Noel Tosin Oso

About

My name is Noel Tosin Oso, I am a Writer, Designer, and Entrepreneur working on designing and developing Africa’s Urban, Industrial, and Technological Futures. My work revolves around several interconnected themes, the decentralisation of Nation-building, from a State defined practice to a participatory based model that relies on the will, creativity and passion of people from all walks of life who wish to channel a Pan-Africanist spirit to change their communities. My work also focuses heavily on the collaborative development of the products, services and systems needed to envision a 21st century Africa. I have the fundamental belief that people have the ability to take their destiny into their own hands; and, when they are equipped with the skills, tools, finances and community they need to do so, they can be a focus for positive transformation within their communities, cities and industries. Because of this belief, my work often blurs the boundaries between policy design, entrepreneurship, technology, futurism and speculative and systemic design, with my overarching desire being to help foster a Pan-African Dream and Citizen.

Where The Rivers Meet and the Narrow Roads Cross

“Where The Rivers Meet and the Narrow Roads Cross, is an early-stage conceptualisation of the urban features of a proposed new city built between the triad of South-Western States, (Lagos State, Ogun State, and Osun State). The project positions itself as a response to Lagos State’s various urbanization challenges and creates an interplay between design as a field of practice and nation-building. It posits however that these challenges are an opportunity to change the development narrative of Lagos and Southwestern Nigeria by proposing a three-state “one region” union as a means of generating wealth, economic opportunity and providing access to core infrastructure and human needs. The project postulates that while Lagos has traditionally been a Yoruba city and can continue to be considered thus, but it also sits within a context larger than just the Yoruba, but is now a melting point for all tribes in Nigeria and Africa’s most successful multi-cultural experiment.

Running parallel to this, the project explores the development of a framework and capability model for designing effective solutions for Africa that take into account the sociological nuances that abound on the African continent by using the Yoruba tribe as a case study. While this process and framework are by no means definitive and are at best incomplete but they nonetheless begin the journey of understanding how African Indigenous knowledge systems can be extrapolated from the past, contexualised within the present, and then brought into the future. I explore the principles of Omoluabi and Iwa l’ewa as conceptual frameworks for the creation of a future city, by situating them within local, regional, global, socio-economic, cultural, political, environmental, and technological trends.