The co-founder of RootHub, Tony Onuk, tells ABIODUN SANUSI about his business, childhood and other issues
Tell us about your background.
Growing up with my three siblings was fun. While growing up in Lagos State in the late 1980s, I had friends from almost every tribe in the country, and that helped me to have a healthy dose of curiosity about the world.
As a student of St. Gregory’s College, Obalende, Lagos, who also lived in the Yaba area of the state, it was more like a position of ‘best of two worlds’. That also shaped my mindset about the different types of people there are.
What are your fond childhood memories and did any of them influence your career choice?
I remember quite vividly around 1992 and 1993 when my late father travelled and returned with computers. He stated that that was the future as it was powering the activities of countries abroad. You can imagine the excitement of me and my twin brother as we tried to navigate the workings of the new ‘toy’. I can give that credit for shaping my career path as I had friends in school who also had computers and we exchanged floppy diskettes of games and things we had done. Around 1999, I was introduced to the Internet in my friend’s house, who had a computer room complete with a fax and printer. His house was like heaven to us, his friends, as we spent countless hours after school exploring the web and ultimately racked up huge telephone bills for his dad. Around this time, my aunt took me and my brother to the American Consulate where they had a library with books donated by the American people. There, we found a book titled, How Cartoons are Made, which is regarded as the ‘animation bible’, and that started our journey in wanting to become animators.
How would you describe your career journey so far
driving force in accessing economic opportunities and foster a culture of collaboration in the technology space. It was also to incubate, promote and support amazing ideas to achieve growth.
What do you aim to achieve with the company?
We, at The RootHub, actively aim to impact the youth in Africa by imparting them with much-needed technology skills, empowering them in today’s digital world and helping them access employment, advance career paths, and drive self-reliance through entrepreneurship.
What are the highlights of the company since inception?
From inception, we took on the challenge of equipping young people with skills. In 2016, we partnered with the Akwa Ibom State Government through the Akwa Ibom Enterprise and Employment Scheme, to train 3,600 young people.
In 2018, we won the Google Innovation Challenge Africa and partnered with Google to train an additional 10,000 young people across the Niger Delta region. Our digital skills training is targeted towards disadvantaged youths who reside in rural areas and have no access to technology and employment opportunities. We have gone on to partner with Facebook to scale up our training project and are focused on placing those we have trained for job opportunities.
What role does your company play in the tech ecosystem?
We provide the tech industry with highly skilled and talented persons who are developed through our training programmes and are prepared for important jobs. Unemployment is rising daily in Nigeria and the tech industry is the way out. Unfortunately, access to digital skills training and opportunities are beyond the reach of the average Africans, and in partnership with global tech giants and other partners, we are working to remedy this challenge.
Aside from securing partnerships with Google, Facebook, Global Air Media and governments, we have expanded our footprints to cover five states in Nigeria and have grown our community to over 25,000 people across our online platforms. We now have a staff strength of 15 persons working full time, with 60 per cent of them being females, and 23 interns all working with us on various projects.
You recently opened a new office in Lagos. What informed that decision?
We opened the Lagos branch to stay connected with the technology headquarters of Nigeria. It is accepted that Lagos is where most of the thriving tech companies are domiciled and since we have a mission to supply them with highly skilled talents, it is only expedient that we have a physical touch point to facilitate that. We seek to use the office as a bridge for bringing our activities in the south-south to mainstream markets and expand our impact.
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