Abiola Olaniran, the soft-spoken software engineer who turned a campus coding hobby into one of Africa’s best-known mobile-gaming brands, passed away on Wednesday, July 16, aged 36. Sources close to the family confirm that the Gamsole founder was buried the same day in a private ceremony.
Although he shunned the limelight, Olaniran’s résumé reads like a highlight reel of Africa’s emerging tech scene.
After leading his Obafemi Awolowo University team to national victory in the 2010 Microsoft Imagine Cup, he doubled down on game development and, two years later, incorporated Gamsole in Lagos. At a time when Africa’s gaming scene was almost non-existent, he chose the then-new Windows Phone store as his launchpad, cranking out colourful casual titles that resonated far beyond Nigeria’s borders.
By early 2015 Gamsole had crossed the 10-million-download mark across Windows Phone, Android and feature-phone stores, a milestone that placed the company, and African game development, on the global map. That same year, the studio announced its flagship endless runner title, Gidi Run, which it would later launch in partnership with MTN, ushering in a new approach to games monetisation within Africa.
International recognition followed quickly. In February 2015 Forbes Africa placed Olaniran on its coveted “30 Under 30” list alongside Hotels.ng’s Mark Essien and Andela’s Iyin Aboyeji.
The magazine doubled down the following year, naming him one of the “30 Most Promising Young African Entrepreneurs” for 2016. These accolades cemented his reputation as a continental flag-bearer for African gaming. The accolades crowned a period in which investors and fellow founders began to view African gaming as investable, largely because Olaniran had shown what was possible with lean resources and relentless iteration.
Yet industry peers remember him as much for his quiet generosity as for his coding prowess.
When Techpoint Africa was still an idea on worn out notebook in 2015, Olaniran became the first person to cut a cheque, providing the seed money, and office space, that enabled us run our earliest groundbreaking stories.
“He never wanted a spotlight, just progress,” Techpoint Africa founder, Adewale Yusuf, recalls.
That same instinct for impact led him into education technology.
In late 2020, following CcHub’s acquisition of Kenyan ed-tech startup eLimu, Olaniran accepted the role of chief technology officer. Over the next 19 months he oversaw a rebuild of the platform’s mobile apps, bringing game-design thinking to literacy and revision content used by more than half a million learners across East Africa.
In recent years Olaniran had stepped back from day-to-day operations at Gamsole to mentor younger entrepreneurs and angel-invest across Africa’s tech ecosystem.
This is a developing story.
If you worked with Abiola Olaniran or benefited from his mentorship, Techpoint Africa invites you to share memories and photographs via editor@techpoint.africa for an extended tribute.
