Keynote Address at the 3rd Ondo Digital Media Summit
delivered by
Hon Kenneth Odusola-Stevenson
Friday, 25th September 2026, International Culture and Event Centre (The Dome), Akure, Ondo State
Protocols and Opening Remarks
Good morning, everyone. It is a privilege to stand before you this morning, delivering this keynote address today. Let me begin by acknowledging the leadership present with us: our distinguished government officials, technology experts, entrepreneurs, academics, media professionals, innovators, and, most importantly, the young people in this hall who are the real reason we are here today. Thank you all for making time to be part of the 3rd Ondo Digital Media Summit.
We gather this morning under a theme that is both a statement of ambition and a call to responsibility: “Accelerating Digital Transformation: Leveraging Artificial Intelligence, Innovation and Emerging Technologies for Youth Empowerment and Sustainable Development.” Over the next forty-five minutes, I want us to look honestly at where Nigeria and Ondo State stand in this digital moment, why our young people must be at the centre of it, and what each of us in this room, government, media, business, academia and youth alike, must do to turn ambition into results.
Why This Conversation Matters Now
We are living through what many now call the fourth industrial revolution, a period where artificial intelligence, automation, data and connected devices are changing how we work, learn, communicate and govern, almost as fast as we can talk about it. Ten years ago, artificial intelligence was something we saw in films. Today, it is in our phones, our banks, our classrooms, our newsrooms, and increasingly, our farms.
This is not a distant, foreign story. It is a Nigerian story, and it is an Ondo State story. Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy has published a National Artificial Intelligence Strategy with a bold target: to equip at least seventy per cent of Nigeria’s young workforce, that is Nigerians between sixteen and thirty-five, including fifty per cent women and a meaningful representation of persons living with disabilities, with AI-related skills. The goal is to cut unemployment by five percentage points through this single intervention. Industry analysts project that Nigeria’s AI market alone could be worth over four hundred million dollars by the end of this year, while our broader digital economy is projected to generate more than eighteen billion dollars in revenue in 2026, driven by AI adoption, a maturing fintech sector, cloud computing and expanding broadband access. Across the continent, AI is projected to add close to three trillion dollars to Africa’s GDP by 2030.
Those are big numbers, and it is easy for big numbers to feel distant from daily life in Akure, Owo, Ikare or Okitipupa. So let me bring it closer. What this means, practically, is that the tools now exist for a young graphic designer in Akure to sell her work to a client in Lagos or London before breakfast. It means a smallholder farmer in Ondo’s cocoa belt can, with the right training, use a simple mobile application to predict rainfall, detect crop disease from a photograph, and access a wider market for produce. It means a journalist at OSRC can use digital tools to verify a claim, translate a broadcast into three languages, and reach an audience far beyond Ondo State, all before the next bulletin. Digital transformation is not a future event we are waiting for. It is already happening around us. The only question is whether we, and especially our young people, are positioned to benefit from it, or whether we will simply watch it happen to us.
The Youth Dividend: Our Greatest Asset
Here is a fact that should shape every policy decision we make in this state: more than half of Nigeria’s population is under the age of thirty. Ondo State is no exception. We are, demographically, one of the youngest societies on earth at a moment when the global economy is rewarding exactly the kind of skills young people can learn fastest, digital literacy, adaptability, creativity and comfort with new tools.
This is what economists call a demographic dividend, but a dividend only pays out if we invest in it. A large youth population without skills, opportunity or digital access is not an asset; it is a pressure point. A large youth population equipped with AI literacy, digital skills and access to opportunity is one of the most powerful engines of growth any government or society can have. The choice in front of us in Ondo State is not complicated to state, even if it is hard to execute: do we prepare our young people to compete for the millions of digital jobs being created globally, or do we allow them to watch from the sidelines while opportunity passes through their phones and their neighbourhoods without stopping?
I say this respectfully to the young people in this hall: you are not the audience of this digital transformation. You are meant to be its authors. The Federal Government’s 3MTT programme, the Three Million Technical Talent initiative, has already enrolled well over one hundred thousand Nigerians in digital skills training, with thousands more already placed. Programmes like this exist because government, industry and training partners now recognise what I am telling you this morning: skills, not certificates alone, are the new currency of opportunity.
Artificial Intelligence: From Buzzword to Everyday Tool
Let me demystify artificial intelligence for a moment, because I know that for many in this hall, especially outside the tech community, “AI” can sound intimidating or abstract. At its simplest, artificial intelligence is software that learns patterns from data and uses those patterns to perform tasks that used to require a human being, recognising a face in a photograph, translating a sentence, predicting a trend, drafting a paragraph, or flagging a suspicious bank transaction. It is not magic, and it is not, contrary to what some fear, about to replace human judgement, values or leadership. It is a tool, and like every powerful tool in human history, from the printing press to the mobile phone, its impact depends entirely on who holds it and what they choose to do with it.
For our entrepreneurs in this room, AI already means the ability to run a customer service desk for a fraction of the old cost, to analyse market data before making a stocking decision, to design a product mock-up in minutes instead of weeks. For our academics and researchers, it means literature reviews, data analysis and even grant writing can move faster, freeing time for the original thinking that machines cannot do. For our media professionals, and this is close to my own work, AI tools can now assist with transcription, translation, fact-checking, audience analytics and even generating first drafts, though I will say plainly that judgement, ethics and the human voice must always remain firmly in the hands of the journalist, not the algorithm.
For government, artificial intelligence and emerging technology offer something Ondo State needs urgently: better information for better decisions. Predictive tools can help plan for flooding along our coastal communities, optimise the routing of health workers during outbreaks, and detect revenue leakages that starve public services of funding. Every naira recovered through smarter, technology-enabled governance is a naira that can be redirected toward schools, hospitals and youth programmes.
Innovation and Emerging Technologies Beyond AI
Artificial intelligence gets most of the headlines, but it does not stand alone. It sits alongside a wider basket of emerging technologies that are reshaping opportunity for young Nigerians: cloud computing, which allows a small business in Akure to run enterprise-grade systems without owning a single server; mobile and digital payments, which have brought millions of previously unbanked Nigerians, many of them young traders and artisans, into the formal financial system; the creator and gig economy, which allows a young content creator, a photographer, or a software developer to earn income from clients anywhere in the world without ever leaving Ondo State; and renewable and off-grid energy technology, which matters enormously here because unreliable power remains one of the biggest obstacles to digital work in Nigeria.
I want to be honest with this audience: innovation is not only about inventing something entirely new. Often, it is about applying existing tools to a local problem in a way nobody has tried before. The young person who builds a simple app to help okada riders find the fastest route around Akure’s traffic is innovating. The cooperative that uses a WhatsApp group and a shared spreadsheet to coordinate cassava sales across three local government areas is innovating. Innovation, for our purposes today, is less about inventing the next global platform and more about solving the problems in front of us, using the tools now available to almost anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection.
The Media’s Role: Where OSRC and Digital Media Come In
This Summit is, at its heart, a media and digital economy conversation, and I want to speak directly to that. Media institutions, and OSRC in particular, occupy a unique position in this transformation. You are not simply reporters of change; you are amplifiers, translators and, at your best, trainers of the public in how to understand and use new technology safely.
As artificial intelligence tools become easier to access, the risk of misinformation, deepfakes and manipulated content grows just as fast as the opportunity does. A responsible, well-resourced, digitally literate media sector is Ondo State’s first line of defence against that risk. This is precisely why partnerships between institutions like OSRC and platforms like this Digital Media Summit matter so much, not merely for publicity or coverage, valuable as those are, but for building the media capacity our state needs to responsibly narrate its own digital transformation, to train young digital journalists and content creators, and to hold power, including the power of algorithms and platforms, accountable to the public interest.
I therefore renew, on behalf of the Convener, the invitation extended in writing to OSRC: to partner with us, not only through coverage and publicity, but through direct investment in youth-focused digital content, training and, where possible, material and financial support that puts devices and skills directly into the hands of young participants who cannot otherwise afford them. This is an investment in Ondo State’s own storytelling capacity for the next decade.
Linking Digital Transformation to Sustainable Development
It would be incomplete to speak about AI and innovation without tying them firmly to sustainable development, because technology adopted without a development purpose is just novelty. The theme of this Summit rightly places youth empowerment and sustainable development side by side with artificial intelligence and innovation, and that pairing is deliberate.
Consider health: AI-assisted diagnostic tools can help extend the reach of Ondo State’s limited number of specialist doctors into rural primary health centres, flagging conditions early enough to save lives and reduce the cost of late-stage treatment. Consider agriculture, still the backbone of much of our state’s economy: digital advisory tools, weather prediction and market information systems can raise yields and incomes for smallholder farmers, many of whom are young people who have chosen to stay in farming precisely because technology has made it more viable. Consider education: digital learning platforms can bring quality instructional content to students in communities where qualified teachers are scarce, provided, and this is an important caveat I will return to shortly, that the underlying infrastructure exists to deliver it. Consider the environment: digital monitoring tools are already being used elsewhere in Nigeria to track deforestation, plan flood response and measure carbon impact, work directly relevant to a state with Ondo’s coastline and forest reserves.
Every one of these applications sits within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, good health, quality education, decent work, climate action, and reduced inequality. Digital transformation, properly directed, is not a competing priority to sustainable development. It is one of our most powerful instruments for achieving it.
Being Honest About the Challenges
No keynote address is complete, or credible, without an honest accounting of the obstacles ahead, because ambition without honesty produces disappointment, not progress.
First, infrastructure remains our most basic constraint. Reliable electricity and affordable broadband are still out of reach for too many communities in Ondo State, and no amount of enthusiasm for artificial intelligence changes that reality. Second, the digital divide in education is real and measurable: national data suggests that only about one in five Nigerian schools currently has access to computers and the internet. If we are serious about preparing young people for a digital future, that gap in our schools must be closed, and closed with urgency, not simply spoken about at summits. Third, there is a skills gap that training programmes alone will not close overnight; it requires sustained investment, mentorship and, frankly, patience from all of us. Fourth, we must guard against digital transformation widening inequality rather than narrowing it, ensuring that young women, persons with disabilities and rural youth are deliberately included, not left to catch up later. And fifth, as I mentioned earlier, the same tools that empower can also deceive, through misinformation, fraud and manipulation, if we do not pair technological adoption with digital literacy and ethics.
I raise these not to dampen the mood of this Summit, but because naming a problem honestly is the first step toward solving it, and because every young person in this hall deserves a realistic map of the road ahead, not just an inspiring slogan.
A Call to Action
So, what do we do, practically, starting from tomorrow? I want to leave specific, direct calls with each group represented in this hall.
To government and public institutions, including OSRC and the state’s development partners: invest deliberately in digital infrastructure and in youth-focused digital skills programmes, and treat that investment as core development spending, not a discretionary extra. Partner with private sector and media institutions rather than working in isolation, because no single institution in this hall can close Ondo State’s digital gap alone.
To the technology experts and innovators here: mentor. Every one of you sitting in this hall reached where you are with someone’s help along the way. Commit to bringing at least one young person into your next project, your next internship opportunity, your next training session.
To entrepreneurs and business leaders: hire locally trained talent, and where the local talent pool still needs strengthening, invest in training it yourselves rather than simply importing skills from outside the state. Ondo State’s young people are capable; they need access, not charity.
To our academics and researchers: continue to bridge the gap between theory and practical application, ensure your curricula reflect the digital economy young people are actually entering, and keep producing the rigorous evidence that helps policymakers make better decisions.
To our media professionals, and I say this as someone who works closely with writers, researchers and communicators every day: embrace these tools to work faster and reach further, but never surrender your judgement, your verification standards, or your ethics to a machine. Technology should make good journalism stronger, not replace it.
And finally, to the young people in this hall, who are, after all, the true subject of today’s theme: be relentlessly curious. Learn one new digital skill this quarter, not next year, this quarter. Look for the problem in your own community that technology could help you solve, and start, even small. Seek mentorship without shame; every successful person in this room was once exactly where you are now. And above all, see yourselves not as beneficiaries waiting for opportunity to be handed down, but as builders capable of creating it yourselves.
Closing Remarks
Let me close where I began. The Convener of this Summit envisioned an occasion that would bring government, technology, business, academia, media and young people into one room, not to admire the promise of artificial intelligence and emerging technology from a distance, but to commit, practically and publicly, to putting that promise to work for the people of Ondo State.
Digital transformation will happen with us or without us. The only question this Summit was designed to answer is whether Ondo State’s young people will be its passengers or its drivers. I believe, standing in this hall today, that we have both the talent and the will to make them its drivers.
On behalf of Mr Olubunmi Ololajulo, Convener of the Ondo Digital Media Summit and Special Assistant on New Media to the Governor of Ondo State, thank you for the honour of delivering this address, thank you to OSRC for your continued partnership, and thank you, most of all, to the young people in this hall who give this theme its meaning. Let us get to work.
Thank you, and God bless the Federal Republic