Podcast transcript: Episode 22- Redefining Exchange with NGX

Transcript

Host: Welcome to episode 22 of the Experience pod, the title of this episode is redefining exchange with NGX. My name is Tosin Labeodan and I'll be your host. Our guest today is Dr. Olufemi Oyenuga, the chief digital officer of the Nigerian exchange group. The experience pod is a podcast that discusses the adoption and utilization of relevant emerging technologies and trends for impact oriented professionals, researchers, organizations, developers, and students who demand realistic and thought provoking perspectives on opportunities and challenges presented by this phenomenon in our unique environment. The NSE transitioning into the NGX group in 2021 was a case of a company limited by guarantee becoming a public company limited by shares. Opening its doors to the public, hopes to help transform NGX to a profit oriented business that will put accountability, corporate governance commitments to the interest of diverse individuals and institutional investors first.

So as a multi asset exchange, NGX recognizes opportunities in the alternative investment asset space. They exchange facilities at over 7 trillion worth of capital races across several asset classes for both public and private corporations in 2021. In addition NGX has reportedly received approval to launch its exchange trade derivatives segments with the rollout of seven derivative products. To give us insights to this conversation.

We are joined today by Dr. Olufemi Oyenuga a technology strategist and a data analyst with over 25 years experience in delivering value across organizations. And now the chief digital officer of NGX . Welcome Dr. Femi. We are really excited to have you with us.

Olufemi: Thank you very much, fantastic to be here as well thanks to the extended team in PwC. 

Host: Yeah, thank you so much , for honoring our invitation. So, let's start with some background information, for those who may not be familiar with you, doctor, could you please tell us a bit about your transition from medicine to technology and a strategy as well as your journey to the NGX and what's your vision for the Nigerian stock exchange market in general?

Olufemi: Thank you very much. And that's a very interesting question. I think sometimes when I've sat in some communication or conferences, or some innovative meetings where people say, how did you transition from human medical sciences into a capital market? I've got two answers to that.

One is, it's just how it is, the other one is, it is intentional. It just happened because I found out that, when you look at the career paradigm, you have to continuously improve yourself and the human endeavor towards continuous improvement has no limit. So some of the things that get my own passion is how do I solve problems by taking territories and that has kind of galvanized Into having a medical degree, engineering degree, an IT degree, and then management, that in a nutshell, took me into telecoms. I worked in MTN, took me into banking where I was a CTO for microfinance bank and took me into the technology space where I was chief architect for Oracle in Africa, and many other interesting prospects.

Around data analytics. So I'm a data scientist as well as intelligence. And the combination of that has helped me to unlock potentials in the money market and also the capital market. And it's the opportunity that I've seen, coming into the Nigerian exchange. So the exchange is quite an interesting role because it's an account receivable role, so the CDO role for the exchange is holistic digital transformation. And when we say that,  that might be a buzzword, but it means different things to different people, but ultimately , the reason why I'm frantic on that is that I'm trying to explain the differentials that you find when you are looking at a digital transformation, from different lenses.

So I'm looking at it from a business to business lens now, not a business to consumer lens. So I've done a lot of work in Latin, the last five to six years or from business to business. You're quite limited in what you can do for technology collaboration with FinTech, startups, SMEs, and also with different fund management in the tech space.

Ultimately the goal is to create market infrastructure for the organization called Nigeria as a community that was typified from the last primary offer we just did  with MTN where within the confines of your comfort, you can buy shares.

So the brokerage system has been automated,  the opportunity to reach out to, cause consumers within the capital ecosystem is being automated with market infrastructure. And then the end to end things around different asset classes, equities, fixed incomes and derivatives some of the packages we did this, this is a transformation.

Thank you. Yeah. 

Host: Thank you so much. Dr. Femi and I like the parts where you talked about being intentional around some of the decisions that you have made, and we're really proud about what you have achieved so far personally, and also at the NGX, I mean, you spoke about the new business model, and how the drive is to have a holistic digital transformation strategy implemented.

So that brings me to talk about your new business model at the Nigerian stock exchange. Since you've started this new business model, how has it impacted your performance? Have you seen any gains in line with the new vision for the markets? 

Olufemi: Thank you very much. I mean, that is a brilliant question, if you look at it for the new business model to scale, we have to look at it from the lens of disruption and innovation.

And I'd say even my sojourn or my vintage around the exchange is six months, I've seen some gains. So what are the gains that I've seen? Number one is to communicate to the ecosystem that we're doing things differently with technology. And so the first thing we did was to do a technovation conference, where I brought in the big names within the local, FinTech and technology space, , the likes of the flutterwave, ,the likes of Paystack and brought in the regulators as well into the conference. So we have an executive commissioner and all that, and then bring it into the market ecosystem, you know, buyers and sellers of capital being the equity space being in a fixed access space. But then again, also bringing in the millennials as well into a room where we had a two hour conference to see how technology uplifts the digital journey. That's one model. 

The other thing is also to be intentional about advocacy with the regulators, with the security and exchange commissions. And that in a way is also brilliant because what that has done is to position the exchange in close collaboration with things around products, services that the country would benefit from. You did mention derivatives, I mean, it's good to expand on that as well, that is like a billionaire or revenue opportunity, but it's actually a step in the right direction for a maturing market like Nigeria.

Also the digital model is also creating a technology board and the technology board is a bit different from the normal traditional board where, some of the end barriers to entry has actually been watered down a bit, not from a perspective of compliance or, or irresponsible rules, but from a perspective of onboarding technology companies, And technology startups on to the exchange so that we can raise capital locally and the third one that the model is also bringing, is also considering the millennials. I mean, arguably we have different numbers that are bantering around when I think we have about 75 to 80 million millennials in Nigeria within three different categories, lifestyle, tech startups, and also within the sporting industry, lifestyle I go with music, hollywood Nollywood and the general art industry.

So things like using digital technology for art tokenization, things around dual listing where ultimately, if you actually have a tokenized account, you can actually trigger the exchange. And the fourth part of this digital model is integration and collaboration. Within the confines of a world exchange to trade or to do businesses with all other foreign exchange. So collaboration, with things around the footsie,  collaboration with dryness both spoken exchange, Philippine exchange, Ghana and things like that. And then last one, before I close, is things around sponsored access as well, which creates infrastructure for around pension funds, regulated by PFA's, there can be volume metric and also positive value driven fund management within the pension ecosystem. So those are some of the things that I've driven in the past six months that I've started with this new digital transformation model. 

Thank you.

Host: Thank you, Dr. Femi, for that elaborate comment around what you have achieved so far and that you have seen since you transformed your business model and it's also exciting to see, you know, what you have achieved during the pandemic, especially in a period where a lot of businesses have to shut down.

There were lockdowns, you know all over the road, but we see that NGX continue to drive their commitments towards ensuring a smooth operation. I mean, this would have been possible with leveraging technology, which some of them have already touched on and that we see globally all around the world. We see some stock exchange markets are embracing emerging technology like blockchain.

To drive faster and more secure transactions. you've talked about some of this, but I mean, what specific technologies, especially the emerging technologies are being employed to ensure smooth operations during these last couple of months and the last year where the pandemic has been a big issue for us 

Olufemi: good question as well again. So the technology will continue to emerge in the exchange. What we've done successfully is to trade, virtually, digitally in the past few years, without any physical trading on the trading floor. So things like collaborative technologies that are actually digital in nature, content, technology that cloud-based, within the ecosystem of emerging technology, we've used that successfully to close the market, open the market and also raise those numbers that you mentioned during your introduction. So that's internal efficiency. So you probably would find anybody or any Brocade entity physically on the trading floor. Do we miss human contact? I think we do, but have we have shown that we can scale in COVID with digital technology.

I think we've proven that number two is we actually employ blockchain technology as well to do what we call an ad exchange program. And the ad in the program is actually to enlist capital assets out in nature, onto the stock exchange where you can use tokenized methodology or tokenization to actually trade those add capital within that technology for it.

The other one that we're also looking at, well, not completed yet is real estate management as well, where we are also using blockchain with the digital distribution technology to actually see how we can create both non-active and active efficiencies, using the blockchain. We don't go into crypto yet because there are regulatory components around crypto, but I think when it's not a question of when it's a question of how, because I think when is already answered because it's happening in Nigeria at the moment.

I think the other technology we've adopted as well is data. So within the ecosystem, what you see Bloomberg doing is playing around indexation index market around calculation of the benchmark for the indices for the trading exchanges and using things like analytics, cloud analytics, using things around machine learning and Digital analytics to actually generate indexes that one can now use to woo or to drive relationship within the secondary market.

So the last one in terms of technology that we also used is actually creating an app as well within the exchange to connect with our ecosystem. So we have things like the X mobiles or with normally christened our applications with the ex nomenclature within the exchange. So X, mobile and things like that are some of the online based, digital technologies. So when we actually gradually evolve it into what we should be in a digital world where ultimately trading can be done ubiquitously and in integration with third party ecosystems, like Robin hood and things like that.

So those directions are, the mobile integration technology that we're looking at expanding. So generally those are some of the technology we've used in the exchange, but ultimately we have a gaming center and the plan is largely transformed that it wasn't fully into the cloud so that you have all the, organization of software as a service data, platform as a service and infrastructure as a service delivered through that cloudified data center to a brokerage ecosystem or our dealer market company sponsor community. 

Host: Yeah, thank you so much. It's really exciting to hear how you've been able to leverage technology to ensure that there's minimal or zero disruptions to your business.

And I mean, you talked about having a data center. I wanted to ask if you are seeing any use cases for technologies like virtual or augmented reality , given the vast amount of data that you are exposed to. At the exchange, we've seen promising use cases over virtual and augmented reality where people can combine several screens, layer data on top of each other, and be able to get more insights and technicians based on additional use cases for that now or in the future.

Olufemi: I think I even see a use case for that even before the exchange, because of that it's back to my own DNA as a vision and because I've been in business intelligence, either building warehouses across Europe or Nigeria, or, you know, working with data.

So I see that as this spot of opportunity for now and the future. So what we've done in the interim is to put together an unlisted digital strategy, that would kind of talk to that problem. So what are we trying to solve? We're trying to solve for virtual and augmented reality around the capital market, but who are we before we even solve that problem?

What we have is that we generate a lot of transactional data from a trading engine, but also have ancillary associated data from the brokerage clearing house. And we also know that as statistical data from the external data contribution from bureau statistics, Penn, comm etc the amalgamation of those three layers of data our range in a cloudified form for efficiency, agile of calm delivery.

They will help us now build those use cases. I don't think we have a use case yet that will be an asset. For the capital markets, but in the red tech space, within the capital market there are use cases that we're looking at as well. Also things around how the regulatory function because the exchange is an SRO, it is a cell regulatory organization.

How the direct tech space enables us to unleash a sandbox with our brokers, And that enables us to really galvanize data , to make decisions on the fly for that entire market. but I'll be actually interested in, even collaborating more with PwC to get use cases around the capital markets and the reason for that, non holistic view, initially in the exchange is based on two focus.

Number one is that if you look at most exchanges around the world now that we're trying to benchmark ourselves with, they created the technology Vertically outside of the main exchange function. So you have F 10 in Switzerland, footsie in the UK you'll have a NASDAQ in the US and things like that at some point, the evolution of a digital transmission and the extreme will get there as well.

But we are now inward looking. My own strategic pivot is always to be outward looking so that you can create that distribution network of how we can use data to solve problems. And augmented reality is one of the things that we're looking at. 

Host: Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Dr Femi, you spoke briefly about the NGX Technovation event that happens in September 2021

That was an event that we followed closely. And I mean, we understand the focus was on innovation. business models, platform. Emerging markets, data and revelation. I mean, could you share with us a bit of the learning from that event? What were the takeaways for you? As a chief digital officer, how do you see this impacting the future of NGX?

Olufemi: Thank you very much. I think that question really positions the discussion we are having so far. So I didn't mention when we started this discussion that we're trying to do things differently. And one of the ways you do things differently is via communication. So some of the learnings from Technovation is actually projecting digital communication as an asset that the acting is trying to present to the world that we're doing things differently. 

Secondly is also to help drive the issue around credibility of some of our stakeholders as well in terms of using technology platformization and digitization for the direction going forward. I mean, sometimes when I'm in international conferences, I remember back in the days in San Francisco, maybe in Barcelona, in Spain, and then we'll talk about 5G with the expansion of data we'll talk about the five veracity of data DNA, all that is now coming into fruition in 2022, where we're not only generating enough data to make decisions at a time . We are also having streamed data with higher latency to really get to the crux of decision making. Those are some of the things we want technovation to do.

And the learning of that is also to help build partnership ecosystems. And the reason why I'm saying this is that there's a funding side of the capital market either equities, fixed assets or other alternative asset classes. There's a regulatory side of the capital market as well. And both sides have to be responsible to serve a wheeling, traditional millennia and a transformation buy side and sell side of the capital market.

Now, what technovation has done is, it brought a lot of information out in the payment side of things, funding side of things, and also a different business model to the tech ecosystem. So now we're turning now on board technology companies to the capital market. These are some of the things that technovation has given us as well to say, okay, can we actually raise this capital in the country?

I think we can. Are we worried about dollar fluctuation? We are not. Even if you're doing things like dual listing and on the capital market, it means that even in flutterwave that is listed in the New York stock exchange can also list locally here and interswitch that's listed in the London stock exchange is.

So those are some of the things that Technovation has brought into fold as elevated optics of the discussion. So last question, what are we trying to do? So technovation has come to stay, it's actually , a forerunner to the capital market conference that we did in Abuja in December.

So we did a capital market conference in Abuja where we want to own that space to underline the power of the currency. Over that capital market with technovation and that is sending more of a competitive and a collaborative signal to the other the players within the capital market. So the likes of FM DQ, can we can actually collaborate on some things that are going to come in the future, and are other competitors? Yes. But they are, in the fixed income, you know, OTC. Can we do other things together that will kind of uplift Nigeria? Yes, we can. That's a collaboration with Ghana stock exchange as a result of Technovation as a collaboration with footsie, as well as a result of this technovation in data space.

So a lot of moving parts, but ultimately technovation will be September, August a yearly event, and we seek to address the gaps in the capital market. But also to embrace the knowledge that the ecosystem of Nigeria can share. Some of the things we're trying to do is actually to create an X academy or X evangelists for the millennials.

We have to talk to the aspiration of the Nigerian millennials and technovation will allow us through partnership with fintechs and other ecosystems to get to the promised land. Thanks. 

Host: Yeah, thank you so much. We would watch that space and see the kind of impacts that Technovation would bring around in the near future.

So speaking about trends, emerging trends, mega trends are changing the way businesses are taking decisions nowadays. You spoke earlier about the millennial population in Nigeria. That is about 75 to 80 million. , we are also saying this is some of those trends here in Nigeria. So for example about 400,000 young people in Nigeria, are engaging in financial trading using platforms like bamboo and rice vests.

What plan does NGX have to integrate technology to penetrate the population of Nigeria and Africa?

Olufemi: Thank you very much. So, in fact, you gladened my heart with this question that you've asked. So, technology is a melting pot for between the old and the new. And when we say, what plans do you have to actually ensure that the imagine teaming population of Nigeria youth population is addressed in actually number one, using technology to understand the personas of this segment

Even if we know that, , we have an active millennia,  you know, population, one of the things we are trying to do with technology integration is an API and using API with our collaboration with fintechs are where we can really listen to this teaming new segments and develop products and services.

That talks to the aspiration. So for example, traditional trading as you would notice actually happens between 9:30 and 2:30, that is traditional in a new millennia ecosystem. Those guys don't sleep. They actually trade overnight. So we're trying to get the hap in the finished product in the hands of such ecosystem

We can continuously integrate with trading. At any point in time, we mentioned crypto. I'm going to stay clear of that because it's a very touchy subject, but it's a subject of this millennia or this technology as well. that's on the platform side.

On the other side of it is data, we are trying to see how we use technology to monetize data for three things. One increases awareness and education around investment. Most, especially in the capital market, primary market, secondary market or even derivatives. Number two is to create credibility for organizations that will come for valuation in our market because if you look at the market today, it's always been, oh, can I actually get a proper valuation of my company in Nigeria? Yes. Or no answer, true or false answer. But when with data, you can actually dimension the conclusion to a logical reason. And the third one is why we are all in business is how to make revenue and create revenue in a very responsible way that everyone benefits from the buy side and the sell side of interplay. I was fortunate to visit caverton at some point during the year when caverton is actually listed on the stock exchange, but we've not made a lot of noise around caverton having even a simulator engine in Nigeria, where the training pilots are amazing.

Where does the maintenance and repair state of the art, you know, fantastic classy maintenance or repair shop in Nigeria where they're even repairing fleets for other countries as well, where they're training pilots and things like that. So those are some of the things that data would actually help us elevate.

And then we can actually make revenue from the different products and services that will be created through information catalog and things like that. So I think I've kind of just touched it gradually on the surface level, but that's the direction we are going and to address some of this digital initiative with technology as we go into.

Host: Yeah. Thank you so much. And I mean, that's one of the reasons why we're having the experience podcast to be able to showcase some of these interesting examples of how companies are leveraging technology. For example, we talk about caverton. I mean, that's interesting. 

Olufemi: The one with MTN where there is an XPO Porter, where even within the confines of this discussion?

You can actually buy and trade shares, because as a primary, offering in market infrastructure and that will go into things around, evolve things around the secondary market as well. So once you've now gotten the asset, if you want to now trade it in the secondary market as an infrastructure for that, making the entire digitization of the capital market between the goals that we're driving out in Nigeria. Okay. Thank you

Host: Thank you for that. So speaking about trends in products, I mean, we're not going to ask you about crypto. We need to speak about your derivative contracts with several derivative contracts, including three bank futures, two index futures, Dangote and MTN futures being launched over the last few years.

And what other products can we expect in the future? Or is there any product you are currently working on that you want to share with us?

Olufemi: So did the derivative market, it's pretty much in the works. We just landed it. It arrived with all those products and the index features that are on it.

One of the things I would say about the derivative spaces is to watch this space, it would evolve in time. So what we've done with the derivative business is number one, to get the infrastructure in place, to get the product portfolio in place and to get a use case of success.

So I'd say we are actually in the early stage. When there's a big bang in a publication or announcement in the market where there's actually a global launch, some additional products that we're working on will be revealed. But, before that time, let us keep the lead on that so that we don't give out our trade secrets on this podcast

Host: That's fine. 

I think another question I would like to ask you is around your vision, for Nigeria and for Africa, I know, your vision is to be Africa's premier market infrastructure. And you've leveraged technology to be able to take you on that path that you want to get to.

So my question would be, how does NGX plan on expanding into the broader continent to elevate the group to Africa's preferred exchange hub? We know that you have services such as market data solutions and ancillary technology services. Are these geared towards, helping you to expand into Africa and become the premier market  infrastructure for Africa.

Olufemi: Absolutely you see Nigeria is in a vantage position. for three reasons, not only is it the largest economy in Africa, and sometimes I think they're even undervalued, well, that's a different discussion. Not only because we have the population. But also, we have passion and tenacity. So the exchange is currently,  within a program that is called African exchange, AELP

It's a program for all African exchanges where they'll be trading cross country at the moment. And I think it would evolve across the cross continent. Now we have a voice and a seat at the table. Sometimes you have your voice and you don't have a seat. Well we have both, At a table where we're now trying to see how people can create within this African exchange in our program that's number one.

Number two is the expansion of even our technology as a service across Africa. So you find out that, some of the eco system within the capital market doesn't even need a trading engine. So we are positioning our trading engine so that it can be a master slave kind of architecture, where we can actually sell some of those technology ancillaries to some other countries, that may not be able to afford, the big wallet to pay for technology services and thirdly is to galvanize the millenial ecosystem that I was referring to within the ex academy to actually be amabassadors across Africa, sharing knowledge and delivering content, but paid ancillary products to other exchanges and other larger participants within the ecosystem of the capital market. So a lot is going to happen, I think because we're in an extreme year, you also want to give the barometer of your strategy towards what's happening within the election year, but things will pick up gradually, but definitely we want to be the stock made out of Africa and we are very intentional and deliberate about it. Why am I saying these three things: where we are, where our position, our technology to be digital technology.

That's the one. Number two, we have positioned data and data monetization to get us to the promised land, number three, we'll position customer centricity in the middle of this discussion as well. And the fourth point we've positioned people and culture, to help us get to this stock made out of Africa.

So really, and truly there might even be some exchanges between the Nigerian exchange as stock exchange and some other exchanges. I was having a discussion with flutterwaves CEO at some point as well today maybe, you know, the collaboration between, the $3 billion valued company and the exchange can back other imperatives that we've not even looked at at the moment. And I know some of the things we're looking at, so yes, there's a bigger view to expand the exchange into a profusely ubiquitous exchange center of excellence for capital market and all other imperatives, in the near future. 

Host: Thank you so much , for providing that insight into your vision for Nigeria and outside the shores of Nigeria to extend to Africa.

Lastly, on emerging trends. I mean, a hot topic right now is on sustainability. And we're seeing organizations and companies thinking about how the activities today would impact the future. And the exchange is not left out of this trend. So we have seen the Johannesburg exchange, asking listed companies to disclose.

Published reports with ESG content. The Moscow exchange created two sustainability indices in 2019. In Canada, there's a footprint around, environmentally certified stocks. So there's a lot of development going on in the sustainability space. So the question is, what initiative is NGX carrying to drive sustainability around your operations and to be able to carry the relevant stakeholders, tech stakeholders?

Olufemi: Thank you very much , some of the things I've been discussing since we started this interesting podcast by the way, cause I'm enjoying the flow as well is the fact that we are very, it's not lost on us, the concept of sustainability. So if we look at what we've even done in the exchange, We have a group board where we have created green bonds, as products, indices, for sustainability. We're also doing things around sukuk as well. Those two products or index, some of our internal moves towards sustainability, but over and above that, sustainability is a strategic goal that is currently being discussed and has the visibility of the board. And there will be some implementation that we'll see going forward in 2022.

And even when we will look at technology as well, we're even creating our transformational or transitional exchange of technology towards those sustainability imperative as well. So in a nutshell, the exchange organization that is also moving with the trend and it's not lost on us to actually either copy what other people have done and then succeeded on or to create our own sustainability path and working with people, organizations such as yourself, PWC and other, important and interesting organization, we can land a sustainability KPI that we've been measuring since last year. So some of the things around sustainability are quite very high up in management and even to our board. And we're doing everything to ensure that these were not left out in the journey.. 

Host: All right. Thank you, Dr. Femi. So I think that brings me to the end of questions around emerging technology and trends and how the NGX has been able to leverage on these technologies to advance and move towards , your vision that you have for Nigeria and for Africa. So speaking about predictions , what was the last prediction that you got wrong? And let me make a quick little twist to this. Would you be able to predict whether NGX would trade crypto's in the future?

Olufemi: Yes. The answer is yes. I said that, because I know that crypto is a product and a solution riding on the blockchain imperative. And initially the blockchain was a solution looking for a problem. Now, the blockchain has now become a problem looking for a solution.

And crypto is part of the derivatives of that solution. So it's going to happen. And if you look at some countries, they've actually, intentionally adopted crypto as you know, a currency in a way. So it's just a matter of time. So yes, that's my prediction. Okay. 

Host: We will hold you on to this prediction in a couple of years, then another question I want to ask you is what's one view. You seem to find very few people agree on, 

Olufemi:  What's one view I  find people agree on? I will bring it down home. The uniqueness of Nigeria and I just had that epiphany some few weeks ago when I was out of the country.

So we think we should divide. Because we think we are entirely different. That's what a lot of people think but in my own view. I think we're just the same. We are just an entity cluster interrelated organization of good citizens in Nigeria looking to make a living and solve problems. That's what we're looking for.

So very few people agree on it. And that's why we are seeing all those fractional, agitations the Yoruba ones to have their own nation Igbo nation. Hausa nation, but really, and truly we're all the same. 

Host: I liked the perspective, I think we need to find the strength in our diversity. 

Olufemi: When, we are abroad, nobody knows that you're Hausa, Igbo, Ibibio or Efik

So that's why we are unique. A lot of people don't agree on it, but that's what it is. Yeah. Okay. 

Host: So we have one question that our last Interviewee raised, and I'm going to ask you that question to see if we will get a response from you. How many years would it take for Nigeria to be among the top 10 economies in Africa.

Olufemi: , I will give you the answer but I will underline it on three principles. Number one is when you look at the economy, you diversify it on the macro and micro variables that are driving the economic situation of the country. It means that governance and policies that actually help to elevate that micro and macro variables must actually be working or be in place.

It means that foreign direct investment foreign direct portfolio internal generated revenue must be in place to ensure that because we're a consumer organization of people, consumerism is very high in Nigeria. Despite the GDP that we are mentioning , we still cannot feed ourselves in the nation.

I'd say conservatively 25 years conservative. Yes. I mean, cause I said, I mean, you need to sort out the power and if you've got sorted out power in 16, 20 years, it's not going to just happen overnight, but the sun has always been here anyway. So the sun can help us accelerate how we get to the first ten, because when you're saying your first 10 economies, you put in the EU that has 27 countries , you've put in the US, and Canada.

And then you put in the big boys in Asia as well, who have actually started. If you have not actually started the journey or you have not laid the foundation of nation building, put the principles. Of effective governance, justice and hard work and education in place. It might take us a while to get there, but I think 25 years. some of us would be auto generians at that point.

Host: Thank you. Thank you for that succinct response. Finally for me, what's one perspective or what question would you like to have our next interviewee answer? 

Olufemi: Oh, so for me is how  do you raise a millennial generation in crisis mode. That is one question. It keeps me up at night and you know why I was disturbed, depressed about something and readily news.

Whereas some guys believe that they can use the human body to make money. And these are millennials , And if we've gone so south that we don't even have any modicum of understanding of how education can help solve poverty and help elevate people's standard of living and we've gone so south to that level how do you now solve this problem? So I think that's the question I really want the next person to answer. 

Host: Thank you so much for your time. It's been really insightful and I totally enjoyed this conversation with you. We'll be looking forward to collaborating with you at the NGX to be able to achieve some of these goals that you set for yourself from an emerging technology point of view, we're here and we would monitor your spaces. 

Olufemi: Thank you. I believe in partnership, we'll be in touch with you. Thank you very much. Thanks for the partnership.