Ibukunoluwa Omotola - Equitable Education

Today on Ekasi Podcast, we are excited to welcome Ibukunoluwa Omotola, a passionate Data Scientist and Mastercard Foundation Scholar currently pursuing an MSc in Data, Inequality and Society at the University of Edinburgh. Ibukun is committed to using technology and data to design frameworks that promote equitable access to education for marginalised people, particularly in Africa. 

With over six years of experience in software engineering, data analysis, and machine learning, she has contributed to projects across sectors, including education, aviation, health, and humanitarian work. Her impactful work includes initiatives on displacement trends, child malnutrition, disability inclusion, and psychosocial resilience in education. Drawing from her lived experience as a person with a physical disability, Ibukun is developing a tech-based solution to make high-quality education accessible to children whose needs are not met by traditional classrooms. 

Her story is one of advocacy, innovation, and empowermentcentred around the belief that every child deserves a quality education regardless of their background or ability. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to the Academy Podcast. My name is Julia Machigaize and I'll be hosting a discussion. And today we're honored to welcome IBK, who is a passionate data scientist and master-code scholar, who's currently pursuing an MSC in data, inequality, and society at the University of Edinburgh. IBK is committed to using technology and data to design frameworks that promote equity in educational access for marginalized people, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. She has over six years of experience in software engineering, data analysis, and machine learning. She has also contributed to projects across different sectors, including education, aviation, health, and humanitarian work. Her impactful work includes initiatives on displacement trends, child malnutrition, disability and inclusion, as well as resilience and education. Drawing from her lived experiences as a person with a physical disability, IBK is developing a tech-based solution to make high quality education accessible to children whose needs are not always met by traditional classrooms. First role is one of advocacy, innovation, and empowerment. And she has a centered belief that every child deserves a quality education, regardless of their background or ability. So welcome to the show, IBK. Would you just like to give a short intro?

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Yeah, thank you for having me. This is really nice. Yeah, that was really amazing. It was nice hearing all those things being read about me. Yeah, I'm Ibukolua Omotola from Nigeria, and I'm a MasterCard Foundation scholar. And I'm passionate about um advocating for equity in educational access for children with disabilities. And um I love tech. People call me the Texas. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Oh, no, no, no. That's really great to hear. And it's really great to hear that your vision really aligns with what the Scholar Foundation's wants in terms of like providing quality education to people across the world. I guess as we just start this conversation in general, I'd really like to know what inspired your journey into data science and education advocacy.

SPEAKER_00 2:11

Okay, yeah, thank you. Uh, it all started with my curiosity about the persistence of problems of inaccessible education in my country, that's Nigeria, faced particularly by um marginalized people. I've always wondered why we have like these problems persist over the years despite like different efforts by individuals, organizations, even at national levels, to um solve these problems. And then when I came across the world wicked problem, like, oh yeah, this is really an example of a wicked problem. And um I actually started asking questions. I started um doing research, and in one of my researches, I came across data science, and it was amazing to know that um the process I had been undergoing to know more or try to tackle this problem are actually the processes of data science. That's like problem definition, um, data collection, data preparation, um modeling, deployment, and all of those things. And that was where the um inspiration started from like, oh yeah, this sounds like something interesting that I can actually use to um solve the problem of inaccessibility for children with disabilities. And why education, like you asked, it was mostly because of my experience firsthand um with education as a transformative tool. I have actually experienced how education transformed my life from like zero to 100, and I've seen how it has changed people's life across the globe. And I also want a lot of other people, other children to experience this transformation. And that was where my journey to um education advocacy began. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

That's that's really inspiring to hear. It's that personal experience that just shaped your current work and your vision. I'd love to hear more about your current educational access tech project. Um, and what were some of the motivations around setting it up and how it is designed exactly?

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yeah, thank you so much for asking that. The tech um projects that I'm currently doing is um focused on empowering families and schools um to provide high-quality education to children with disabilities. So I am using um tech, especially particularly AI, to optimize um the provision of education to children with disabilities, um, and is mostly focused on um children with disabilities that are not able to access traditional classrooms. And um, while I was um interviewing and talking to parents of um children with disabilities, there were two major um problems that I identified. And the first one was um the complexity of finding the right schools for children with disabilities in developing countries like Nigeria. Um it's a big challenge to find an inclusive school that would accommodate um the special needs of children with disabilities. So it's a real challenge, or there's a struggle for parents to find the right schools for their children. And the other problem that um I identified as well was the problem of um logistics. Like it can be difficult for parents who do nine to five jobs to transport their children with disabilities to school and back. A lot of them have had to like give up on their careers, they had to resign from work just to care for their children, and there's also the fear of discrimination. I've heard stories of um some of these children being maltreated in schools, um, being mocked by their peers in schools, and so the parents will just resolve to um keeping them at home. So um my solution is actually targeted at um parents like this and helping them define an education pathway for these children. So it's not just focused on their academics alone, but it's like more of a long-term support, holistic support that covers their education, logistics, like transportation to and from school, customized learning, customized learning resources. So the customized learning resources is the part that I'm still working on. So I'm currently um working on using um AI to translate conventional learning materials for children with learning disabilities into models or formats that they can um understand and use. Yeah. That's let me say that's the summary of what everything is about.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

No, no, no. Um sounds really important. And I'm also kind of picking up a lot of things that kind of align with like I'm Zimbabwe. And they are well, there is a real deficit in terms of schools who can deal with people with particular learning disorders or even just more general disabilities. And in some cultural places, there's also shunning of people who do have disabilities or inabilities to that. So it's also that whole cultural aspect around it. So your idea is quite inspiring. Tries to deal with both of those aspects, but making it easier for the parents as well to kind of just have access to resources that can help them understand. Because sometimes, as people, we might not also understand some of the issues that our own children are going with. So that's really powerful.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

You've taken a look at some a tool like AI, and you've said this can really be a solution for social inequality. I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into that and understand, especially for listeners who might not know a lot about technology, how can data, technology, AI, how can these solutions help in addressing a lot of the social inequalities we're facing today, especially from a uniquely African context?

SPEAKER_00 8:40

Yeah, thank you for asking that. That's really important. And um, the first thing I would say is um data actually throws a spotlight on the reality of um some of these um social inequalities experienced by uh people, especially in the African context, because um a lot it's it's it can be easier said or it's easy to say that okay, one of maybe seven people have access to education, but when we actually look deeper into data, it exposes a lot more than just saying one of. It says a lot about um the context, it says a lot about why are they um excluded from education, why um do we have a lot of these inequalities being reinforced and yeah, things like that. And um also another thing that um data does when it comes to addressing social inequalities is it has also helped us to realize that even missing data, the the issue of missing data has helped to like expose the bias and the inequality faced in our society. And now the discussion has um moved beyond just um what data is captured, but to but it has also extended to um what data is missing, like who are the people not represented, and that is where like inequality comes in, like social inequality. When we talk about um agroademic bias, it talks about how um some of these data are not um, or some of the people or the social um problems faced by people are not fully captured by data. And talking about African context, that is like a big problem, like the data gap, research gap, and all of those things. Like it's it's it's very huge. But when we now come to look at how we can now investigate data and see how we can use it to tell the story of the reality of our people, of what people are experiencing in the society, it can create a whole lot of impact. In fact, that was where the the change in my mindset began for me. Like, how can I use data to investigate societal problems and ensure that um while designing algorithms, that I do not reproduce some of these inequalities. Yeah. So the interpretation of data also um comes a long way in how we address social inequalities because data can be interpreted by so many people in different ways. So interpreting data correctly is also another way that can help addressing social inequalities.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

No, no, thank you. That's really powerful. And it kind of just reminds me of something I was reading the other day around how AI systems were picking up biases that uh a lot of the people who created them had, and how those were kind of flowing into a lot of the solutions they were giving. So almost like unbiased a machine. That I found that pretty interesting. It's not an issue I would have thought that would have existed with the system, but we as creators can kind of just mold that into the systems we make. So I think that's a really important point. So thank you for that. A lot of this also requires a lot of skill and I guess big picture thinking, but also problem solving. So um, this next question is more around you and how your own professional and educational experiences have shaped your approach to this. What have been some of the key lessons learned?

SPEAKER_00 12:39

And yeah, thank you so much. Again, like um, my professional experience has like exposed me to a lot of lessons. I've I've grown, like, when it comes to addressing problems, how to um look at problems not from just from the surface, but like having like a critical analysis of a problem and diving deep. That has really like um changed my perspective about um solving problems. And let me start the concept of interdisciplinary approach. That is something that has really helped me when it comes to like um approaching or tackling problems throughout my um professional experience. I have learned to use interdisciplinary approach to solve problems, especially wicked problems. Again, I would say we can because these are problems that are complex, they persisted over years, and um they are even multi-layered. So, um how can we collaborate or um or use um different disciplines to solve a lot of these problems? For example, if we talk about um education, education has a whole lot of layers to it, and that's another thing I've learned during my professional um experience: the intersectionality of like gender, poverty, disability, culture, religion, how all of these things are interwoven. So for me as a software engineer or as uh data scientist, if I want to like um talk about addressing the problem of inaccessible education, it's not something that I can address alone. How can I collaborate with people from the education field, people from even the health sector, people in governance, um people in the economic space, people are talking about the wealth of the nation, all of those things. How can these experts, these talents come together to um solve a particular problem? So this are some of the concepts that I now use to um solve problem. Another concept I use now is design thinking. I get to like um see it and um define a problem. I now use like structured thinking to um better understand the problem domain before like jumping into conclusions or working from assumptions and all of those things. And um, I think the last concept I'll talk about will be the inclusive participation. I have learned now to include people right from um the primary stage or the beginning process of solving problems. Because how do we talk about um solving a problem that involves certain people and not involving those problems in the designing of the solution? Like it's ineffective, it's just like saying I want to um get you something and I'm not asking you what you want. So that's where we get the case of um what I need versus what you think I need. And that's why a lot of the solutions we have in our society right now are not creating impact. But if we want to create impact with the solutions we are building, I've learned to um encourage participation and co-designing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

My background in education is always around like that development. The issue that always comes up is that last one you spoke about, and it's how people try and develop targeted solutions for people or prescribe people medicine that they have not properly diagnosed because they haven't asked the people what is the solution? What do you need? What are some of the key things you're facing? It's all really a collaborative approach and how we come up with these solutions. But I think something that you also mentioned, the word you mentioned a lot, is just inclusive. And you're a woman in the tech industry. Um, how has that been? Have there been any challenges you faced going into this? And how are you trying to like make sure that those don't prevail when you're doing your own work around building inclusive education solutions?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yeah, thank you for that. So um I think one um major challenge that I've encountered in my work has been the perception of people towards um disability, like especially in the African context, that is a big challenge that I am still um looking at how to collaborate with other um people working in this field to solve because it's a thing of the mindset, how people think, and mindset is not an easy thing to change. So it requires a whole lot of um continuous effort, which um I am still like working on. So, how do we get people to see the strength, the abilities in in people with disabilities? Um, looking at disability not from like a deviant or as a deviant um characteristic, and um helping them to like reframe, like reframing problems, reframing disability in a new light. So that has been like um one major challenge that I have encountered. Another challenge I've encountered has been in the area of policy implementation. There are a whole lot of policies we have. In fact, there are times that when I go reading and I'm like, oh, so this law actually exists, but in the true sense of it, or um in practice, like they are not enforced. They are not enforced. There are a whole lot of work that I'm still like trying to do to um policy reforms and enforcement, and even like some there are some policies that are in place, but they need like a monitoring and evaluation just to ensure that um the right authorities follow up with the implementation of some of these policies. I think another big challenge has been the challenge of data gap. The data gap is a problem. I am currently doing a research on the role of um the public attitude in the placement of children in um special and uh special or mainstream schools. And one major challenge has been the data challenge, like getting um relevant data in this aspect. So, one thing I'm doing is how to put in place frameworks that um can encourage data collection and um the management of this data. However, I've also realized that um collecting this data also um has placed this responsibility on me to ensure that I use this data for the good of the people and also being accountable for how um the data is being used. And yeah, I think I've talked earlier about algorithmic bias. Um trying to ensure that in all of the work I do, I am not reinforcing um the same inequality, the problems that I'm trying to solve. Because the thing is that algorithms actually reproduce our own, like the human um bias, because we are the ones who write the code, the algorithms. So, in a way, our biases um reflect in the algorithms that we create. So at this point, I'm trying to be conscious of this and ensuring that I do not reinforce some of these biases because the truth is that talking about working um in accessible education for children with disabilities, the issue of different types of disabilities, we have people with multiple disabilities. So, how do I ensure that I'm able to advocate or speak for the different categories or types of disabilities without excluding anyone or making it look like one type of disability is um lesser or more important than another? Yeah, so that these are some of the challenges, but um one thing that I am able to use as a guide are the um ethical principles. So I'm uh I'm trying to ensure that I am guided in my work by the different um principles: fairness, justice, privacy, confidentiality, all of these things.

SPEAKER_01 21:29

Oh, those sound like some big problems, but sounds like you've got a system in place, just deal with them, which is always great to hear. Uh, you've had quite positive and quite negative experiences both in the world of tech. But uh I just love to hear any advice that you would love to give to anyone young who's listening, anyone who's got disabilities, anyone who's uh I guess in a vulnerable position, but who's interested in tech and interested in advocacy as well. How can they best get involved in this space?

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Uh uh Okay, yeah. I think the first thing I would say is know your purpose, like what's your why. That is what is going to drive you. Know what drives you. Disabilities do not define horse. Like they are not things that should limit horse, even though the systems put in place might say otherwise, but knowing your purpose is going to like guide you. I don't know if you've had to ask yourself why. I for me, I hacked myself a lot of whys growing up because I'm a Christian. I believe in God. I axed God a lot of whys. I axed my parents whys. I axed societies, friends, people around me, why. And it was from asking this question I discovered that things do not just happen. I do not believe in mere coincidences. So the fact that you are in this position or in this condition is for a reason. So knowing your purpose, like why you have um a disability might be for the greater good of um some group of persons or even for your country at large. Now, coming to tech, tech is going to help you to um elevate your vision, like your or your purpose, like your why. That's what tech does. Tech helps us to scale, to enhance. So um when you know your why, your purpose, then you can look at the type of tech. That's another thing. We have different technologies in place. You can now choose to um look at the technology that can help you to scale or um best your vision or your dreams. But the most important thing is do not stop dreaming, keep dreaming. Your dreams are meant to come to mine. I'm I'm I'm still I've had some of my dreams come to life, and I want you to also have that joy, that experience of um having your dreams come to life. So turn your pain, whatever it is, the challenges you are facing at the moment, you can turn them to inspire you. And when they are able to inspire you, the amazing thing is that other people draw inspiration from this. Yeah, so have an open mindset. Um don't allow yourself to be set bar. Keep pushing, you're strong enough, you have everything it takes, everything inside of you to bring your dreams to life.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Nice, that's a really powerful answer. And I think uh and hopefully it does kind of touch the hearts of a lot of our listeners. I guess you spoke on like dreams, and I'd be remiss not to mention this. This is a MasterCard Foundation scholar, but has that been good for your growth and good in terms of helping you achieve your dreams?

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Yes. Oh, talking about that, let me use this opportunity again to say thank you to the MasterCard Foundation because they have like um helped me to grow a lot. And um, one of the ways that has helped me is it has given me the MasterCard Foundation um Scholars Program has given me like exposure. Like I have come to grow from a place of um maybe I can do this too, I can actually do this. And this has come from um a place of like having um this worldview where you no longer see things from like uh a myopic like lens or view of things. So that has really um helped me to see things in a broader light, and it has also changed my mindset about how to um approach problems. It has the MasterCard Foundation um Scholars Program has also helped me to um gain access to like global opportunities. I've had to um get access to um refine my business ideas, um, to work with um people from different walks of life, different backgrounds, and the community is amazing. The community of scholars, that's a blessing on its own. It's a big gift. Like I've had to get um feedback from the staff, from fellow scholars on how to grow, how to move my business to another level. Yeah, the the Massacre Foundation community is a big blessing, let me say.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

And for anyone listening, that's a 100% authentic glowing endorsement of the program. It really does kind of open up your worldview. Time has really moved by. Um, we've gone through most of my questions. Uh, just wanted to end this with I guess what's your view in terms of your long-term vision for inclusive education within Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa?

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Yeah, my vision um for inclusive education is to make education accessible to all. The all is in it in calf's luck and in is bold, because that is my vision actually, to see that everyone anywhere, irrespective of their background, their ability, can access education at any time. Yeah, that's my dream. That um we get to a place where um nothing holds people back from accessing quality education, that we get to a place where um even when people, because there are times that um people are there are some people who are not born with disabilities, but they end up like um having disabilities due to some um incidences, and um that these people do not necessarily have to withdraw from schools, that we have inclusive schools that can cater to the education or on the special needs of children with disabilities. My dream is that one day we get to a place where everyone can access education. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Everyone can access education, really powerful. It's been great fun having you on. A really fast-paced discussion, and I'm shocked that time's gone up, but I've learned a lot, and I and I hope everyone else who's listening has as well. So thank you very much. And I guess with that, we'll be closing this discussion. But if you have any last words, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

It's been nice talking about um this topic. Um, really nice. Um I'm glad that I'm on this platform. Yeah, so on a final note, I um I would say again that just keep believing, keep pushing. You are stronger than you think you know. Yeah, don't stop. Um, don't stop ideating. Africa is blessed with us. We have um lots of stubborn, wicked problems, but we also have um persistent problem solvers like you and high. So Africa is blessed, I must say, with with you and high. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 29:23

Thank you. That's a great way to close it. Africa is blessed. So, everyone tuning in till next time.