Photo credit: Palmy Olson/Forbes
Silas Adekunle is a 27-year-old Nigerian-born tech entrepreneur who is the co-founder of Reach Robotics, which is a consumer robotics company that makes robots for the entertainment and gaming industry.
At the age of 11, he moved from Nigeria to the United Kingdom with his family, where he later finished school with first class honors in Robotics at the University of West England, Bristol. While in school he created Reach Robotics, which includes a first-of-its kind gaming robot with AR capabilities called MekaMon.
In 2013, Adekunle started to pitch the MekaMon prototype to several different investors in order to help grow his company. After connecting with an investor from the tech giant Apple, he secured a deal that now allows his product to sit on Apple Store shelves in the U.K., U.S. and ship to parts of Europe.
While many people have referred to him as “the highest-paid robotics engineer in the world,” Adekunle tells Business Insider that those reports are “very flattering, but not true just yet.”
Photo credit: Palmy Olson/Forbes
“Having listed on Apple last year was a big step forward for Reach,” he says, “and we’ll continue to work to get our technology in the hands of as many people as possible.”
He explains how gaming products such MekaMon are a great way for introducing STEM education to the next generation and says his goal is to eventually tap into the Nigerian market so that young kids there are also inspired to pick up a career in tech.
“I’m also very aware of the value of role models in encouraging young people to pursue a career in STEM,” he says. “I hope that I might be a positive example of what is possible for kids in Nigeria with the same passion for dissecting technology and developing devices that I did at their age.”