can tell the blind man for instance, how can you go, somebody go with him and put his thumbprint, but he can do it digitally if he's allowed to. If we open that space up, you know. Okay. I totally agree with you. Quite a lot is happening with the use of technology in solving problems. We're all aware of artificial intelligence and how it has been able to build trust for people in the banking system. It helps you to make forecasts. It actually helps you to do planning. It helps you to reduce the cost of labor, the cost of operational cost, where you can actually put in inbuilt responses to chatbots who can respond to inquiries by people. Very, very critical. Then back to Nifemi's question, where he made mention of the NIN and the BVN as being identity. In the United States of America, you have what is known as the social security number. It's very, very critical to help in knowing the people, knowing the faces behind the screens. And that's a big problem, a big threat in technology. The introduction of unique identifiers where you can use to link an individual's profile is very, very important. And it actually even helps in credit. We know one of the biggest problems that SME's experience is the fact that they're unable to assess credit from the brick and mortar banks. But when you have the use of technology which can help aggregate data across different touch points of what you do, it helps to clearly on the right, you know, of course, give you access to finance that can help expand your business. So very, very interesting times ahead. Very, very interesting times ahead. I mean, I was listening the other day to one of the manifestos that Mr. Pitou will be put in place, where he actually made a whole lot of impression in using technology, in choosing technology. While we were waiting for this session, David, when I really very, very happy to hear about what he said, in terms of the breakdown of world population, where 65% of African population is within the ages of 35. Within the age of 35. This is very important because this is the same age range that has mobile, they are mobile savvy, and you have high level of internet penetration. So these are interesting times ahead where you're able to link identity, where you can actually even pick up data from phones, where you can do on the writing of the people. And of course, you have seamless commerce across different parts of the world. Very, very interesting times ahead. Thank you very much, David. And I like that you even touched on one of the points that your namesake made when he was speaking earlier, right? Because if you look at it, he talked about how much more government should be doing, although he came at it from the context of empowering youths. But you find that the delivery of technology these days have come thanks to a lot of foreign investments into the Nigerian tech space. And the question is, at what point is the Nigerian government going to start tapping into that huge, huge market? Again, foreigners have come invested in Nigerian businesses from the scratch. If some of these businesses become billion-dollar businesses, and foreigners have cashed out literally from the Nigerian economy. And it's almost like our government is, well, hopefully, they will even play catch-up. So the question is, you know, picking back of what he said, what are also your thoughts on, you know, an era where we now have, remember what Abbas and Jordan did back in the day, right? Where we had PPP, Private Public Partnership. So what do you think about, you know, government being actively involved in partnering with the private sector to help deliver technology? So from funding to even concessions, you know, already some sectors enjoy concessions. How about, you know, some tech companies, you know, that are doing well, enjoying tax breaks, and, you know, government also providing them the levers to be able to deliver at grand scale. We have the likes of, you know, system specs in the past who have done stuff for the government. How much more of those are we raising today? We have a lot of, you know, FinTech companies, HealthTech companies. What do you think, you know, the government should be doing in terms of partnering with the existing companies to do more for both the companies and the economy at large? Okay. Okay, so very well said. The government should do a lot more than that, you know, because there are quite a few, like, venture capitalist companies that do IT projects as well. I know a few, and so they are quite underfunded, and they rely on grants from foreigners. But we, Nigeria's, the government can actually fund these people, give them money, encourage our youth, because this gets us smart. We don't have to tap into that thing. We don't have to always allow or rely on foreign investors, because we have it. We have the technology, we have the resources, we have the minds, we have the brains. Let's tap into that. I think government should focus more on these companies and encourage them more and do more for them. David, your thoughts? I'm very, very excited about this question, and of course, we've had conversations of this in the past where there is need for more of the government's intervention in the FinTech landscape. Over time, we've had companies in Nigeria who have shown to be market leaders. When we have general conversations across African FinTech, Nigeria is termed, Lagos is termed as the FinTech capital of Africa, very, very important where we've been able to raise companies who have raised quite lots of money from foreign investors, venture capitalists, right? It is very, very important first for the government to have stakeholder sessions, and I believe the central bank of Nigeria has started that a bit. The House of Rep also passed a bill on the start-up bill, which allows quite a whole lot in terms for the FinTech and the building businesses that are actually being led by the youth and of course, technologically driven. Very, very important for them to understand the landscape, and I totally agree with you where you have tax relief to all of these people. It is also very, very important to know that most of these FinTech companies have been able to provide jobs, provide jobs to a whole lot of Nigerians, and it's quite an interesting terrain. If you speak to five guys on the street, you have three of them who want to work in the FinTech space, very, very interesting times ahead. And of course, because of the revenues being made within the FinTech ecosystem, you have additional revenues coming into the government in form of taxation. This is very, very important. A source of livelihood has also improved. It's very, very key and very critical that we identify these key things that have been done. So typically, I think the government can actually put aside a fund, just like David highlighted in the last session. They can put aside funds where they can invest, just like people can invest in government bonds. The government should be able to invest in FinTech companies where they have done their due diligence and of course support. FinTech business is quite lucrative under the right circumstances. Thank you. So I think on a closing note, right, we had a pandemic in 2020, and I think since 2020 up until now, there's another pandemic that has hit the Nigerian space, which is the JAPBAS, if you can call it that, right? And I don't think any technology conversation will be complete nowadays without talking about that, because one of the things that we've now experienced is the brain drain syndrome. We have a lot of technology talents that are relocating. Either they are even outright relocating in terms of moving themselves, or they are relocating in terms of where they now offer their services. So you still have talents within the country, but they work or offer services outside of the country. And I think on the final note, the question is, is there a world where a better Nigeria would be responsible for keeping our talents in Nigeria? Yes. I think there is. For the future, because like you said, Nigerians are bright people. We are smart. So all these JAPBAS syndrome that is happening here, the foreigners are taking our people away from us. Yes, it's hard. Nigeria is difficult. The right government can make it better for these people to even come back to Nigeria. There are people that want to come back to Nigeria, but it's probably difficult to settle down because there's no opportunity for them. We are losing doctors. There was a time that the banking industry had lost all the tech guys, and we suffered. We all suffered. But the ones that stayed stayed. So I think the government can do a lot better and will bring back people. Bring back our people, basically. Okay, so Nifemi, that's quite a tricky question, but I'm happy to respond to it. So 20, 25 years ago, we had the reverse case where a lot of Nigerians who have been well-established in other parts of the world, coming back to Nigeria to set up infrastructure and, of course, to build the system. Pitiful case, very pitiful case right now. It's a reverse case where people are actually Nigerians exporting talent right now. But I think there's hope. I see hope. A lot of these people are going out to protect their intellectual property, to protect their sanity. They have talent. They're thinking of a whole lot. They want to live in a country where there's safety. They want to live in a country where cost of oppression is not higher than the revenue you make in your business. Nobody wants to go into debt because most of these companies, before you can actually expand, you need to get credit-facility from banks. You are not guaranteed that it's going to increase in terms of your revenue. So it's like a 50-50 case. Why not go to a country where you can actually even just sit down and, of course, do your job, work within good times. You are secured. Your family, there's health infrastructure for yourself and your family. But I see hope. And that's what I'm interested in this conversation that we're having today, because we have an Obidati team-up that's been able to show us what can work, and we're happy to support this movement. Once the security is available, once people are sure that there's security of life on property, there's opportunity for you to do business. Nigerians are creative. Nigerians are built to survive. Nigerians are innovative. We'll still export talent, but trust me, you'll see a lot of these people coming back to Nigeria because home is home. Home is home. We want to build our home, and we're happy to be part of this journey. So that's my parting shot on this. All right. Thank you very much, Conley and David. I'll just say on a final note as well, technology provides us with a multi-billion dollar, you know, industry. And like, you know, I started with, we are already seeing companies in Nigeria who are an active part of that industry. However, there is the risk of losing a lot of potential that could build that market, that could foster that market, and losing them, you know, to a lot of external countries. Canada has taken enough. The United Kingdom has taken enough. The United States have taken enough. And the question is, we cannot sit down and watch everyone leave this country. The ball is now in our courts. Every Nigerian youth, every Nigerian, in fact, the ball is now in our courts to vote for the right government, put the right government in place so that people who are happy to take, you know, a thousand dollar jobs because it's worth 700K would still earn 700K and the dollar rate potentially comes down and, you know, the value they're still getting out of it is the same because the major reason why people are moving is for greener pastures. But why not make Nigeria the land that is flowing with milk and honey, our green pasture, and we all stay. Thank you very much, guys. I'll be handing over to the amazing, amazing women. Thank you guys. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so very much, Nifemi. We are so appreciative. And of course, Kuley, thank you for staying back and not running away. And to David, my extreme left, yes. It says we have a lot of David on this panel. So just perhaps maybe having the David's dance at the election and the eventual announcement, okay, we will be using technology to salvage all of this in Obidachi 2023. Okay, so I'll need to remind you that we've seen all of your questions. But for adventure, you just want to send in more questions. Please make use of the hashtag ObidachiTelephone on Twitter, Instagram, on YouTube. We have, you know, tech-minded personalities here that will be collating all of these questions because we have a question and answer segment for you.