Mr Soji Megbowon is Principal Education Officer at the Lagos State Ministry of Education in Nigeria. 

Soji is both a school teacher, and a multiple award winner and passionate advocate for inclusive education, STEM education, innovation, education for sustainable development and social entrepreneurship.

Because of gaps in many schools and communities in Nigeria, Soji co-founded ‘Teenpreneurs HUB’ (now Community Innovation Hub), a STEM education, leadership and entrepreneurship centre that trains and empowers out of school teenagers and other young people from rural communities with digital literacy skills, STEM, robotics and other life skills to become technology developers and problem solvers.

Soji is a lead researcher under the British Council-Innovation for African Universities project (IAU), a tripartite project for African universities and entrepreneurs to collaborate with some of the top UK universities through a community of practice to support innovation and entrepreneurship in a bid to solve unemployment crises in Africa.

Under the project, Soji is championing the U-COHUB (University co-creation hub) with other lead researchers from Africa and Europe. The U-COHUB project is designed to empower the university ecosystem with relevant skills, mentorship and technical support to become providers of solutions to social and real-life problems.

Soji’s accolades include: Global Teacher Prize finalist, Lagos State Best Secondary School Teacher, Bowseat MIT innovative educator award, SDG advocate gold award winner, Maltina Teacher of the Year, Inspirational Teacher of the Year. Soji is also a Microsoft Innovative Educator expert fellow.

As part of his role, Soji is responsible for the alignment of STEM curricula and resources, as well as STEM clubs across public schools in Nigeria. He also plans and delivers masterclasses directly with students and teachers. His work reaches students in five other African countries where he collaborates on Virtual STEM projects and research.  

Soji works closely with government departments, local and international organisations, 34 universities, directors of education, school leaders, teachers, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).  

The main challenges Soji is hoping to explore in the fellowship are access to infrastructure and digital skills.