Every year, Forbes writers and editors comb through thousands of submissions and narrow them down to result in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Unlike what the name implies, though, the list extends beyond just 30 people.
The American list consists of 600 people, with 30 selected in 20 industries each; Asia and Europe’s lists each have ten categories for a total of 300 people each.
Only Africa alone has a single list of 30 people. Despite his best efforts, Mayowa Gidi, now 30, has just missed out on earning that particular achievement.
Still, he’s not throwing in the towel yet – Gidi is determined to make his mark, especially in the Nigerian movie and animation industry.
Gidi might have missed out on being listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30, but that hasn’t stopped him from giving it his all for the future of Nigeria’s movie and animation industry. Source: Mayowa Gidi
From pursuing engineering to the arts
Born and raised in Nigeria, the only “sensible” professions outside of being a lawyer or doctor that Gidi knew of that involved drawing were architecture and mechanical engineering.
He opted for the second, but by the second year of his degree at Covenant University, Gidi knew that he wouldn’t be making his career in engineering.
Instead, he turned back to his early passion for the arts.
“I’ve always loved arts and games, but the thing was that I didn’t know how they were made,” shares Gidi. He found the answer when a friend at university showed him Autodesk 3ds Max, a 3D modelling and animation software.
“I had a look at it, gave it a try, and was enjoying doing work with it,” says Gidi. “It made me realise that this might be a career path that was closer to what I liked.”
Gidi’s (R) first step to getting his foot in the door of the Nigerian movie and animation industry began with a diploma in 3D arts. Source: Mayowa Gidi
With that decided, Gidi completed his mechanical engineering degree and moved abroad to Canada to pursue a Diploma in 3D Arts at the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts — a school he learned about by chance during his time at Covenant University.
“I’m an introvert; I don’t talk to people a lot,” laughs Gidi. “But someone sat beside me during university once, and we just got talking. He was bringing up things about the arts, and he told me about the school, so I looked it up and thought, ‘Okay, I could go there.’”
The programme was what Gidi needed to get his foot into the animation industry – full of hands-on experiences and expert guidance from lecturers – the perfect launchpad to kickstart the next phase of his plans.
The big-picture goal of uplifting the Nigerian animation industry
As a long-time admirer of movies, Gidi has plans to take the Nigerian movie and animation industry to the height of its potential and make it comparable to anywhere else in the world.
His first step towards that? Establishing Peakframe Studio in 2017, right after earning his diploma in 3D arts.
“I love the creativity you get from doing animation,” says Gidi. “It’s like building puppets because animation is like puppetry, you’ve brought the character to life, even if it’s just a bunch of code or a bunch of vertices on your screen.”
“I think that’s one of the things I really enjoy the most about animation – it’s a very expressive profession.”
Together with a co-founder, Gidi wanted to build a studio where companies in the country could seek help in improving their graphics and animations. It began with helping individual companies with their adverts to working on government awareness campaigns, and now, Peakframe Studio is preparing to produce a movie.
“It’s a pretty big deal, and it’s a lot about realising that big ambitions cost a lot of time and resources that people might not be willing to risk,” shares Gidi.
Regardless, Gidi is determined to see this project and his passion for the animation industry through – this time with another card up his sleeve: a master’s in game development at Sweden’s University of Skövde.
“I sort of had another idea that seemed like it had a decent amount of potential,” says Gidi. The idea in mind? Revolutionising the way practical courses are taught in school.
It’s not an easy road to lifting the country’s movie and animation industry to its best potential, but Gidi is ready to do what it takes to get there. Source: Mayowa Gidi
Connecting the dots with the degrees
Most might not see how a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Nigeria, a diploma in 3D arts from Canada, and a master’s in game development from Sweden can come together cohesively.
To Gidi, however, the picture is as clear as day.
“The idea was to build a teaching application that schools in Nigeria could use because many of them, including my own school, did not have the necessary level of resources to be able to adequately teach their students, especially for practical courses,” explains Gidi.
Even now, Gidi’s master’s degree thesis revolves around building a programme that simulates different practical courses in virtual reality.
It is learning by doing at its finest.
“That’s why I chose game development, not just to make games, but to learn what I need to build the simulations I want to create,” says Gidi.
His studies in Nigeria had shown him the problem, and his 3D arts degree offered him half of the solution as it gave him the foundation required to work with 3D models. And finally, his game development studies have equipped him with the programming and evaluation skills to make up the last piece of the puzzle.
But Gidi might not even stop there.
“I realised during my master’s that if you want schools to adopt your platform, you need to find the best ways for them to do so, and that means I might need to get a PhD to figure that out,” shares Gidi. “I never thought I’d get a master’s degree, and now I’m considering a PhD, but when you have a goal, you do what you need to achieve them.”
At the same time, he hopes to seek more investment to build the platform, giving it the chance to reach its maximum potential, like simulating an entire chemistry lab instead of just a handful of experiments.
“I think that would solve a decent amount of problems for education, especially in Nigeria and some other places,” says Gidi.
