Ilayda Bakare: From Mathematics and Art to Building Exhibits

Ilayda Bakare, whose first name is also written as İlayda Bakare, is a London-based entrepreneur, mathematician, artist, coder, and mobile app developer best known as the founder of Exhibits. Her career brings together several areas that do not always seem connected at first: mathematics, technology, art, entrepreneurship, and London’s cultural scene.

Rather than beginning her career as an experienced software developer, Bakare gradually learned the skills needed to turn an idea into a working mobile application. Exhibits grew from a simple frustration: finding interesting exhibitions in London was not always easy, and discovering one after it had already ended was even more frustrating.

Her solution was to create a platform that makes exhibitions easier to discover. That journey eventually turned Bakare into a founder and self-taught mobile app developer whose work sits at the intersection of technology and culture.

Who Is Ilayda Bakare?

Ilayda Bakare is the founder and app developer behind Exhibits, a platform created to help people discover exhibitions across London. She has a background in mathematics as well as interests in art, coding, creative technology, and entrepreneurship.

Bakare is from Peckham in South East London. Her public professional background focuses much more on her education, creative interests, technology work, and business than on details about her private life.

One of the distinctive things about her career is that she does not fit neatly into one professional category. She has been described publicly as a mathematician and artist while also becoming a coder and entrepreneur.

That combination plays an important role in understanding both Bakare and Exhibits. The project is not simply an app created for the sake of technology. It uses technology to help people find art, history, science, culture, and other real-world experiences around London.

Ilayda Bakare’s Early Life and Background

Bakare grew up in London and has described herself as being born and raised in Peckham, South East London.

An interest in community involvement was present relatively early in her life. At age 16, she received the Rank Foundation’s School Leadership Award. She later completed Community Action Placements at Greenbank Church in Cornwall.

Before university, Bakare took a gap year and taught English at a primary school in Valencia, Spain. She then attended the University of Leeds, where she studied Mathematics.

Her educational background is particularly interesting in light of the direction her career eventually took. A mathematics degree may not immediately seem connected to exhibitions, mobile apps, or entrepreneurship, but mathematical thinking involves problem-solving, structure, logic, and finding solutions to complicated questions.

Those abilities can also be useful in software development.

From Mathematics to Coding

Bakare’s move into coding did not follow a traditional computer science route.

In 2020, she attended a nine-week coding bootcamp at Le Wagon in London. There, she learned web development skills and pitched the idea behind Exhibits. A small team built an early website version of the concept during the program.

That experience helped establish a starting point, but creating the eventual mobile application required considerably more work.

Bakare went on to teach herself the skills needed for mobile development. Public descriptions of her journey state that she spent around four years developing Exhibits while also balancing two jobs.

It was a lengthy process of learning and building at the same time.

For people interested in entrepreneurship, that part of Bakare’s story may be especially relatable. Founders do not always begin with every skill their idea requires. Sometimes they identify a problem first and acquire the knowledge needed to solve it afterward.

How the Idea for Exhibits Started

The idea behind Exhibits came from a problem Bakare understood personally.

She and her sister grew up visiting exhibitions with their family. As adults, however, they found themselves missing interesting exhibitions around London.

London has hundreds of museums, galleries, and cultural venues, but having plenty of options does not necessarily make deciding what to see easier. Temporary exhibitions can also disappear before someone even realizes they were available.

Bakare wanted a simpler way to find them.

The concept for Exhibits began taking shape during her coding bootcamp in 2020. Instead of relying on people to search through numerous individual museum and gallery listings, the idea was to bring information about London’s exhibitions into one convenient platform.

What began as a personal frustration gradually became a technology project and then a business.

What Is the Exhibits App?

Exhibits is a mobile app designed to help people discover exhibitions in London.

The platform covers more than traditional art exhibitions. Its listings can include subjects connected with photography, architecture, history, fashion, science, sports, Black culture, women artists, and family-friendly experiences.

That broad approach is an important part of the concept.

Someone does not necessarily need to consider themselves an art enthusiast to enjoy an exhibition. Museums and cultural venues can offer experiences based on an enormous range of interests.

By bringing different categories together, Exhibits aims to make cultural discovery simpler and more personal. A person can look for something that matches an existing interest rather than searching through individual venues without knowing what is currently on display.

In that sense, the app uses a digital experience to encourage people to spend more time exploring the physical world.

Building Exhibits From Scratch

Developing a mobile app independently can involve far more than simply writing a few lines of code. A developer needs to think about how users navigate the product, how information is organized, how features interact, and how technical problems are resolved.

For Bakare, much of that process involved self-directed learning.

She spent years developing the technical knowledge required to turn Exhibits into a functioning mobile application. That persistence has become one of the most notable parts of her professional story.

The journey also illustrates the difference between having an idea and creating a usable product. An idea can happen quickly. Building, testing, improving, and maintaining the finished product can take considerably longer.

Bakare’s mathematics background likely provided useful problem-solving experience, while her creative interests gave the project another dimension.

The result was a platform combining mobile app development, cultural discovery, museums, galleries, technology, and entrepreneurship.

Ilayda Bakare’s Creative Work

Coding is only one side of Bakare’s interests.

She is also a self-taught artist. Public profiles of her creative work describe activities including designing tattoos and painting murals. Her work has also appeared in coloring books and poetry anthologies.

This creative background helps explain why a technology project centered on exhibitions feels like a natural fit for her.

Art and programming are sometimes presented as opposite disciplines, with one associated with imagination and the other with logic. Bakare’s career demonstrates how easily the two can overlap.

A mobile application needs technical functionality, but it also requires design, communication, creativity, and an understanding of how people will experience it.

For Exhibits, those worlds come together around cultural exploration.

The Bakare Sisters and Exhibits

Exhibits is also closely associated with Bakare’s sister, Dilara Bakare. The sisters have been presented publicly as the Bakare-sister duo behind the project.

While İlayda is strongly associated with originating the idea and teaching herself to build the app, the project developed into a collaborative effort.

That matters because growing a product involves more than development alone. Branding, communication, social media, design, partnerships, audience development, and business planning can all become important as an idea turns into a company.

The sisters’ collaboration has therefore become part of the wider Exhibits story.

Entrepreneurship and Professional Development

Bakare’s role has expanded beyond coding as Exhibits has developed.

She joined the Roundhouse Creative Business Accelerator cohort in 2025. The program was designed to support young creative entrepreneurs as they worked on developing sustainable businesses.

Taking a product from a technical project to a sustainable company requires a different set of skills. A founder has to consider areas such as audience growth, partnerships, revenue, pitching, marketing, and long-term business strategy.

Bakare has also become more visible as a speaker, discussing topics related to app development, entrepreneurship, creativity, and her experience of building Exhibits.

Her professional development reflects a common progression among startup founders: the person who initially builds the product gradually has to learn how to represent and grow the business around it.

Leadership and Community Involvement

Bakare’s involvement with leadership organizations predates Exhibits.

After receiving the Rank Foundation’s School Leadership Award as a teenager, she remained connected with the organization’s network. In 2022, she joined its Fellows Leadership Team and became involved in its mentoring activities.

This aspect of her background adds context to her later work as an entrepreneur.

Building a company involves technical skills, but it also requires communication, collaboration, leadership, and a willingness to learn from other people. Bakare’s involvement in mentoring and leadership communities shows that these areas have been part of her development alongside mathematics, art, and technology.

Why Ilayda Bakare’s Career Stands Out

One of the most interesting things about Ilayda Bakare is not a single job title or achievement. It is the combination of disciplines that has shaped her work.

She studied mathematics but moved into coding. She has technical interests while maintaining an active connection with art. She built a digital product whose purpose is to encourage people to discover physical cultural experiences.

Her path also challenges the idea that people must remain within the field they studied at university.

Skills can overlap in unexpected ways. Mathematics can strengthen analytical thinking. Art can encourage creative problem-solving. Coding can transform an idea into a usable product. Entrepreneurship can bring those different abilities together around a problem worth solving.

For Bakare, that problem was surprisingly straightforward: people were missing exhibitions they might have loved.

What Is Known About Ilayda Bakare’s Personal Life?

Most reliable public information about Bakare concerns her professional and educational background rather than her private life.

Details such as her exact birthday, relationship status, and personal finances have not been widely established through reliable public sources. For that reason, claims about those areas should be treated carefully rather than presented as facts.

What is publicly documented gives a much clearer picture of her professional identity: she is a London-based founder with a Mathematics background, an interest in art, experience in leadership and mentoring, and years of self-taught development work behind Exhibits.

Frequently Asked Questions About Ilayda Bakare

What is Ilayda Bakare known for?

Ilayda Bakare is best known as the founder and mobile app developer behind Exhibits, a platform that helps people discover exhibitions in London.

What did Ilayda Bakare study?

Bakare studied Mathematics at the University of Leeds. She later attended a coding bootcamp and continued developing her programming skills independently.

Is Ilayda Bakare an app developer?

Yes. Bakare taught herself mobile development and spent several years building the Exhibits app.

Is Ilayda Bakare an artist?

Bakare is also a self-taught artist. Her creative activities have included tattoo design and mural painting alongside her technology and entrepreneurial work.

What is Exhibits?

Exhibits is a cultural discovery app that brings information about exhibitions across London together in one place. It covers interests ranging from art and photography to history, science, fashion, architecture, and culture.

Where is Ilayda Bakare from?

Bakare is from Peckham in South East London.

Who is Dilara Bakare?

Dilara Bakare is İlayda Bakare’s sister and co-founder in the Exhibits project. Together, they are often described as the Bakare sisters behind the platform.

Final Thoughts

Ilayda Bakare’s story is largely one of combining interests rather than choosing between them.

Her Mathematics education gave her an analytical background, while her interest in art provided a creative outlet. Coding gave her a way to turn a recurring problem into a practical product, and entrepreneurship provided the framework for developing that product into a larger venture.

Exhibits brings those different parts of her background together. It is a technology product built around culture, but its ultimate purpose is to help people step away from searching and actually experience something in the real world.

Bakare’s path from mathematics student and self-taught artist to founder and mobile app developer also shows that career paths do not always need to follow a straight line. New skills can be learned, unrelated interests can complement one another, and a simple everyday frustration can become the starting point for a business.

As Exhibits continues developing, Bakare’s professional story remains a work in progress. What is already clear is that mathematics, creativity, coding, cultural discovery, and entrepreneurship have all played meaningful roles in shaping it.

Also read: Paddy O’Neill: Career, Marketing Experience and Startup Leadership