AI Salon Lagos: Building in the Margins. Ișé Owó: The Works of Our Hands

🌍 Join us for an insightful Expert Session!
We've examined the ground and named the cracks in the foundation, the gaps in power, connectivity, data, and governance. Now we ask: What are we building anyway?

Because the truth is, people are building. Across Nigeria and Africa, builders are not waiting for perfect conditions. They are improvising, adapting, and creating with whatever is within reach. This is Ișé Owó, the works of our hands, and it has always been the African way.

In a landscape defined by constraint, something remarkable is happening:

• Developers are training models on modest hardware.
• Startups are solving local problems that global AI ignores.
• Designers are crafting tools that work on low bandwidth and in local languages.
• Researchers are producing world-class work from underfunded labs.

The margins are not empty; they are full of makers.

But building in the margins comes with real questions:

• How sustainable is innovation built on hustle alone?
• What does it take to move from surviving to thriving?
• How do we build systems, not just products?
• How do we ensure that the people doing the work benefit from it?

Together, we'll explore:

• Building with what we have: What does AI development look like in Nigeria today?
• From hustle to sustainability: How do we build lasting AI ventures and ecosystems?
• Local problems, local solutions: What uniquely African challenges can only African builders solve?
• Skills, pathways, and access: Who is doing the work, and what barriers exist?
• Ownership and value: How do we ensure African builders own what they create?

As with every AI Salon, this gathering will be intimate, interactive, and deeply conversational. We invite developers, designers, founders, researchers, creators, and anyone involved in building Africa's AI future from the margins toward the center.

Ișé Owó. The work of our hands is enough. Let's build.

📝 Space is limited. Your registration helps us curate a resourceful and resilient room.

Hosted by:
Francis Sani, Victor (O), Babatunde, Oluwarotimi Odediran, AI Salon, Oasis School of Philosophy