Wale Lawal

founder The Republic

Wale Lawal is the founder of The Republic, is a digital media startup delivering personalized, real-time information, media and editorial coverage of African countries. He is also the editor-in-chief of The Republic’s award-winning magazine covering news, debates and ideas on politics, culture, science and more from a Nigerian lens. In 2022, The Republic became the first Nigerian magazine to win the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenge.

Wale is also a co-founder of GatePass, a digital payments and community management platform for real estate providers. He is an ex-KPMG management consultant and a graduate from the University of Oxford, where his research focused on the politics of tech startups in Nigeria, and he graduated top of his class. In 2019, Wale was selected by Quartz as one of Africa’s top 30 innovators. In 2021, he was selected by Reuters as a global thought leader and by Forbes as one of Africa’s 30 Under 30. Wale has published short fiction and has exhibited artwork at several venues including the Venice Biennale. Wale has also written the Future Yoruba exhibit for the forthcoming John Randle Center for Yoruba Culture and History.

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Events in past editions

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