John Tanimola Obaro is a

Nigerian Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was taken from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jour ...

technology entrepreneur, public speaker, and founder of SystemSpecs Nigeria Limited.

Early life and education

John Obaro is from

Kogi State Kogi State is a state in the North Central region of Nigeria, bordered to the west by the states of Ekiti and Kwara, to the north by the Federal Capital Territory, to the northeast by Nasarawa State, to the northwest by Niger State, to t ...

. He is of the Okun tribe in

Nigeria Nigeria ( ), , ig, Naìjíríyà, yo, Nàìjíríà, pcm, Naijá , ff, Naajeeriya, kcg, Naijeriya officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf o ...

, and was born April 19, 1958. He had his formative years in

Kano Kano may refer to: Places *Kano State, a state in Northern Nigeria * Kano (city), a city in Nigeria, and the capital of Kano State **Kingdom of Kano, a Hausa kingdom between the 10th and 14th centuries **Sultanate of Kano, a Hausa kingdom between ...

and Ilorin, Kwara State, where he had elementary education. Raphael Awoseyin "unconsciously influenced" Obaro's decision to study Computer Science. Obaro had his primary education at Baptist School in Ilorin, and his secondary, at Government Secondary School, Ilorin from 1970 to 1974. It was here that Awoseyin, then a temporary teacher in the school, taught Obaro's class mathematics. It stimulated Obaro's interest in the subject, to the point that he (Obaro) decided to study mathematics and computer science in the university. Obaro proceeded to Kwara State College of Technology, now renamed

Kwara State Polytechnic Kwara State Polytechnic is a Nigerian tertiary institution that was established in 1973 by the then Military Governor of Kwara State Col. David Bamigboye after the decision of establishing a polytechnic in Kwara State was announced in 1971. It is ...

for a diploma. He attended the

Ahmadu Bello University Ahmadu Bello University Zaria is a federal government research university in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria. ABU was founded on 4 October 1962, as the pioneer university in Northern Nigeria. It was founded and named after the Sardauna of Sokoto, A ...

where he graduated with a second class upper degree in Mathematics and

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

in 1979. He proceeded to have an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

from the

University of Lagos The University of Lagos, popularly known as UNILAG, is a public research university located in Lagos, Nigeria and was founded in 1962. UNILAG is one of the first generation universities in Nigeria and is ranked among the top universities in th ...

in 1981. He is an alumnus of Lagos Business School (LBS), Chief Executive Programme at the Pan-African University, Nigeria, Lagos.

Career

Obaro had his first stint in formal employment as a

part-time Part-time can refer to: * Part-time job, a job that has fewer hours a week than a full-time job * Part-time student, a student, usually in higher education, who takes fewer course credits than a full-time student * Part Time Part Time (styliz ...

teacher while he was pursuing his

. He started his professional career as a computer salesman at Leventis Group from where he moved to

United Bank for Africa United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) is a Multinational pan-African financial services group headquartered in Lagos and known as Africa’s Global Bank. It has subsidiaries in 20 African countries and offices in London, Paris and New York. In Dece ...

to take up a role in Systems Development of the financial institution. In 1984, he joined now defunct International Merchant Bank of Nigeria, one of the Nigeria's earliest investment banks, where he rose to become the Head of Information Systems. In that position, he led a team that implemented Nigeria's first international banking application on a network linking Lagos and four other states. With this feat, John led a team that pioneered Nigeria's online real‐time banking. He moved on to found SystemSpecs Nigeria Limited, a company he nurtured from a 5-man partner agent of Systems Union, (now

Infor Infor is a multinational company headquartered in New York City that provides industry specific, enterprise software licensed for use on premises or as a service. , Infor's software had 58 million users, and 90,000 corporate customers in ...

) in 1991 to a financial technology company. Prominent among the solutions SystemSpecs has developed are Remita, HumanManager among others.

Advocacy, courses and services

He is committed to promoting and advancing of local software development. He has given presentations and speeches advocating youth empowerment and IT entrepreneurship. Obaro has served on the boards of the Ministerial Advisory Council on Information and Communication Technology, Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria, Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN), Nigerian Information Technology Policy Drafting Committee, Governing Council of the National ICT Incubation Programme and others.

Honours and recognition

Obaro was recognised as the "Software Personality of the Year" at the Nigeria Communication Week's Beacon of Information and Communications Technology (BoICT) Awards in Lagos on April 23, 2016. He had earlier led his company to

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

, where SystemSpecs was bestowed with "Leadership in Technology" award hosted by the Africa Forum Scotland for the use of Remita "as a tool of national and economic development." He was conferred a "fellow of the Centre for African Policy, Development and Research, Scotland," and had a research centre after him. In 2015, he emerged winner of 'Engineer Simeon Agu Prize for Best Software Entrepreneur' at the National Information Technology Merit Award (NITMA), an annual event organised by Nigeria Computer Society (NCS). He was awarded Nigeria's IT Personality of the Year at the same NITMA in 2013. He emerged as the 2018 FATE Model Entrepreneur of the Year based on his work as an entrepreneur and a solution provider with SystemSpecs was agreed by many to be deserving of the award. His company received the 'Next Bull’ award at the 5th Nigerian Stocks Exchange/ BusinessDay Top CEO awards in Lagos on May 10, 2019.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obaro, John Living people 1958 births 21st-century Nigerian businesspeople Yoruba businesspeople Ahmadu Bello University alumni University of Lagos alumni Nigerian company founders Nigerian engineers