In the fast-growing world of African technology, few voices capture the balance between innovation and inclusion quite like Victoria Abidoye. A marketing professional, content creator, and YouTuber with deep experience in AI-driven solutions and storytelling, Victoria’s work spans fintech, communications, and edtech.
In this conversation with Techpression, she reflects on her journey from Surulere to the global tech stage, sharing insights on AI, community building, and why Africa’s tech future must be rooted in context, culture, and inclusivity. Victoria spends her time creating content on Instagram and YouTube.
Let’s start with you—how would you introduce yourself beyond the LinkedIn bio? Who is Victoria Abidoye, and what drives the work you do today?
I would describe myself as a curious thinker, a bridge-builder between data and people, and someone deeply invested in the future of innovation in emerging markets. Raised in a family of 6 children in Surulere, Lagos, my journey has always been shaped by lived experiences.
I grew up in a developing economy where entrepreneurship was a survival strategy. Watching my mother and brothers run small businesses in the face of structural barriers grew my interest in how people can get creative with little to no resources—just a sharp mind.
Today, I combine that personal lens with academic research and professional practice to explore how we can build ecosystems that enable growth, not just for the few, but for the many. I’m driven by a commitment to shaping innovation that is not only intelligent but also inclusive and culturally grounded.
You’ve worked with impactful companies like Periculum, REISTY, SEID. How did those experiences shape your perspective on software, data, and scaling solutions in Africa?
Those experiences helped me understand both the promise and the complexity of scaling technology in Africa. At Periculum, an AI-driven fintech, I worked closely on translating complex data into actionable insights for credit risk assessment and financial inclusion.
We also developed more customer-facing products that helped customers fight fraud in real time. It gave me a front-row seat to how software and data can unlock value in underserved markets, but only if they’re grounded in local realities.
Working at Periculum was foundational in shaping how I view data, not just as numbers, but as a narrative. Periculum is an AI company committed to democratising access to advanced analytics, particularly for micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in underserved African markets.
I was deeply involved in translating the firm’s complex credit scoring and financial intelligence models into stories and solutions that small business owners could understand and trust.
Working with Reisty, a restaurant reservation startup, gave me firsthand insight into what it takes to build user-centered software in an emerging market.
We weren’t just building a platform; we were solving a logistics and visibility problem for small and medium-sized restaurants, many of which lacked digital infrastructure.
This experience shaped my appreciation for lean, iterative product development and the importance of aligning business models with on-the-ground realities.
At SEID, a communications and marketing agency, I had the unique opportunity to sit at the intersection of storytelling and systems thinking.
Work was focused on helping mission-driven brands, particularly those in the entertainment, fintech, energy sectors, craft data-informed campaigns that resonated deeply with communities.
All my experience sharpened my belief that data should inspire. Teaching me to approach scaling through communications that should be relatable and user-centric, especially when you’re engaging multiple stakeholders with different priorities.
Having led AI-as-a-Service products, what key insights have you gained about how AI actually works in practice?
AI Must Solve Real Problems, Not Imaginary Ones. Having seen firsthand how some organizations integrated Periculum’s AI-powered decision engine, resulting in loan processing speeds increasing by 60% and default rates dropping.
Context is everything in AI implementation. Working in African markets taught me that AI solutions must be deeply context-aware.
AI-as-a-Service requires an Exceptional User Experience, which is why cutting-edge analytics techniques were utilized, including machine learning and predictive modeling, to give businesses deeper insights into consumer behavior and organizational performance.
Data quality determines AI success. AI is only as good as the data feeding it. In emerging markets, this means developing robust data validation systems and teaching clients about data hygiene. The AI models themselves were sophisticated, but their impact was limited without clean, relevant, and continuously updated data inputs.
Growth is a word we hear a lot in tech, but for you, what does true growth look like? Professionally, personally, and as part of Africa’s evolving tech ecosystem?
True growth is multidimensional.
Professionally, it’s about building tools, systems, and ideas that can scale sustainably, without losing their integrity. Personally, it’s about staying rooted in values while continuously learning, unlearning, and adapting.
Within Africa’s tech ecosystem, I believe growth must be inclusive and regenerative. It’s not enough to have unicorns and funding rounds; we need infrastructure, policy support, and community-driven innovation. Through my academic work on AI and global business models, I’ve seen how growth can become extractive if not intentionally designed.
My vision of growth includes pathways for first-time founders, local talent pipelines, and tech that reflects Africa’s diversity, not just its market potential.
If you had a chance to build or fix one thing in Africa’s tech space today, what would it be, and how are you already contributing to that change?
I would focus on strengthening research and knowledge translation within Africa’s tech ecosystem. Too often, we import frameworks, metrics, and business models that weren’t designed for our contexts, leading to inefficiencies, misaligned policies, and missed opportunities.
Our ecosystems are rich with nuance: informal economies, hybrid infrastructure, cultural complexity. If we don’t build from within using grounded research and lived realities, we risk repeating cycles of dependency.
Beyond strategy work, I’m also co-building Digital Brainiacs, a mobile-first edtech platform tackling Africa’s digital divide. While 43% of the continent is online, tens of millions remain digitally excluded. We’re addressing this with culturally relevant, multilingual, job-ready courses, from digital literacy to coding, AI, and digital entrepreneurship.
We’re working with schools, governments, and corporates to integrate scalable learning into everyday systems. It’s about making digital inclusion a default, not a privilege.
How do you approach building and nurturing communities around the products or initiatives you lead?
My approach has always been simple: people don’t connect with platforms, they connect with experiences. That mindset has shaped how I build and grow every community I lead. I don’t see users as data points or audience segments.
I see them as people with long days, busy minds, and a craving to feel seen. That means designing interactions that are less transactional and more transformational.
At Reisty, the restaurant reservation product I helped scale, I didn’t just focus on the app’s functionality; I focused on how we made people feel. We introduced Club FFO (Friends, Food & Opportunities), a vibrant offline series that invited people to dine, laugh, and bond in curated spaces across Lagos. These gatherings helped our users form friendships, collaborations, and memories around shared meals.
In the Red Envelope Campaign, a hyper-personalized retention initiative that flipped the usual discount playbook. Instead of pushing blanket promotions, we delivered designed currencies with free money, experience invites, and hidden perks inside red envelopes to our most engaged users. That simple human gesture turned our early adopters into loyal advocates because they felt personally seen and valued.
Right now, I’m building The Rest Haven, a quiet, nourishing space for 9–5ers under 30 navigating ambition, burnout, and belonging. We’re over two years old, and what we do best is bask in the safety of safe spaces.
It’s more than just a community; it’s a digital and physical sanctuary grounded in rest, vulnerability, and shared growth. Because at the end of the day, we’re all just looking for places where we don’t have to try so hard to matter.
This is insightful and inspiring