Lola Åkerström’s Journey from Nigeria to Sweden
Meet Lola Akinmade Åkerström - the Award-winning Geotraveler dedicated to helping the next generation of travel storytellers.
“The power of asking "Why not?" is that it pushes us to live outside of people's limited expectations of us and once we start living beyond society's predefined boxes, we become impossible to ignore,” says Lola Åkerström, visual storyteller, author, and entrepreneur.
If you put reading this article on pause, open a new tab and search Lola Akinmade Åkerström, thousands of articles about her will populate your device.
This is because she is an award-winning visual storyteller, author, and entrepreneur. Her work has been featured in National Geographic, New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, CNN, Travel Channel, Travel + Leisure, Lonely Planet, Forbes, and Huffington Post.
She was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize, honored with a MIPAD 100 (Most Influential People of African Descent) Award within media and culture in 2018, and collaborated with high-profile commercial brands from Mercedes-Benz and Dove to Intrepid Travel and National Geographic Channel. On top of that, she was in South Africa on a photography assignment for National Geographic Channel which was featured in a vignette called “Through The Lens” which airs on the NatGeo channel across the globe.
The 2018 Bill Muster Travel Photographer of the Year, modestly says accolades should never be the end goal or what drives us. So how did a girl who grew up in Nigeria become a force to reckon with gracing almost every inspirational platform there is, both worldwide and Sweden which is now her home?
“The power of asking "Why not?" is that it pushes us to live outside of people's limited expectations of us and once we start living beyond society's predefined boxes, we become impossible to ignore. Start by living out your purpose and your truth within your spheres of influences and within your local communities,” Lola described her journey in an interview with Ambitious.Africa.
Entrepreneurship and Mentorship
Lola is definitely among the few constantly growing and influential African voices in the Nordics and more specifically Sweden. Despite all the adversities faced by black women she still manages to fight on without being a victim of circumstances.
Most of the projects she has founded like Local Purse, a web-based platform that supports travel guides and cultural artisans using live video shopping experiences to host travelers around the world virtually, continue to prosper.
At the Local Purse, Lola and her team have involved this macro trend that is rapidly changing the way people make online purchases and it is the future of retail. By merging live video shopping with cultural experiences in a personal way, their mission is to provide a sustainable way of supporting the travel industry that doesn’t require physical travel.
She is also the founder of Geotraveler Media Sweden through which she runs her online academy, Geotraveler Media Academy, which is dedicated to visual storytelling and helping the next generation of travel storytellers put the heart back into the craft. Through the academy, Lola provides both free and paid courses as well as mentorship.
“I've been part of some events and festivals in Nigeria sharing my work and expertise. My goal is to keep expanding my offerings to include physical workshops in Nigeria as well,” said the author of “Lagom” and “In Every Mirror She's Black”.
As an entrepreneur, one of the biggest lessons Lola has learned is to always ask for support and make space for others who have a lot more experience than she does.
“That is the only way you can grow quickly as an entrepreneur and accelerate your impact. In essence, learning to delegate, choosing the right partners, and having a mentality of a life-long learner,” says the trailblazer admitting the journey to where she is was not easy.
Asked to choose three things from Nigeria and Sweden to make an ideal perfect world, Lola said: “In Nigeria, I would pick deep sense of community, inclusion, and an open invitation, living each day vibrantly like it's your last and respect of elders and reverence of storytelling culture. In Sweden, I like the concept of moderation to create sustainable habits we can maintain, improved quality of life due to work-life balance and egalitarian approach toward gender roles.”
By: Cate Mukei