AI Salon : The Ground Beneath Our Feet: No Soil, No Seed
We've been talking about what AI can become in Nigeria. How it can honour our ancestors, educate our children, and unlock generational prosperity. But beneath every vision lies a harder question: is the ground ready?
Before the seed, there must be soil. Before the harvest, there must be rain, sunlight, and roots strong enough to hold. In Nigeria's AI journey, the soil is our infrastructure: power, connectivity, data, compute, regulation. And right now, much of that ground remains unturned.
We talk about building world-class AI, but generators still hum louder than servers. We dream of sovereign data ecosystems, but policies lag behind platforms. We imagine locally built models, but access to compute remains a privilege, not a given. The ambition is real. The talent is undeniable. But ambition planted in unprepared ground produces frustration, not fruit.
This AI Salon asks us to look down before we look ahead. To examine the ground beneath our feet, honestly, critically, and collectively, so that what we build can actually take root.
Together, we'll explore:
Power and connectivity Can AI thrive in a nation still negotiating its relationship with electricity and bandwidth? What does reliable infrastructure look like, and who is responsible for building it?
Data as soil Who owns Nigeria's data? How do we cultivate rich, representative, locally relevant datasets instead of depending on borrowed ground?
Compute and capacity What does access to processing power look like beyond Lagos? How do we democratise the tools needed to build, not just consume, AI?
Regulation and governance Are Nigeria's policies nurturing innovation or stifling it? What frameworks do we need to protect without paralysing?
From ground to growth What can we learn from sectors and communities already navigating these constraints? Where is the soil already fertile?
As with every AI Salon, this gathering will be intimate, interactive, and deeply conversational. We invite technologists, policymakers, infrastructure builders, entrepreneurs, researchers, and anyone who believes that Africa's AI future must be built on solid ground, not borrowed foundations.
No soil, no seed. Let's tend the ground together.
Space is limited. Your registration responses help us curate a room as grounded and honest as the conversation we intend to have.
Hosted by
Francis Sani,
Victor (O), Babatunde,
Oluwarotimi Odediran,
AI Salon,
Oasis School of Philosophy