Sim Shagaya
Sim Shagaya is a media and technology entrepreneur. He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of uLesson, an educational technology platform that creates high-quality, interactive, affordable, and accessible education for learners across Africa. Originally designed for K-12 pupils in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia, uLesson now offers courses to match the IGCSE curriculum for that same audience.
Sim Shagaya is also recognized as the founder and former CEO of Konga, one of West Africa’s largest eCommerce websites. Sim founded Konga Online Shopping Limited in July 2012 to be the leading one-stop-shop online retail company and marketplace in Nigeria. According to him, the primary aim of the company is to “aggregate the youngest and fastest-growing market that was dispersed, under-served and that traditional retailers were simply failing to reach.” Sim also founded E-Motion Advertising Limited, a leading marketing agency acquired in 2019 by Seyi Tinubu of Loadstad Media, and DealDey, Nigeria’s first group-buying site.
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Before DealDey and Konga, Sim worked as a banker in South Africa under Rand Merchant Bank. He later moved to Nigeria where he became Google’s head for Africa.
Sim graduated from George Washington University, Washington DC and holds a Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Electrical Engineering. He proceeded to obtain a Master of Science degree in Engineering Management from Dartmouth College, and later received an MBA from Harvard University, Boston Massachusetts in 2003.
The entrepreneur‘s latest work is building the uLesson educational platform which he founded in 2020. The edtech platform has so far raised $10.6 million in seed and Series A funding.
In recognition of his work in e-commerce and the media space, Sim has been named on Forbes’ list of “10 Most Powerful Men in Africa.” He is the recipient of the 2013 Entrepreneur of the Year award by CNBC/All Africa Business Leaders Award in West Africa and the 2014 Leadership CEO of the Year by The Leadership Conference/Awards.
Amongst other accolades, Sim was invited to and accepted to serve as a member of the Economic Advisory Council of the Executive Governor (Samuel Lalong) of Plateau State, his home town, in August 2019.