Your Village Needs Solutions, Not Global Hype, Bamigboye Tells Ekiti Varsity Students

The launch of the Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology (BOUESTI) Tech Hub in Ikere-Ekiti on Friday was anything but a routine ribbon-cutting. Instead, it turned into a reality check for Nigerian students, with a keynote address that stripped away the glamour of global tech dreams and redirected attention to the pressing crises in their own backyards.

Delivering the keynote virtually, guest speaker and innovator Shalom Bamigboye declared: “The internet will not solve your village problems.” The line immediately set the tone for his lecture, “Solving Problems in Your Local Community with Technology,” which drew a mix of murmurs and applause from the attentive audience of students, faculty, and guests.

“The internet is perhaps one of the greatest inventions ever. It has brought everything closer, turning the world into a global village. Yet your village problems persist, and the internet will not solve them for you. That task remains yours,” Bamigboye warned.

Bamigboye dismantled the popular notion that technology is about Silicon Valley apps, flashy gadgets, or global recognition. Quoting Bill Gates, he reminded the crowd: “The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life.”

“Technology is not defined by complexity or international acclaim,” he explained. “It is the instinct to recognize a challenge and innovate in response.”

Tracing human progress, he noted that every major breakthrough — from fire and stone tools, to the printing press, electricity, and artificial intelligence — began with people addressing their most immediate struggles, not by copying distant models.

To illustrate, Bamigboye cited the Q-Drum, a simple rolling water container invented in South Africa. Before its introduction, women and children endured long treks balancing heavy buckets of water on their heads. “The Q-Drum was not flashy. It was not global. But it was deeply impactful. It changed lives in communities that needed it,” he said.

He drew parallels with Nigerian success stories: Paystack, born from the inability of Nigerian businesses to process online payments; LifeBank, created to tackle hospitals’ struggles with blood access; and Interswitch, built out of frustration with unreliable card-switching infrastructure.

“These companies are now giants, but they were born from pain — from problems so ordinary that many of you probably face them every day,” Bamigboye stressed.

Rather than dwell on Nigeria’s national crises, he challenged students to start small and local. “What is the single biggest problem in your immediate community right now?” he asked.

He listed possible pain points students could transform into solutions: poor water supply, erratic electricity, rising food prices, lack of reliable transportation, or even communication gaps on campus. “Every frustration you notice is a potential opportunity for innovation,” he declared.

The keynote distilled his message into five guiding principles:

1. Connection – Understand people’s pain. If you don’t feel it, you can’t solve it.
2. Choice – Focus on one problem that matters most.
3. Community – Rally others. Innovation is never a solo sport.
4. Collaboration – Seek partners, mentors, and knowledge beyond your walls.
5. Consistency – Test, fail, improve. Solutions are built, not born perfect.

Above all, he cautioned against elitist or impractical fixes. “If your solution does not work for the average person here, it is not innovation. It is misalignment.”

Closing on a fiery note, Bamigboye urged students to abandon hesitation. “Do not wait. Begin now. Solve the problem in your hostel, your classroom, your town. Because when you solve for your community, the world takes notice. The responsibility is yours. The opportunity is yours. And the time is now.”

Quoting former U.S. President Barack Obama, he reminded them: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

The BOUESTI Tech Hub may have opened with computers, cables, and co-working spaces, but its most enduring gift might be the mindset planted in its students that true innovation begins with solving the problems closest to home.