Nigeria at 60: Top sixty Nigerian tech entrepreneurs that deserve to be celebrated

On October 1, 2020 Nigeria celebrates sixty years of independence from colonial British rule. The Benjamindada team is using this independence day to celebrate sixty entrepreneurs that we believe have done wonderfully.

These Nigerian entrepreneurs have succeeded in harnessing the power of technology to provide solutions to local and international problems. More importantly, the work they have done, and are still doing is paving the way for many young Nigerians to make a difference too.

We've split the list into three batches of 20 that we'll be bringing to you over the next few hours. Meet the giants of Nigeria's blossoming tech industry:

1. Funke Opeke - Founder & CEO at MainOne, West Africa's biggest broadband infrastructure company.

2. Olugbenga Agboola - Cofounder & CEO at Flutterwave, Nigerian fintech focused on providing payment solutions for businesses.

3. Mark Essien - Founder & CEO at Hotels.ng, an online travel agency that helps travelers with hotel bookings

4. Tito Ovia - Cofounder and Head of Growth at Helium Health, a healthcare technology provider in headquartered in Nigeria.

5. Yemi Keri - CEO of Heckerbella Limited,  a business transformation firm delivering information technology solutions to businesses in Africa. She's also an Angel Investor

6. Etop Ikpe - Cofounder and former CEO at Cars45, now CEO and co-founder at Autochek

7. Eke E. Urum - Founder and CEO at Rise vest, a investment company that provides dollar investment services for Nigerians. Ex Cofounder and Business Lead at Buycoins

8. Ire Aderinokun - Cofounder and COO at Buycoins, a service that allows instant trade of cryptocurrencies by users.

9 Chijioke Dozie - Cofounder & CEO at OneFi, a fintech company focused on democratising access to finance through lending. OneFi is the parent company of Carbon.

10. Sim Shagaya - Founder & CEO at uLesson, an ed-tech startup focused on helping students maximise their academic performance. He was formerly CEO and cofounder at Konga

11. Jason Njoku - CEO & Founder at IrokoTV, a web platform that provides paid-for Nigerian films on demand.

12. Maya Horgan Famodu - Founder of Ingressive Capital, one of Nigeria's biggest VC firms and investors in Nigerian startups.

13. Temie Giwa-Tubosun - Founder & CEO of Lifebank, a healthcare and logistics company based in Lagos, Nigeria.

14. Oluwatomi Solanke - CEO & Cofounder at Trove, a startup that helps to democratise access to local and international stocks and equities for Nigerians.

15. Oluyomi Ojo - CEO & Cofounder at Printivo, an online print provider based in Nigeria.

16. Bosun Tijani - co-founder & CEO of Co-Creation Hub, an innovation centre that helps with acceleration for startups.

17. Oluwatosin Olaseinde - Founder of The Money Africa, a financial literacy ed-tech.

18. Ugodre Obi-chukwu - Founder of Nairametrics, a financial resource company with a focus on financial literacy and investor advocacy.

19. Babs Ogundeyi - Founder & CEO at Kudabank, a mobile-only bank.

20. Edmund Olotu - CEO, Tech Advance, a payment application company with a strategic focus on developing niche payment companies.

This list is the first in a series of three. You can find the rest of it here and here.