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Oladapo Ojo, is a serial entrepreneur who is ‘addicted’ to innovative undertakings. He runs one of the biggest audio-visual studios in West Africa with massive investment in the production value chain with the edu-tainment and value chain landscape. Recently, his company, JustMedia, completed the first season of the University Duel and SMART Challenge competitions. He spoke on the challenges of organising such first of its kind contest.
Kindly give us the background to University DUEL Competition.
Thank you, let me take a few steps back to 2004 when JustMedia our marketing, 7communications company, began providing content and marketing communications support to some discerning organizations such as Guinness, GSK Lucozade Boost, Nestle and so on. By 2008, we discovered that Nigerians/Africans were net consumers of technology with little or very low-tech contribution. From our interactions with young people on our various projects at the time, we found that over 80% of them especially the females were not interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education. They believed in an unfounded myth that the sciences especially mathematics were too difficult to understand; scientists are boring beings and in most cases STEM is not so relevant to activities outside the classroom. We then figured that to correct this situation, we would need more Africans especially the youths to be actively involved in STEM.
That was how we found our niche in education which was to make STEM more engaging, fun and to dispel the myth among students (especially in secondary schools) that STEM fields are difficult and unattractive.
Tell us how University DUEL Differs from other Traditional Quiz Competitions?
University DUEL competition differs from traditional quiz competitions in its approach to making STEM education fun and interactive using technology all the way through its execution From Online Registrations- schools, students, the CBT, the format of the TV show which is fully automated using algorithm to shuffle over 7,000 questions cutting across many topics. While traditional quizzes focus on rote memorization, University DUEL competition is an annual contest amongst top institutions where outstanding students collaborate and compete in the areas of critical thinking, problem solving, analytics, sustainable environment, general knowledge and innovations.
The aim is to aid the thought processes of students through out-of-the-box solutions to complex business and societal problems using technology in order to impact lives and change the community. The aforementioned are the things that we can say clearly sets University DUEL apart from traditional quiz formats.
STEM seems to be the driving force behind your projects and I see you have produced a couple of STEM based shows even before University DUEL can you tell us about them?
Indeed, we have created and produced a number of STEM based competitions before University Duel. The basic idea for us was to make STEM education more engaging and attractive to African students. We focused on Africa because we recognized Africa has a teeming youth population, so we sought to make STEM education more appealing so as to empower young people to understand the need to, practice, and participate in STEM fields so they can also start producing technology that will impact lives and engender positive change in our continent.
We created and launched Cowbellpedia a national mathematics quiz show for secondary (Junior and Senior) schools in Nigeria in 2015. Cowbellpedia became highly successful by showcasing students’ mathematical prowess. For five consecutive seasons we produced/ managed the project which had over 250,000 students representing over 50,000 high schools participating in the competition.
In 2017 we launched SPAK a science (Physics; Chemistry; Biology and Math) competition for secondary school students (SS2/Year 11). Interswitch saw the potential in the project and became the headline sponsor in 2018. They renamed it InterswitchSPAK. SPAK is the acronym for Speed, Perseverance, Accuracy, and Knowledge.
With an annual grand prize of over 35M million Naira worth of scholarship, InterswitchSPAK competition has engaged hundreds of thousands of secondary school students across Nigeria. The competition features: a national qualifying exam, a knockout stage for the top 81 students and a 13-week TV studio quiz competition to determine the best STEM student in Nigeria
The success of InterswitchSPAK in Nigeria led to the launch of InterswichSPAK Kenya in 2019 thus replicating the vision and resounding success of making Africans embrace STEM the more.
In 2023, we decided to bring attention to Food production in Africa through STEM so we launched Brightest, an agricultural science competition for senior secondary school students in Nigeria with the support of OCP Africa, foremost Fertilizer firm with footprints in over 14 African countries and BlackCountry Farms.
That is quite some work you have done to Support STEM education at the secondary school level. Now that you have University Duel, do you still have plans for the secondary schools?
Thank you and yes we always have plans for secondary schools but, let me put this in context. The University DUEL project is a part of the DUEL brand, a robust STEM initiative with a wide range of touchpoints: University Duel, this is where the best of undergrads from across Nigerian Universities converge to compete on STEM knowledge in determining the BEST University Champion. SMART Challenge, (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant & Time-bound) here the focus is to get our Undergraduates to focus on identifying and applying their STEM knowledge in solving real life problems – business, community within our society. High School Duel, since 1859 when the first high school was founded in Nigeria, they have over the years produced thousands of leaders both in the public and private sector. HSD is the platform to encourage Nigerians to give back both physical and mental infrastructures to their alma mata. STEMCup is designed to address some of the gaps within our Govt tertiary institutions. STEMCup challenge is where the best institution wins a STEM endowment/ CHAIR in the winning school.
Very true indeed. You talked about theStemAfrica. Is this a competition too? What is the correlation with University DUEL?
The straight answer here is NO. TheSTEMAfrica is not a competition but a special purpose vehicle, SPV, created to warehouse all our STEM based initiatives and leapfrog Africa into the league of advanced countries using technology. Just as I said earlier, Africa has a huge youth population. If well harnessed through STEM education, we will be building up the next generation with the right mindset and skills required to transform Africa. We are convinced that these CSR led projects will go a long way in redefining the future of Africa and Africans.
Really well thought out. I understand season one of University Duel has just finished airing. Can you tell us what it was like? Any positives?
So many positives. First of all, it took us three years to put together the 2025 season and I am excited that it came out quite successful. It will interest you to know that we had over 60 professionals (with strong STEM backgrounds) across many industries come on the project as Mentors. The project produced two sets of winners. For the Unversity Duel, Covenant University came tops with a scholarship of N4.5m. Second is Veritas University, Abuja, which got N1.5m and the great OAU which came third with N750k scholarships. The Bells University claimed the top spot and a N2m seed funding to further develop ready-for-the-market their project on “Combating Food Insecurity in Nigeria”.
This intervention is massive, how did you fund it?
We had to put our money where our mouth is. We bootstrapped this end- to-end because we believed very strongly in this project as a needed catalyst to ignite deliberate actions around the future of Africa
Why did you have to do that? Why did you not approach government and the corporate bodies who are STEM inclined?
Marketing is a process. We are already engaging different publics towards season two. For us, the 2025 edition was a pilot and a proof of the efficacy of the concept.
Seeing, they say is believing so we figured that we would be taken more seriously if we took our idea from paper to the finished work.
How have the Universities received University DUEL?
Resounding positive feedback; we have over 15 top Universities already making enquiries around participation in season two during the transmission of season One and this is in addition to the 50 schools that participated. We are convinced that they all see the potential of this tool in driving the narratives around STEM across our institutions of learning.
Season Two will definitely go a few notches higher than what you saw in the last tournament.
Have you clearly identified the sectors that would be interested and able to walk this STEM journey with you?
Any and every organisation that is interested in the exponential growth in Africa is our target. Banks, Fintech, Oil and gas, e-commerce, Agric tech, AI based organisations. STEM is the Future and the Future is now
It has been a very enlightening time talking to you Mr Oladapo Ojo or should I rename you Mr. STEMAFRICA because your passion for STEM in Africa is infectious. However, before we conclude this interview, I must ask you to please say something to your various publics on the way forward.
Focus on the destination and make sure you enjoy the ride, no matter the challenges. Africa will be great if we ALL contribute our quota. Thank you for having me.
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