Omowonuola Akintola wants Africa to build its geospatial future
Omowonuola Akintola is championing the use of geospatial data to empower African communities, aiming to bridge development gaps and improve resource allocation by making overlooked areas more visible.
An unmapped village. A community overlooked for development. A disaster response slowed by missing data. Those are the kinds of problems Omowonuola Akintola has spent her career trying to solve. Through geospatial data , she has helped governments and humanitarian organisations better understand the places they serve—from identifying underserved communities for rural electrification projects to supporting disaster response. . “If we can help more communities become more visible, maybe there will be a lot more people interested in developing those communities,” she says. It is a belief that has shaped every step of her career.