How Summit Tried To Bring Nigeria and Silicon Valley Together

Prof. Yemi Osinbajo

A lot of the time, Africa is undersold as a potential tech hub for the future, despite the talent and potential coming out of the continent. Black Enterprise reports on a recent event an organization help specifically to give Nigeria a greater connection with Silicon Valley, exactly the leg up it may be for the country to get its time in the spotlight.

SV-NED, an organization set up to help bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and Nigeria, held a three-day economic summit to facilitate Nigeria’s job market strategy. The point of the summit was to help leaders in Nigeria get a better understanding of how the market works and where opportunities may lie in terms of getting Nigerian professionals into the greater Silicon Valley job market. As a part of the summit, SV-NED took a series of trips, including Tesla Motors, the San Jose Mayor’s office, and Nextplay, a growing events community that hosts over 4000 black and Latino professionals of color in tech.

Since 2016, SV-NED has been running out of Silicon Valley and trying to build bridges between the two areas. “Since inception, they have completed two Immersion Training & Certification Programs with a graduating class of 120 people all from Nigeria. SV-NED Inc. was also responsible for officially inviting and welcoming the vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, Minister of Defense, Mansur Dan Ali, and cultural leader His Imperial Majesty, Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi Ojaja II to Silicon Valley,” Black Enterprise adds.

Before this, the organization also held the United Nations Women in Technology Conference, which attracted top talents and guest speakers from NYU, UPENN, LinkedIn, IBM Watson’s Group and the University of Calabar, Nigeria. In the spring of 2019, plans are in place for the organization to bring the third Immersion Program to five states. The goal here is to train 5,000 people over a five-week period. 

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