To the Nigerian hardware engineering community: The days of waiting weeks for foreign PCB prototypes are officially over.
We’re manufacturing multi-layer boards from scratch at Omeife Robotics. Local execution = faster innovation.
What are you building next? Come talk to us!
The goal is to become wealthy enough that our children can pursue traditional, essential service careers without feeling pressured to chase quick money grabs .
I'm thinking out loud (please join me).
AI isn't just coming for people's jobs; it's already here, and it's improving at a pace that most people aren't prepared for. Nowhere is this more visible than in the tech space: development, design, content creation, and beyond. As AI takes over more of these roles, fewer people will have access to the income streams that entire generations have been racing to tap into. For many people currently training to become developers or designers, there's a real possibility they may never earn meaningfully from those skills.
Even if the popular advice is to “just build products,” that solution has a ceiling. There's only so much the market can absorb before oversaturation sets in, and when it does, purchasing power shrinks and money stops circulating the way it used to. Here's a simple way to think about it: Mr X builds an AI-powered logo and graphics generator so good that it renders independent designers obsolete. Mrs Y, a small business owner who previously hired those designers, now uses Mr X's tool. Designers A through Q lose their income. They spend less. Mrs Y's own business eventually feels the slowdown. And in time, so does Mr X. It's an oversimplification, I know, but the ripple effect is real.
The workforce math is already shifting. Where companies once needed 20 developers and 10 designers, a lean team of 5 and 2, armed with the right AI tools, can do the same work. Headcount shrinks, but so does the perception of effort, because the AI handles the heavy lifting.
So where does that leave people? Human-centred roles (HR, Marketing, Community Management, Partnerships) may hold up longer, since they rely on relationships and judgment that AI can't easily replicate. But even these won't be immune to the downstream effects of reduced purchasing power across the economy.
And then there are the teenagers. What happens when they graduate into a market that has closed its doors? What do we tell them? More importantly, how do we prepare them, not just with skills, but with a realistic picture of the world they're stepping into? Because if we don't, some of them will look around, see no clear path forward, and conclude that the fastest route to money is the illegal one.
The harder question is this: Is it already too late for people to pivot? And if not, what should they be moving toward?