By Alexander Ekemenah
Little did I realise the scope and depth of what I was going into when I registered to attend and participate in the 1st Lagos Spring School in Digital Entrepreneurship and Digital Cultures (LSSDEDC-2025) organised by Centre for Digital Humanities, University of Lagos (CEDHULL), Akoka, Yaba, Lagos.
The Spring School which started from Monday 17th to 21st March, 2025, turned out at the end of the classes to be an eye-opening and ear-full exercise which leaves unforgettable memory on the participants.
The 5-day classes were like a compressed whole session of post-graduate studies. It was indeed a master class for each day of the classes. The classes start from 9.00 am to 6.00 pm daily.
It was a whole module from which participants can choose whatever suits him or her for further exploration for the latent opportunities in the various areas of the digital world.
The theme of the 5-day intensive classes was “Digital Technology and Digital Entrepreneurship as Catalyst for Innovation, Socio-Cultural Transformation and Economic Empowerment.”
The theme was further broken down into 16 sub-themes with several facilitators drawn mainly from the private sector because of their respective cognate experiences in the digital domain for the past number of years.
The entire programme was tailored to meet the requirements of gown and town, to birth and grow a new cadre of digital entrepreneurs and even avant-garde digital warriors.
The particular theme and subthemes are not new because one has attended seminars and workshops in the past few years that have similar themes. These seminars and workshops were just for a day each after which most of the content disappears from one’s consciousness after few months if not weeks.
But when one attends an intensive 5-day classes one cannot escape the likelihood of been under heavy download of knowledge that cut across the broad spectrum of the theme. And that was precisely what participants encountered during the Spring School from March 17- 22, 2025 at the Faculty of Arts Boardroom, University of Lagos.
The opening ceremony took place at Tayo Aderinokun Auditorium.
It is important to state that no subtheme is less important than the other. It is, however, left for the individual participant to prioritise one subtheme over the other. But each subtheme is a capsule on its own which contains further ingredients that can be explored to no end, literally speaking. In other words, each topic is a vast field of research, a component part of the whole thematic edifice chosen for the 1st Spring School.
The digital domain or dominion is vast to such an extent to give rise to the term “digital ocean” in which one is at liberty to swim or navigate in whatever direction chosen. And participants really swam at the very bottom of the ocean as shown during Q&A sessions at the end of each lecture where participants went in different directions to ask questions in quest for answers. It was a breath-taking exercise while the Spring School lasts.
Literally speaking, conceptual notions of “Indian Ocean”, “Pacific Ocean” or “Atlantic Ocean” may no longer be sufficient to describe the vastness of the digital domain.
Thus it can be safe to deploy the conceptual notion of a “cosmic” or “galactic” ocean to capture the force-field of the digital world where it should be a level-playing ground for all without discrimination, without let or hindrance – where all can feel equal to one another and not one above the other; and where there would be no digital colonisation and slavery.
There were actually sixteen facilitators apart from the specially invited guests with the same number of subthemes that cut across the whole gamut of digital technology, digital economy, digital entrepreneurship and digital cultures.
It is therefore difficult to keep pace with the delivery volume within the confined time span. Thus one can only absorb as much as one can. No more.
It is indeed a deep ocean and one has to hold his/her breath after diving to the bottom and then
Sometimes in the class, one falls asleep or dozes off under the heavy influence of air-conditioned hall. Sometimes one’s brain simply shut down and cannot absorb anything more.
The beauty of it all is that all the delivered papers are sent as PDF attachments to the participants via email that can later be downloaded later for reading, studying and possible application at one’s pace.
Participants are not confined to students alone. There are a couple of lecturers. And there are many from the public and private sectors. There are online participants. I do not have the detailed number of online participants. The Spring School is limited by the total number of participants. But as we all know, news spread very fast especially across the platforms of social media.
The world is moving very fast in the direction of digitisation, digitalisation or digital format linked across ICTs to serve as a catalyst for further economic and social development and growth. Internet of Things (IoT) is not removed from the equation.
It was generally agreed by participants that Nigeria should not be left behind in the digital race. Neither should Africa. (See Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want – produced by African Union)
The 5-day classes enabled cross-networking between the organisers, facilitators and participants. I made new friends.
The keynote speaker was Mr. Tim Akano, the managing director and chief executive officer of New Horizons, a well-known ICT training institute in Lagos. Mr. Akano is a well-known veteran in the ICT industry not only in Nigeria but also Africa.
The topic of his keynote speech is “Digital Technology and Digital Entrepreneurship as Catalyst for Raising and Equipping 21st Century Young Business Leaders and Growing Nigeria’s Digital Economy”.
The Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos, Professor Folasade Ogunsola, was ably represented by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor Afolabi Lesi.
The organising team consist of Professor Tunde Ope-Davies, the Director of Centre for Digital Humanities, University of Lagos. He was ably assisted by Dr Kofo Adedeji, who is the Deputy Director (Programmes) – Research Cluster in New Media and Digital Lingusitics; Mr. Yohanna Joseph Waliya, Research Associate, Electronic Literature and Digital Humanities, Mrs Tolulope Iredele, another PhD student at the Centre, Mr. Joshua Ngbakor, Technical Manager, and host of other young ladies like Tolulope, Tabitha, Busayo, Folajimi, among others. They jointly made the Spring School a huge success as well as enjoyable.
Centre for Digital Humanities, University of Lagos, the first full-fledged stand-alone Digital Humanities Centre in Africa, was established in 2019 through the support of the Alexander Humboldt Foundation, Germany.
The Centre aims to address the yawning gap in the field of digital humanities research and learning in Africa and the growing need to raise and equip a new generation of tech-skilled graduates and scholars in the humanities that can compete successfully and flourish in tech-driven global job market and knowledge industry.
The Centre also aims to retool and empower scholars and researchers in the humanities with needed tech-skills in order to enhance their knowledge production and knowledge dissemination in research, innovation and national development.
As Africa’s first full-fledged and stand-alone Digital Humanities Centre, bridging technology and the Arts, it is at the forefront of driving innovation in Digital Humanities across Africa.
The founder and Director of the Centre is Professor Tunde Ope-Davies, who received his training in digital humanities and support from Alexander Humboldt Foundation in Germany. Upon his return to Nigeria, he set up the centre in order to spread the knowledge with students and scholars as well as under-sourced and under-privileged young people.
Alex Ekemenah is the Chief Analyst of NextMoney. He can be reached at 08168975679 and alexekemenah@gmail.com