Renowned tech entrepreneur, Dr Ademola Adenubi has narrated the inspiring story of how he built the trailblazing digital school management solution, Edutams from ‘nothing’.
Adenubi shared his heart-touching success story with executives of the Ogun Tech Community on a courtesy call to his Ijebu Ode office on Saturday.
He took the delegation on a facility tour of his newly completed giant tech hub in Ijebu Ode.
The Edutams Hub on final completion will be the largest private tech hub in Ogun State and will produce hundreds of startup founders and developers in its first year of operation.
Adenubi attributed the success of Edutams to financial prudence and what he describes as the ‘tree model’.
‘You see a tree, before it starts growing on the surface has spent years growing its roots and that’s what Edutams has done. We spent the first three years building, growing and improving. I can now say the penetration rate has multiplied. We now have over 2m active learners and over 2000 public schools running on the platform. We recorded over a 100% growth in subscribers this session alone with projections of 300% percent growth by next year’
Adenubi said the initial stages of Edutams was very challenging as he had decided as a matter of principle to neither borrow from banks nor gather investors and squander their money like many tech entrepreneurs do.
He said on two occassion, he had to sell his cars and started riding bikes for about two years just to keep the dream alive.
‘There are days when there was nothing. I remember at some point when we started, I had to sell everything I had including the only car I had and convert everything into cash so I could continue. It’s a tough one when you’re already riding in cars and people know you to be relatively successful and you have to pursue a new dream and come back to ground zero.
Same thing in 2020 during COVID, when our projections failed, I didn’t give it a second look. I called Solo and said take this car to Lagos and sell. That day I felt very bad and nearly cried’ (sic).
Edutams is now used across public and private schools in Ogun State and is responsible for powering the Ogun State Education Revitalisation Agenda, OGSERA’s DIPER (Digital Platform for Education Revitalisation) used by all government-owned schools.
Sharing the tremendous success that the platform has recorded, Adenubi said the platform currently has over 2million learners and over 2000 public schools as active subscribers.
‘Now that we have relative success, we can no longer hide this space and that is why we are launching this space in grand style upon final completion. We will also be partnering with a lot of startups particularly under the umbrella of the Ogun Tech Community for many collaborative projects’
Ogun Tech Community is a community of all innovation hubs, co-working spaces, startups, technology company and innovators in Ogun State working towards the development and promotion of the technology, startup and innovation ecosystem in the state.
Speaking on behalf of the delegation, the President promised full cooperation and support of the community towards building a thriving tech environment.
Members of the delegation led by the President, Adekunle Durosinmi include Matthew Oguntayo, cofounder at Blue Spectra and Finance Director of the community; Emmanuel Oke, Data Scientist and Head of Secretariat, OTC; Titi Taiwo, Director Social Impact and Community Engagament; Faith Oludare, Front End Designer, Instructor and Community Manager; and Bamidele Adenle, Academic Planning Director at DOTS ICT/DOTS Hub, Data Scientist and Community Manager.
Also part of the entourage are Uzo Adizua, Broadcaster and Media Professional; and Okiki Solomon, Multimedia Instructor and Videographer
By December, Edutams plans to launch the largest innovation hub in Ogun State to serve as nucleus of tech ecosystem collaboration and activities.
