For Abisola Areola, the defining challenge of technological transformation is not simply what technology can do, but who gets the opportunity to participate in what it makes possible.
Her perspective has been shaped across two very different environments. Growing up in Nigeria, she saw capable young people struggle to translate education into opportunity. Later, while leading transformation programmes across retail, telecoms, insurance and technology in the UK, she saw organisations invest substantially in technology without paying enough attention to the people expected to adopt it. Together, those experiences shaped a conviction that continues to guide her work: access, not ability, is often the missing link.
Today, as Founder and Executive Director of Skills Co-op and an AI and Digital Transformation Strategist, Abisola is focused on equipping people often overlooked by the labour market with the skills to participate meaningfully in a changing digital economy. In this Spotlight Interview with CA, she discusses inclusive technology, building with AI, the thinking behind Skills Co-op and her ambition to bring opportunity closer to talent across Africa.
CA: Your work has taken you from Nigeria to enterprise transformation in the UK. What most shaped the way you think about technology and access?
Abisola: Two experiences shaped it. Growing up in Nigeria, I saw capable young people do everything they were told to do and still struggle to find a door into opportunity. That taught me that ability is not the scarce resource. Access is.
Later, in the UK, I watched substantial budgets spent on excellent technology that changed almost nothing because nobody had seriously considered the people expected to absorb it.
Those experiences produced the same conclusion from opposite directions. Technology rarely fails because the technology is wrong. It fails because we design for the people already closest to it and then express surprise when it reaches nobody else.
CA: You encountered that challenge while managing a national telemedicine platform serving more than 3.2 million Nigerians. What did that experience teach you about inclusion?
Abisola: It taught me that inclusion is a decision you make before you build. It is not a feature you add once the product is finished.
We had an application reaching millions, but an app only serves people who own the right kind of phone. So we built an interactive voice service across all four major networks that allowed someone with a basic handset to reach a practitioner through an ordinary phone call.
I also led outreaches into four rural communities in Osun State, where we reached roughly 2,000 residents through health checks, screenings and practical guidance on using the service.
What I learned is that exclusion is often assumed rather than deliberate. That is why the first question I now ask of anything I build is not, “Who is this for?” It is, “Who does this not work for?”
CA: How did those experiences eventually lead you to establish Skills Co-op?
Abisola: I lived a version of the problem myself. I discovered project management in 2012 and knew almost immediately that it was what I wanted to do, but it took me six years to find a way in. I could not see the door.
When I moved to the UK, I saw the same pattern affecting young people, migrants, refugees, people leaving the justice system and women returning after caring responsibilities.
Then AI arrived, and I could see the gap widening because the people most exposed to its disruption are often the least equipped to benefit from it. I did not want to write another article about that. I wanted to build the thing that answers it. That is Skills Co-op.
CA: Why do you argue that people should learn to build with AI instead of simply learning to use AI tools?
Abisola: Because one of those skills expires and the other compounds.
If I teach you a specific AI tool, the interface can change and the workflow can disappear. But building with AI requires you to scope a problem, direct the technology, evaluate what comes back, recognise when it is wrong and iterate until something works.
Those are judgement skills. They transfer across changes in models and interfaces.
The people who can direct, verify and build with AI will lead the people who can only consume it, and there is no reason the first group should be limited to those who could already afford a computer science degree.
CA: You tested that idea by building AmbleLoop as a non-technical founder. What did that prove to you?
Abisola: I scoped, designed and shipped AmbleLoop end to end using AI, with no hand-written code. I am not a developer and have never claimed to be.
What I brought was the ability to define a problem clearly, direct the work, test what came back, recognise when it was wrong and keep going until it functioned properly.
It showed me that the hard part was knowing what to build, for whom and why anyone would want it. That is enormously important for the people I work with because somebody who deeply understands a problem in their own community can now build something that addresses it.
CA: What would meaningful expansion of Skills Co-op across Africa look like to you?
Abisola: Not franchising. Rooting.
It means cohorts across African countries led by people from those communities and adapted to what those economies actually need. It means young people learning not just to use technology, but to build with it, sell with it and earn from it independently.
Talent is already everywhere on this continent. In five years, I want the opportunity to build with AI to be everywhere too.
CA: Ultimately, what would closing the opportunity gap mean to you personally?
Abisola: It would mean that nobody loses six years the way I did.
It would mean someone with the intelligence and appetite to build a career can find their way in without having to search endlessly for a door nobody showed them.
I do not think the opportunity gap closes entirely, but I know it can be moved person by person. A single open door changes the entire shape of what follows for someone.
Talent is everywhere. Opportunity is not. My job is to reduce the distance between the two.
