The UK Global Talent Visa isn't won through wishful thinking. It's earned through real innovation, measurable impact and demonstrated leadership. If you're targeting 2027, your evidence building should start now. Here are 10 UK and European speaking opportunities to help you get started. 👇

Last week, we shared a demo of an AI agent helping salon owners and clients book and reschedule appointments, as well as gain insights into their business, all through voice. Next, we are bringing agent swarms that work in tandem and speak African languages. You are not ready for what they can do!

Last week, I attended my first @CultureShiftLab event and it was genuinely time well spent. Over two days at the Culture Shifting Deal-Making Summit in London, organised by @CultureShiftLab in partnership with @EYnews, I had some fascinating conversations about the future of capital, technology, innovation and impact. The room brought together family offices, investors, founders and creatives to explore capital, AI, impact and new opportunities across industries. Three conversations stood out. 1. Who controls the future of AI? @lorddrayson's fireside discussion on sovereign AI raised an important question: as the US and China build powerful AI ecosystems, what role will Europe, the Middle East and Africa play? We explored hyperscaler dominance, vendor lock-in, data privacy, security and regulation struggling to keep pace. My takeaway was that sovereignty isn't just about owning models. It's about building technology that reflects the values, languages and interests of the people it serves. 2. Where is the real value in AI? I enjoyed the AI investor discussion, including Rodney Appiah of cornerstone VC. With all the investment flowing into AI, the dot-com comparisons are understandable. But when powerful models become widely accessible, what makes a business defensible? For me, it's deep customer understanding, proprietary data & capabilities and solving difficult problems that people will pay to have solved. 3. How do we turn potential into opportunity? The sessions on family offices, impact investing and the creator economy showed how capital and partnerships can open new markets. Meeting @OsiUmenyiora was a highlight. Through @NFLAfrica, he's helping create pathways for African sporting talent to develop and compete globally. That resonated with what we're building at @plotweaverapp. Different industry, similar infrastructure challenge. We are developing voice AI and language tools so businesses can serve customers in African languages, rather than expecting people to adapt to technology that doesn't understand them. Potential is not enough. You need the infrastructure, access and relationships to unlock it. And that was the real value of the summit for me. Beyond the panels, I had thoughtful conversations with people who challenged my thinking and opened up new possibilities. Thank you to Andrea Hoffman, David Parker, @CultureShiftLab and @EYnews for bringing us together. Great connecting with so many inspiring founders, leaders and investors. The next wave of innovation won't be defined only by who builds the most powerful technology, but by who makes it useful to more people. #ArtificialIntelligence #SovereignAI #PlotWeaver #CultureShifting

We are seeing real demand across audiobooks, language learning and financial inclusion. How do you bank someone who can't understand or access financial services because of language barriers? Voice AI agents can change that, enabling millions across Africa to access financial services independently, in languages they understand, without relying on intermediaries.

Last Friday, I ran an Arc Studio workshop for 100+ developers building with AI agents, and one thing became clear. Many developers are building products where blockchain could be genuinely useful, but the complexity of building onchain is still holding them back. A recurring theme during the session was that many developers see smart contract complexity as a barrier to building onchain. That’s what excites me about Arc Studio. Helping developers use blockchain to innovate, without needing to become smart contract experts first. I left the session inspired by what becomes possible when that barrier comes down. Let's keep building. Try it out at studio[dot]arc[io]

If your AI can run a business but cannot understand the language of its owner, how intelligent is it really? Why should a salon owner in Lagos need to speak English to understand their customers, manage bookings or analyse revenue? At @plotweaverapp, we're changing that. After demonstrating AI-powered shopping through our Kivo marketplace in Nigerian Pidgin, I wanted to push things further. Can we make AI agents perform real business operations entirely in Yoruba? We built a demo to prove it. Three interactions. Three real business workflows. All in Yoruba. 1. I booked a haircut for Monday at 4 pm. I sent a WhatsApp voice note in Yoruba. The AI understood my request and booked the appointment. No forms. No switching languages. 2. The salon owner moved my appointment from 4 pm to noon. The owner instructed an AI agent to reschedule it. The booking was updated, and I received a WhatsApp notification confirming the change. 3. Another salon owner asked the AI to identify their top three customers by spending over the past month. In Yoruba. The agent retrieved the business data and returned the insights. That third interaction is the real breakthrough. We're moving from AI that speaks African languages to AI that actually WORKS in African languages. Booking customers. Updating records. Analysing spending. Helping business owners make better decisions. Now imagine this across millions of African businesses. Salons. Pharmacies. Restaurants. Retailers. Banks. Clinics. This is why we built @plotweaverapp . We're not building every application ourselves, we're building the voice and language infrastructure that allows developers to make their AI agents, products and workflows work in African languages. The next billion AI users won't all speak English. And they shouldn't have to. Watch the demo. If you're building AI products for Africa, this is the infrastructure layer you should be thinking about. #PlotWeaver #AgenticAI #AfricanAI

We did a thing! Convoy is LIVE!!! All your events, all in one link. Earn in Naira, USD, GPB and more...

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Yes. We are seeing small businesses looking for ways to access AI in their language to help them optimise either sales, customer acquisition or process efficiency. Also, bigger businesses want to leverage AI in African languages to expand their scope and customer base beyond English language.

Exactly. The agent confirms in Yoruba before taking action and asks for clarification when something is unclear rather than making assumptions. Our demo shows this in action. Trust is the gateway to adoption. If businesses can't rely on AI to get the small things right, they won't trust it with bigger decisions.

We are making AI agents as useful in Nigerian languages as they are in English and we have moved past demos, with pilots in fintech, audiobooks and edtech across Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa and Pidgin. The goal? Lower costs, faster service, better business decisions for everyday people who dont think in or speak English.

Make Una bring work join oo🥹 I design, build, and ship websites, mobile apps, web apps, and SaaS products. My DMs are open! 🤝🏽 I need all the money in the world to do wedding and take care of my beautiful wifey abeg 😭🤣❤️ mauteen.site/

If you need a reliable Product Designer, @The_mauteen is your guy. Great guy!

Yesterday with village square at the University of Hull.

I built a Lagos cooking game from scratch and it is live. 🇳🇬 Bùkà Hustle is a 3D business sim where you start with a roadside bùkà, cook jollof, serve hungry customers, buy water, wash the pot, hire workers and grow into a full restaurant. Watch out for NEPA taking light, and keep your gas filled. You can play it on your phone, tablet or laptop. It is free, with no forced ads and no energy timers. I would love your feedback. Tell me what to add next. Link in the comments.

I just went shopping in Nigerian Pidgin. Not by typing. By speaking. "John, abeg find me laptop wey no pass one million naira." John shortlisted 3 laptops within my budget, compared prices and specs side by side, and helped me pick one. ₦890,000. Then he took me through checkout with PIN, SMS and face-match steps. All by voice. But the laptop isn't the interesting part. Across Africa, we buy and sell through conversation. We negotiate, ask questions and switch between English, Pidgin and our own languages without thinking twice. Yet most digital products still expect text-heavy, English-first interfaces. Why shouldn't technology adapt to us instead? Imagine: -Shopping in Yorùbá -A trader checking payments in Hausa -A business owner managing bookings in Igbo -Resolving a failed bank transfer in Pidgin Everyday tasks shouldn't get harder because you speak your own language. At @plotweaverapp, we're building the voice infrastructure to make this possible. Kivo Market is a private demo built on our STORM voice technology. The products, wallet and payment are simulated. The future of AI in Africa is about making our languages work across the digital economy. If you are building a marketplace, fintech or customer-facing product for Africa? Let's talk.

I am super excited 🎉 I'll be speaking on the Future of Software Development panel at Black Tech Fest next Thursday, 29 October, 4pm on Stage 2 at Tobacco Dock, London💜 Use my code GBADAGO10 for 10% off: joinbtf.com/attend/tickets I've spent over seven years in tech, as a software engineer (full stack and backend), a developer advocate, a community builder and Vice President of a global open source foundation. From building AI apps and delivering technical AI workshops to judging hackathons (Microsoft, UN, Cerebral Valley etc) on global tech stages, I've seen how the way we build software has changed so much in just the last few years. AI can now generate, review and test code, which is super exciting, but it also raises real questions about quality, security and what our role as engineers looks like next. That's what we'll be talking about on the panel, including what's changed for engineers, the risks that come with it, whether developers will still be in demand and so much more. If you're thinking about how AI is changing the way we build software, let's talk. DM me if you'll be there and come say hi after the panel! NB: This isn't a paid post, I bought my VIP ticket months ago. Cmon! You know I invest in the things I'm passionate about! 😅 #BTF2026 #SoftwareEngineering #AI