Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley - Politics - Nairaland
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OWERRI: The Worst State Capital In The SE- PIX / Enugu To Become Africa’s Silicon Valley From Leo Stan Ekeh / Owerri The Cleanest City In Nigeria (2) (3) (4)
| Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by kettykin: 10:04pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
Having looked at the Nigerian IT industry which can best be adjudged as having a stunted growth after an initial up start in the late 90s and early 2000 and having also identified the Technology Gap between other countries and Nigeria in terms of growth and development of the Information Technology industry , i feel the need to address this Technology Gap by making a passionate appeal to the stake holders to have a unifying and conducive city for their R and D . A comparison between the Nigerian and Indian IT industry shows that while India has Bangalore and other cities as the R and D centre,Nigeria has no unifying city for R and D , that is if they even carry out Research and Development besides other activities. This more than anything can be attributed to the slow pace of growth of the MultiBillion Dollar IT industry check reveals the Local Software industry is worth more than $100B per annum (this is a whopping $70b more than what ever the oil industry can ever give Nigeria in terms of Foreign Earnings ) and these revenue is in IT services the bulk of which is not utilised and left to foreigners in Europe India and America. other related areas like Business process outsourcing , Back office outsourcing is virtually non existent in Nigeria Major IT companies like the under listed owned and run by majorly people from a particular region in Nigeria has been in the fore front of the IT industry sustaining what would have been the fastest growing sector in Nigeria but experiencing a lack lustre growth attributable to wrong Business policies , lack of enabling Environment and wrong government policies Famiscro makers of Ovim tablets and other embedded device programming, Zinox computers, Task systems, computer warehouse CWG, hot stop owned by chinedu Echeruo Iroko group owned by Jason Njoku Radio labs owned by izuogu Weco group owned by uchenna obidike While the Federal Government needs to do for the IT industry what it has done for the Automobile Industry much ground work needs to be done to prepare the Industry for a new lease of life. Since most of the IT Entrepreneurs are from Imo state the Imo government can take the initiative to spear head the birthing of a Silicon Valley or Alley in Owerri a Similar thing has been done by Indian IT entrepreneurs in Bangalore A PPP model can be evolved to kick start this process where the Government can build a technology park or Business Hub which would be located in a centrally accessible Area with constant electricity , water availability, security , 10 year tax free , high reduced/subsidised rent-age while the companies will Homeshore their Research and development units manned by key Technical staff with relocation allowance and accommodation fully taken care of. As the business of software making starts and grows Skilled Manpower can be hulled from the IT/computer science/Engineering departments of Neighbouring FUTO, IMSU , UNN, UNIZIK etc These IT Hubs / Technology Parks would eventually evolve to Campuses for the Companies as the grow beyond the localities to multinational companies and would exert a gravitational pull on other IT companies and related business. Datacenters can then be built that would host data for these companies like Iroko that needs lost of big storage , host securely data for banks, telecommunication companies , Government bodies like Road safety, immigration ,police , civil defence and for banks Next would be a legislation to onshore IT jobs in the Telecommunication , Banking and oil sectors to Companies that are locally based this would include hardware procurement, Application development and Application customization . Other Areas would be developing a local skill set that would make and support applications that would run on IOS devices for apple and the vast world of Android devices. 2 Likes 1 Share
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| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by Afam4eva(m): 10:07pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
How do the fact that majority of people who own IT firms in Nigeria come from Imo make Imo the Sillicon valley of Nigeria. Are their IT companies headquartered or even have a branch in Imo? Are those who own companies in Sillicon Valley from Sillicon Valey? We have to stop deceiving ourselves in a consoling manner. |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by kettykin: 10:13pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
Afam4eva: How do the fact that majority of people who own IT firms in Nigeria come from Imo make Imo the Sillicon valley of Nigeria. Are their IT companies headquartered or even have a branch in Imo? Are those who own companies in Sillicon Valley from Sillicon Valey? We have to stop deceiving ourselves in a consoling manner. Actually it is not yet a silicon valley or Alley but it could be one in the making , this is more like Home-shoring their respective Research and development units or home-shoring their programming/Design units to Owerri to boost Owerri as the Silicon Valley, a check reveal that Nigeria does not really have a defined city for that which could be making the growth of the IT industry stunted where as India's IT industry growth happens to be one of the fastest in the world |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by Afam4eva(m): 10:21pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
kettykin:Imo can become an IT hub whether or not those who own those IT establishments are from Imo. It's not for those guys to do but for the government to put in measures to make it attractive for those companies. |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by kettykin: 10:26pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
A brief on Zinox Commendation for producing and supplying 80000 units of Laptop based Data Capture Machines for the Nigerian 2011 General Elections voter registration, Computer Brand of the Year 2009, 2010 by the Nigeria Computer Society, Best Selling Laptops in Nigeria 2010-IDC, ISO 9000:2001 Certification-Standards Organization of Nigeria, Official Computer of the 7th AU Summit in Banjul, Gambia, Official Computer of the 2003 All Afrca Games While Zinox supplied 80000 units of Laptop based Data Capture Machines for the Nigerian 2011 General Elections voter nothing was mentioned about the application / software for Data-capture which could have been comfortable produced locally reducing the forex and giving the local economy a lift |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by bigtt76(f): 10:30pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
With poor electric power, PDP/APC corrupt politicians battling themselves ...ow dis tin wan take work na? |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by kettykin: 10:32pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
The veritable scramble for Africa is continuing, with the news that iROKOtv, the Africa-based movie platform for Nigerian movies (known colloquially as ‘Nollywood’) has closed a funding round of $8 million, led by existing investor Tiger Global, with further participation from Sweden-based Kinnevik |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by kettykin: 10:34pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
bigtt76: With poor electric power, PDP/APC corrupt politicians battling themselves ...ow dis tin wan take work na?There has to be a PPP for this to work the government would need to play its role while the private sector would need to take the initiative |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by kettykin: 10:39pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
Afam4eva: Below article shows how silicon valley was started in California , it was no easy task but is is paying off the risk takers today The long strife to reach Silicon Valley http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/0aca7a50-7470-11e3-af50-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2pYvelfdd |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by Nctrice(m): 10:46pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
worthy course ... |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by abagoro(m): 11:24pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
http://www.digitalsensenews.com.ng/DSBNews/244187/2013/12/1st-quarter-2014-zinox-set-to-open-two-mega-facilities-in-abuja-owerri Apart from the significant role of Imo indigenes in the ICT, Imo indigenes also hold the highest stake in both formal and informal sections of pharmaceuticals in the trade and manufacturing areas. I tell all these people writing trash about factories not being in Imo to watch their mouth because Imo will soon be bombarded with pharmaceutical industries in the Orlu area. The infrastructure is being put in place to encourage these people to come home and invest. Also watch out for the ICT sector. 1 Like 1 Share |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by bigtt76(f): 11:35pm On Jan 05, 2014 |
kettykin: I know but how many private investors I this country are willing to invest in IT in this country and especially in this current atmosphere of uncertainity? None my dear. Everyone wants that one time harmmer ...make their money and disappear. One would have expected the likes on Zinox, with the tenancity and aggressive attitude they started with to have come up with an IT park somewhere in the country ...but you know every na ...the voters registration stuff they bidded for and supplied computers ...where did it end? Go to India today, every nooks and crannies are covered with one IT park or the other fully functional and private sector driven ...but of course not the type of ' government' hob-nobbing private investors like we got here and doing the biddjngs of their puppet masters. |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by asha80(m): 7:45am On Jan 06, 2014 |
abagoro: http://www.digitalsensenews.com.ng/DSBNews/244187/2013/12/1st-quarter-2014-zinox-set-to-open-two-mega-facilities-in-abuja-owerriwish they pointed where the zinox owerri facility is sited. |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by Nobody: 10:18am On Jan 06, 2014 |
Silicon valley and imo state do not go together. See below: Yaba joins race to become Africa’s Silicon Valley Millions of dollars have, over the past two decades, been ploughed into replicating America’s ‘Silicon Valley’ technology hub concept in Africa, with little or no success. Yaba, a suburb of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, is, however, showing signs of promise. An explosive mix of the creative, the academia, start-ups and incubation centres clustering around the once-blighted district is an indication of its potential to become a technology hub, according to industry insiders. Yaba, a district on the mainland across the lagoon from the Lagos Island centre, looks set to spark up heated rivalry amongst countries across the continent as they jostle to replicate America’s ‘Silicon Valley’ in Africa. http://businessdayonline.com/2013/12/yaba-joins-race-to-become-africas-silicon-valley/ |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by Nobody: 10:28am On Jan 06, 2014 |
Last year, many IT related seminars, conferences, get-togethers, luncheons etc etc were he'll in yaba. I agree that many of these companies are powered by people of a particular region but by no means are the firms housed in Imo state. Tedex, an american company whose owners are from the southeast was featured on CNN chose to yaba. Many of the meetings google had last year were all in yaba. |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by kettykin: 12:28pm On Jan 06, 2014 |
OMO IBO: Last year, many IT related seminars, conferences, get-togethers, luncheons etc etc were he'll in yaba. Microsoft , google,Cisco ,IBM ,HP all have offices in Victoria Islands Lagos but that does not make Victoria Island the Silicon Valley , these companies s the last time i checked do their R and D in Los Angeles California and sell their goods nad services all over the world Nigeria inclusive . The IT companies powered by these Imo indigenes can set up business all over Nigeria, Africa, and the world how ever the need to Home-shore their Research and Development Units to Owerri to bolster their Businesses as at now most of them do not even have an R and D , the same applies to chinese and indian multinational doing busines in Africa but with their support centers in Asia , these would help to decongest Lagos and reduce an over dependence in 1 model of doing business |
| Re: Owerri The Birthing of Africa's Silicon Valley/Alley by itstpia99: 2:26am On Mar 08, 2015 |
I don't know if Nigeria can have only one silicon valley. |
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