In 2015, Daniel Ogunlolu, then a first-year Computer Engineering student at the Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, stumbled upon what would become his lifelong passion: embedded systems and robotics.
Long before owning his first Arduino kit, Ogunlolu immersed himself in articles and tutorials, fascinated by the possibilities of programming and hardware integration.
When he finally purchased the kit, he wasted no time. That same day, he built and programmed a Bluetooth-controlled robot, a modest but thrilling creation that set the tone for his future.
“I fell in love with embedded systems and robotics,” he said in a LinkedIn post. “And I wanted more after that experience.”
The Drone Builder Who Changed Everything
According to Ogunlolu, the turning point came when he saw an interview on Channels TV about a self-taught engineer who built drones from scraps. Inspired, Ogunlolu reached out to him on Facebook for mentorship. The reply was brief but impactful: “If there is a will, knowledge will come.”
Although initially disappointed, those words became a guiding principle. Determined to learn, Ogunlolu began trawling YouTube for drone-building tutorials, diving deep into both the engineering and software sides of the craft.
Ogunlolu noted that he eventually found a YouTube playlist called YMFC-3D, which explained how to build and program a drone using Arduino. It contained just nine videos totaling under two hours. For him, it became a year-long marathon.
“Sometimes, I wouldn’t go back to the original playlist until after several days of watching several series of videos explaining that technology,” he said. “After a year and some months, I did it! Assembled and programmed a drone from scratch using Arduino, and it flew.”
After more than a year of this painstaking self-education, Ogunlolu finally assembled and programmed his own drone from scratch. And it flew.
Launching CurateLearn
While his success was rewarding, Ogunlolu realised his journey had been unnecessarily chaotic. According to him, the experience was an exponentially chaotic self-learning one because he had no guidance or structure to follow.
This experience planted the seed for his current venture: CurateLearn, a startup designed to solve one of the biggest challenges in online education: lack of structured, personalised learning pathways.
Ogunlolu believes that in the near future, every student will have a personal AI tutor. CurateLearn aims to make that future a reality by using AI agents that do more than just search for learning materials.
“CurateLearn takes this to a whole new level by using AI agents to not just find resources tailored to your learning goal, but also go ahead to arrange these resources in a structured curriculum so that you can learn with ease and consume the resources in the right order,” he said.
A Booming Tutoring Market
The global AI tutoring market, valued at about $1.2 billion in 2022, is projected to surge to nearly $8 billion by 2030, driven by an estimated CAGR of 30–45%. This sector is fuelled by rising demand for personalised, and efficient learning experiences, making it fertile ground for innovative solutions like CurateLearn.
Asides CurateLearn, key competitors such as QANDA, Squirrel AI, Speak, EdgeUp, Preply, Carnegie Learning, DreamBox are also shaping the market.
With technologies like Agentic Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and large language model (LLM) search engines, experts say CurateLearn has the potential to revolutionise the way people acquire knowledge online.
According to industry leaders, with CurateLearn, learners can progress step-by-step, master foundational concepts before moving on to advanced topics, rather than getting lost in an unstructured sea of content.
Talking Points
It is remarkable that CurateLearn was born from Daniel Ogunlolu’s mission: to take the guesswork out of online learning by using AI agents to not just find relevant resources, but arrange them into a logical, step-by-step curriculum tailored to each learner’s goals.
At Techparley, we see how tools like this can reshape the self-learning landscape, especially for learners in emerging markets who often lack structured guidance.
By turning a scattered learning experience into a clear pathway, CurateLearn is removing one of the biggest barriers to skill acquisition.
However, success will depend on adoption, and that hinges on how well CurateLearn can tailor its platform to different learning needs, ensure accessibility, and provide continuous support.
Building trust and engagement, particularly among learners in underserved communities, will be critical.
With the right strategic partnerships, CurateLearn has the potential to become a catalyst for global digital learning inclusion, turning what was once a slow, frustrating process into a fast and rewarding journey.
