That Sim Shagaya has a rich and diverse entrepreneurial journey that has helped shape e-commerce in Africa is like stating the obvious. His path to success includes a series of ventures that have significantly contributed to the region’s digital growth. Shagaya’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish DealDey in March 2011 and subsequently, in July 2012, founded Konga, an online marketplace aiming to bridge the gap between traditional retailers and the burgeoning online consumer market. He later sold the e-Commerce giant to tech billionaire, Leo Stan Ekeh in a mouth-watering multi-billion naira deal. With the eye-popping avalanche of cash he made trading off Konga, Shagaya shifted focus to online education. And in his usual manner, Shagaya is blazing the trail once again. In 2020, Shagaya embarked on his most life-changing venture, perhaps his life’s biggest assignment: uLesson —an innovative digital educational platform aimed at empowering African learners and redefining learning experiences. Indeed, in the last few years of its existence, uLesson has impacted millions of youth on the continent with over 10.6 million lessons watched, 3.6 million questions attempted, 810,000+ live lessons attended, and 3.5 million app downloads.
As the Founder and CEO of uLesson, Shagaya is undoubtedly keen at leaving a lasting legacy on the nation’s education clime tapping on the potential of digital education. With the significant increase in the number of candidates registering for the Joint Admissions and Matriculations Board (JAMB), and a considerable number of these candidates not securing admission into conventional universities. Shagaya is bridging the gap by joining the league of university owners in Nigeria. Recently, the dynamic entrepreneur launched Miva Open University, a division of his uLesson Group. Shagaya will lead as the Chancellor of the new Open Distance eLearning University providing undergraduate programmes in a variety of fields such as Computer Science, Cyber Security, Data Science, Software Engineering, Public Policy and Administration, Economics, Accounting, and Business Management.
In addition to the existing course offerings, Miva Open University has plans to expand its curriculum to include nursing and law programmes. With this latest project, Shagaya, 47 —once named in Forbes’ list of ‘10 Most Powerful Men in Africa’— is on top of his class.