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Decade One
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Ten years built.
The next ten begin.
2016 · Lagos → 2026 · everywhere
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IT'S TODAY. HAPPY DECADE ONE. 🎉
Chapter 01 · Look back
A decade, honestly told.
From one room in Lagos to more than 14,000 people trained. No shortcuts, no fiction: just ten years of showing up.
10
years of building
~15k
people trained, and counting
3
arms of one mission
2016
October 2016: Switch Innovation is born
Joseph Agunbiade, Sheriff Shittu and Yinka Olanrewaju start Switch Innovation in a space given to them by CcHUB. Joseph puts in $10,000 of his own money; Sheriff and Yinka invest alongside him. The first cohort learns there.
2017
First outside belief
March 2017: Oluseun Onigbinde backs the mission with $50,000. By October, Joseph carries it forward alone under a new name built on one idea, acceleration: A = V / T. Our own money moves us to our first space on Ayilara Street, Somolu.
2018
5,000 corps members. One July.
We partner with NYSC to reach over 5,000 young Nigerians, convene the first AI Africa Conference in July, and graduate our 4th cohort by October. The drumbeat begins.
2020
Career Days, through everything
Career Day events open doors between learners and employers, and the cohorts keep running, through everything 2020 threw at the world.
2021
Demo day energy
Cohort #4B6 presents. Products demoed live, November 2021. On the streets of Lagos, our learners run real user research: interviews, notebooks, real answers.
2022
U-HACK, NDIC, USTEAM
U-HACK: Build to Grow backs builders with real money: Team Astro (\u20a6250,000), Team OG (\u20a6150,000), Team Tech Rebels (\u20a6100,000). The same year: corporate training with partners including NDIC, and USTEAM puts kids through their first hackathon.
2024
Talent 4 Startups
Score Your Future: Talent 4 Startups, funded by Digital Africa from France, trains cohorts and places them into startups.
2024
MentorLed is born
The MentorLed Work Experience Accelerator launches: real work, real growth. Agile teams ship MVPs for startups under mentorship, backed by the UK Tech Hub (FCDO) from October 2024 to December 2025, reaching thousands of young Nigerians since.
2026
Three arms, one mission
From our home at 42 Montgomery Road, Yaba: Univelcity keeps training. Univelcity Foundation builds public-good infrastructure, with TTS Nigeria delivered in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation, as part of a consortium of four working to train and place 30,000 young Nigerians into jobs in 18 months. Univelcity Labs opens the applied AI community.
The expansion
One journey. Three arms.
The journey started with Univelcity. Today it grows: a foundation that builds public goods, and a lab where the community builds with AI.
Est. 2016 · The schoolWhere it all started: world-class, AI-focused training that has carried more than 14,000 people from learning to work.
univelcity.com →
New · The public goodOpen infrastructure for capability and access: teacher programmes, open-source tools for schools, and routes to work.
Meet the Foundation →
New · The communityThe applied AI lab: where alumni and builders experiment, ship, and learn together, every week.
Chapter 02 · The day
Precious moments.
Ten years of faces, first lines of code, and demo-day nerves. Swipe through a few of ours, then add yours.
Chapter 03 · Look forward
A decade to infinity.
The world is changing. Your skills should change too. The next ten years, we build the infrastructure so no talent waits for permission.
A = V / T → ∞
Esther