Top Nigerians speak at Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) Conference in UK

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The TEDxEuston event took place on 5th December 2009 and featured several notable Nigerian speakers including former EFCC boss - Nuhu Ribadu, former Minister of FCT - Dr Nasir El Rufai, Author & Poet - Chika Unigwe, and award winning broadcaster - Funmi Iyanda.

TED which is a nonprofit organisation devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from the three worlds of Technology, Entertainment and Design.

It is from this premise that the TEDx events were founded. They are independently organised, local events but with provision of general guidance from the TED Conference. TEDxEuston is one of such events.

The event hosted some of Nigeria’s finest and other fascinating thinkers to give a short talk about their lives and areas of expertise. The half-day event consisted of a mix of live talks and performances as well as pre-recorded talks from recent TED conferences. Held in London, it was well attended by Nigerians some of whom travelled from far and wide.

Chika Unigwe is an author of fiction novels, poetry, articles and educational materials. She shared with us her life experience of being a Nigerian married to a Belgian and living abroad and also spoke about her inspiration for her most recent novel. The book entitled ‘On Black Sister’s Street’ is about what leads African women into prostitution in Europe. She tells us that she carried out some of her research for this book by visiting the one of the red-light districts in Belgium in a mini-skirt and thigh-high boots, where she spent time talking to some of the ‘girls’ and finding out how they ended up as ‘ladies of the night’.

Funmi Iyanda is a multi award winning broadcaster, journalist, columnist and blogger She is perhaps best known for producing and hosting Nigeria’s most popular and authoritative talk show ‘NEW DAWN with Funmi’, which aired on the national network for over eight years. She gave a delightfully down to earth speech about her roots in Lagos. She spoke about the ongoing work she is doing for her new show which involves travelling to different parts of Nigeria to meet ordinary Nigerians and finds out what makes them ‘tick’ as well as helping to provide aid to improve their lives.

Bola Olabisi is a Women’s advocate and entrepreneur. On the day, she spoke about her work as the CEO of Global Women Inventors and Innovators (GWIIN) and how this concept has been least embraced by Nigerians while enjoying a more robust global participation from other countries worldwide.

Dr Nasir El Rufai - Former Director General of The Bureau of Public Enterprises and former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory from 2003 to 2007. Dr El Rufai talked about his time in office as a public servant. He also spoke about his passion of inspiring young Nigerians to better themselves.

Nuhu Ribadu - Former Head of Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from 2003 to 2007. He shared his experiences as the Head of EFCC and his fight against corruption.

Other speakers were Audrey Brown (South African Journalist, curator and cultural commentator), Onyekachi Wambu (Journalist, editor and television producer), Bryan Pearson (British Journalist and publisher), Lawrence Mbugwa (Entrepreneur and organiser), Segun Aganga (Corporate leader/MD at Goldman Sachs) and Remi Adeseun (Pharmacist, entrepreneur and charity director).

All in all, it was an impressive line up of motivational speeches which was central to the theme of ingenious solutions to tackle some of our toughest health and infrastructure problems.