Oluseun Onigbinde is a Nigerian entrepreneur and open data analyst popularly known as the co-founder and CEO of budgIT, a Nigerian civic startup. Oluseun Onigbinde is a fiscal transparency advocate and firm believer in the power of Open Data. In 2012, he was awarded the Future Awards Prize for Science and Tech Innovation. Oluseun on 13 September 2019 got appointed as Technical Adviser in the Ministry of Budget and National Planning. Some Nigerians reacted badly to his appointment due to his past criticism of the same government that appointed him On Monday, 16 September, Oluseun resigned his appointment as Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning on his medium page.
During his NYSC, he was posted to Benin City where he got a job at Access bank. He later joined First Bank for a period of three and half years. It was while he was working at First Bank that he got the idea for BudgIT. According to him, his interest in banking was from the strategy angle, a space where he could contribute his ideas. Oluseun Onigbinde is a recipient of several awards and he is currently an Obama Foundation Scholar at Columbia University. He is a board member of the ONE Africa Policy Advisory Board. He was appointed as Technical Adviser at the Ministry of Budget and National Planning but resigned few days after this appointment.
BudgIT
In 2011, Oluseun Onigbinde and Joseph Agunbiade formed a team during a hackathon held at the Co-Creation Hub. It was here that he came up with the idea for a need to publicize government spending to the general public, leading to the startup BudgIT. In 2014, the Omidyar Network invested $400,000 in BudgIT; this has always been listed on their website. In June 2015, the Kaduna State government under the administration of Mallam El-Rufai, signed BudgIT to build Open Budget mobile portal similar to the ; a platform which was built by BudgIT for Center for Democracy and Development to hold President Buhari accountable for his campaign promises. In January 2017, BudgIT raised an additional $3 million grant from Omidyar Network and Gates Foundation. In February 2016, Oluseun Onigbinde was honoured to make a presentation at the Chatham House under the African Project on issue of accountability and governance.
Civic Technology
Onigbinde has always been a big believer in data-driven journalism and participated a health journalism project as part of the Knight Innovation Fellowship of the International Center for Journalists. In 2014, BudgIT launched , a project tracking tool. Tracka monitors public projects in over 600 communities in Nigeria. His organization also founded Civic Hive, Nigeria's civic innovation hub, that incubates solely civic tech start-ups.
Personal life
Seun resides in Lagos with his wife, Oluwaseun, and daughters - Wuraola and Ireoluwa
