Thomas Edison once stated that, “to invent something, you need a good imagination and a pile of junks.” In the words of Dean Kamen, “every once in a while, a new technology, an old problem, a big idea turns into an innovation. This is exactly what has gotten Silas Adekunle global recognition in today’s world. Born in Lagos Nigeria, with little known about his background, Silas has risen through innovation to become the first robotic engineer in the world to create an augmented reality gaming robot. Starting his primary and secondary education in Nigeria, he relocated to Britain where he graduated with a first class in Robotics from Athe University of the West of England. After gaining a lot of experiences on Robotics in the space of four years, in 2013, as a young entrepreneur, Silas Co-founded Reach Robotics Company which creates robots for gaming and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education.
In 2017, he released MekaMon which is the world’s first gaming robot and sold about 500 robots thereby generating $7.5million. Due to this remarkable achievement, Adekunle received tremendous support and encouragement from various big organizations like a $10million donation from London venture partners. Rumoured to be the highest paid robotic engineer in the world, Silas Company partnered with Apple by signing an exclusive distribution deal to sell his product in both the United States and Britain. In June 2019, Silas emerged among the most revolutionary entrepreneurs for the 2019 one young world award. Although, due to inherent challenges in the consumer robotics sector, Reach Robotics shut down on 2nd September 2019, the feat achieved by this company owned by young Silas is globally recognised and applauded.
Silas Adekunle who is still into Robotics but a non-consumer sector, has placed Nigeria on a global technology map as well as opened a door to many Nigerians who might be interested in augmented reality and robotics. His achievement now stands as a motivation for many young entrepreneurs in the world as he has been recognized by Forbes. The story of Silas Adekunle proves to all that Nigeria is blessed with a lot of youths with great minds and ideas and if their potentials are tapped and unlocked, the world will be amazed and stunned by the innovations springing forth from Nigerians. Silas Adekunle is undoubtedly our PERSONALITY OF THE MONTH for September.
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