Africa’s Innovators Drive Change
On June 4, 2025, Lagos, Nigeria, became the epicenter of African innovation as it hosted the Gates Foundation’s inaugural Goalkeepers event on the continent. Livestreamed by Africa.com, this landmark gathering, anchored by media personality Ebuka Obi-Uchendu, convened global leaders, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and artists to spotlight African-led solutions driving progress toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With a focus on healthcare investment, localized artificial intelligence (AI), and sustainable partnerships, the event underscored Africa’s capacity to shape its own destiny. Key figures, including Bill Gates, Aliko Dangote, Governor Inuwa Yahaya, and innovators like Ifeoluwa Dare Johnson and Wawira Njiru, shared transformative stories and actionable insights, reinforcing a powerful message: Africa is not waiting for change—it is creating it.
A Critical Moment for African-Led Solutions
Ebuka Obi-Uchendu opened the event by addressing the challenges facing Africa, particularly the withdrawal of global health funding. “Massive amounts of global health funding have been canceled,” he said, putting programs like HIV treatment and childhood vaccines at risk. Yet, he emphasized Africa’s resilience: “Africa has the ideas. Africa has the talent. And most importantly, Africa has the momentum.” Obi-Uchendu highlighted the need for self-reliance, sharing how global platforms scaled back investments in Nigerian projects, prompting local innovators to step up. “We can’t continue to solely rely on outsiders to tell our stories or solve our problems,” he asserted, pointing to young Nigerians building delivery businesses, coding apps, and creating content as evidence of grassroots ingenuity.
This call for self-sufficiency resonated throughout the event, with speakers showcasing solutions designed by Africans for African challenges. The event’s theme, centered on accelerating SDG progress, highlighted the urgency of addressing interconnected issues like health, education, and economic inclusion through localized innovation.
Ebuka Obi-Uchendu: Africa’s Unstoppable Spirithttps://youtu.be/nmRIF9KPx6o
Transformative Innovators Leading the Charge
Ifeoluwa Dare Johnson: Revolutionizing Healthcare Access
Ifeoluwa Dare Johnson, founder of Health Tracker, shared a poignant story that fueled her mission to improve healthcare access. After losing her father to undiagnosed hypertension and diabetes in 2019, she asked, “How many other people are losing their loved ones because they don’t know what’s going on in their bodies?” This question birthed Health Tracker, a digital platform delivering at-home lab testing. Since its inception, the platform has conducted over 50,000 tests, created jobs, and impacted 200,000 lives. Johnson’s innovations include HPV self-sampling kits and “Lemon,” Nigeria’s first locally assembled STI self-testing kit, designed to overcome stigma. “Sometimes, the person you’re waiting for is you,” she told the audience, inspiring action from personal conviction.
Johnson also highlighted Health Tracker’s use of AI through Lola AI, a women’s health assistant providing information on topics from menstruation to menopause. Her organization’s national conference and the State of Women’s Health Report, Nigeria’s first comprehensive data-driven assessment of women’s health, further underscored the power of data-driven advocacy. “We cannot talk about economic progress without addressing women’s health,” she said, calling for scalable, homegrown solutions.
Ifeoluwa Dare-Johnson: Powering Africa’s Health Revolutionhttps://youtu.be/xkGSJrU27J0
Wawira Njiru: Feeding Futures, Building Ecosystems
Wawira Njiru, founder of Food for Education, detailed her journey from feeding 25 children in a small Kenyan kitchen 13 years ago to serving over 530,000 school meals daily across Kenya. “Hungry kids can’t learn,” she stated, emphasizing the link between nutrition and education. Njiru’s organization addresses interconnected challenges by integrating nutrition, education, and agriculture. She highlighted partnerships with Kenyan governors, such as Nairobi’s Dishina County program, which scaled 15 times in a year with $9 million in annual taxpayer funding. “Meet African governments and communities where they are,” she advised, advocating for solutions that governments and communities can own and sustain.
Njiru’s approach exemplifies ecosystem-building, sourcing 100 tons of food daily from local farmers and creating over 4,500 jobs, mostly for women. “When you build for Africa, you don’t just build a solution. You need to build the ecosystem around it,” she said, emphasizing logistics, payments, and trust as critical components. Her work demonstrates how local solutions can drive systemic change, with 70% of African governments allocating budgets for school feeding but needing operational support to execute effectively.
Wawira Njiru’s Food for Education Transforms Kenya https://youtu.be/YA5O6qwbScA
Eniola Mafe Abbaga: Infrastructure as Dignity
Eniola Mafe Abbaga, Global Advocacy and Partnerships Director at Bridges to Prosperity, spoke passionately about infrastructure’s role in unlocking opportunity. Her organization has built over 650 bridges and roads across rural Africa, connecting millions to schools, markets, and clinics. “Access is dignity, and infrastructure is justice,” she declared. Mafe Abbaga’s personal story, rooted in her Yoruba heritage and global experiences, reinforced her belief in Africa’s abundant potential. She called for patient, long-term investments, urging collaboration across sectors. “Africa holds wealth. Wildly abundant wealth,” she said, emphasizing the need to join hands across borders to turn promise into power.
Eniola Mafe-Abaga: A Vision for Africa’s Future https://youtu.be/skp90Uw4x9o
Panel Discussions: Scaling Impact Through Partnerships and Technology
Scaling Homegrown Solutions
Moderated by Lele Balde, the first panel featured Nkem Okocha of Mamam Moni and Dr. Olubayo Adekambi of Data Science Nigeria and Equalize.ai. Okocha shared how Mamam Moni empowers “no-income women” through a progressive web app providing microloans and agent banking. The platform has impacted over 600,000 women across Nigeria, with 3,000 female agents and 30,000 on a waitlist. “These women are churning out billions of transactions,” she said, attributing success to trust built through training, transparency, and robust customer service in local languages. Okocha’s model demonstrates how technology can bridge financial inclusion gaps, particularly in underserved communities.
Adekambi emphasized the necessity of localized AI, noting that “more than 95% of African languages are not currently digitized,” rendering global AI models ineffective for African contexts. He cited a Gates Foundation-supported project, recognized in the 2023 Grand Challenge, that delivers science education in local languages via SMS, reaching 8 million learners during COVID. “AI is about people, not technology,” he said, advocating for models that reflect African cultures and epistemologies. Adekambi’s work, impacting 250 million people across 30 African countries, underscores AI’s potential to address healthcare, education, and agriculture challenges when tailored to local realities.
Scaling Solutions in AI and Health https://youtu.be/kuP4lTB4yQE
Funding and Partnerships in Action
The final panel, moderated by Folly Bah Thibault, featured Governor Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State and Bill Gates. Yahaya outlined his administration’s healthcare reforms, which increased immunization coverage from 18% to 50% and access to primary healthcare to 40-45%. By building two primary healthcare centers per ward and introducing biometric attendance systems to curb truancy, Gombe reduced maternal and child mortality. “I had to take that bold decision,” Yahaya said, acknowledging challenges like funding constraints and infrastructure deficits. He increased health budget allocations from 3.5% to 8.5%, aligning with national averages to drive progress.
Bill Gates announced a $200 billion commitment over the next 20 years, with a significant focus on Africa, to strengthen local institutions and avoid dependency. “The basic guiding principle was that all lives have equal value,” he said, reflecting on the Foundation’s $100 billion investment in global health over the past 25 years, with 70% directed to Africa. Gates highlighted the dramatic reduction in global childhood deaths from 10 million to under 5 million, expressing confidence in halving it again despite aid cuts. He praised Gombe’s focus on primary healthcare, noting that such investments quickly reduce mortality and improve nutrition. Gates also pointed to AI’s transformative potential, citing both global advancements and African entrepreneurs shaping localized solutions.
Aliko Dangote, called from the audience, emphasized self-sufficiency in healthcare and manufacturing. He highlighted his partnership with Gates to eradicate polio and reverse Nigeria’s reliance on imported cement, fertilizer, and petrol. “What we need to do is to make sure we stop this health tourism and start producing our own drugs,” he said, advocating for local drug manufacturing to ensure Nigerians can access quality care domestically. Dangote’s refinery, the world’s largest single-train facility at 650,000 barrels per day, exported 400,000 metric tons of petrol in May 2025, ending Nigeria’s petrol import dependency.
Folly Bah Thibault Hosts Inuwa Yahaya and Bill Gates on Africa’s Health Future https://youtu.be/vskbs06QsAE
Aliko Dangote: Building Africa’s Future Through Partnerships https://youtu.be/S_2ty1Ddc2A
Cultural Celebration and a Unified Vision
The event was enriched by cultural performances, including Jude M.I. Abaga’s “Epic,” which celebrated Africa’s rise with lyrics like, “The world is waiting on you people. You’re epic.” The closing act by the Urban Choir, Waje, and Kathy culminated in a rousing chant of “Africa go survive!” These moments reinforced the continent’s cultural pride and unity, aligning with the event’s focus on African agency.
A Roadmap for Africa’s Future
Goalkeepers Lagos 2025 was a clarion call for action, showcasing Africa’s ability to address its challenges through innovation and collaboration. From Health Tracker’s diagnostic kits to Food for Education’s systemic approach, the event highlighted solutions rooted in lived experiences. Bill Gates emphasized Africa’s youthful demographic as a unique asset, noting that Lagos will become the world’s largest city and that over half of global children will be born in Africa this century. “How much that youth can drive progress will depend on the investment decisions we make in the next 20 years,” he said.
Aliko Dangote’s call to end health tourism and produce drugs locally aligns with broader efforts to build self-sufficient systems, supported by partnerships with the Gates Foundation. Governor Yahaya’s reforms in Gombe demonstrate the impact of bold, localized governance. Innovators like Okocha and Adekambi highlighted technology’s role in scaling solutions, while Njiru and Mafe Abbaga showed how ecosystems and infrastructure amplify impact.
As Ebuka Obi-Uchendu concluded, “The future we want will be built by us.” The event’s hashtag, #Goalkeepers2030, reflected the urgency of achieving the SDGs by 2030. With Africa’s talent, resilience, and growing ecosystem of innovators, the continent is poised to lead its own transformation, provided governments, philanthropists, and the private sector invest in its youth and homegrown solutions.
Ebuka Obi-Uchendu’s Inspiring Call to Action for Africa’s Future https://youtu.be/twVpAHR5YQE
