Nokia Bloggers Forum

VENUE: Roberts Café, Isaac John Street, G.R.A. Ikeja, Lagos.


DATE: Thursday 18th February 2010


TIME: 11am (on-time)


KEY OBJECTIVES: ‘Blogging in Nigeria: what are the next steps?’

Free or with string attached?

ogbongzky:

Free or with string attached?

By invitation, but you are welcome to the public event.

Not many bloggers were invited to the Nokia Bloggers Forum at the Robert's Cafe on Isaac John Street, G.R.A. Ikeja, Lagos. I came with my team and a young manager from Nokia Nigeria welcomed us and we sat down facing a buffet It was a small place and that was when I knew that only few people were invited. We were waiting for the other invited bloggers when the Manager for Communications, Nokia West Africa, Ngozi Anene arrived and she was very receptive before Sede Giwa-Osagie Ikeji (Mrs.) of The Quadrant Company arrived with her colleague Efe and company.  Other invited bloggers and guests joined us and the place became lively as we discussed ‘Blogging in Nigeria: what are the next steps?’ and the use of the popular social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Fola Akinmolayan, the Internet Evangelist was there wearing a baseball cap and glasses. The popular Deolu Akinyemi came with a fellow blogger and social network buff. Adeleke Adeyemi of Timeless newspaper spoke on blogging on science.

The Nokia Bloggers Forum turned out to be an event to introduce us to  Nokia OVI, a new e-mail software already circulating fast in Europe and the United States of America.
Ngozi Anene demonstrated the applications of OVI on her Nokia phone while we had sumptuous buffet.

Left to me that wasn't much of an opener cuz almost everyone knows about Ovi Store, and i use Ovi mail client on my phone i was expecting like toolkits and seminars that will aid Web Dev for nokia Phones like the WRT and Flashlite cuz those 2 are the major backbone for quick development on Web technologies, but it's Sad that Nokia Developer hasn't developed to Nigeria theré's big market for Mobile Application and a system that will allow Nigeria upload their apps to Ovi Store or a billing system whereby your Network Carrier will use credits as payment method of Apps online.Nokia 4 Life

pc guru:

Left to me that wasn't much of an opener cuz almost everyone knows about Ovi Store, and i use Ovi mail client on my phone i was expecting like toolkits and seminars that will aid Web Dev for nokia Phones like the WRT and Flashlite cuz those 2 are the major backbone for quick development on Web technologies, but it's Sad that Nokia Developer hasn't developed to Nigeria theré's big market for Mobile Application and a system that will allow Nigeria upload their apps to Ovi Store or a billing system whereby your Network Carrier will use credits as payment method of Apps online.Nokia 4 Life

If you can develop apps for Nokia Ovi, contact Nokia Nigeria.

I just did that today they refered me to Nokia Forum or Forum Nokia i guess this is the first step towards that trying to get my hands dirty though nothing advanced just a simple task to see if i can make of something u can't see Apple doing stuffs like this for Nigeria,Closed System

@orikinla also thanx for sharing this info never knew about it.

E-mail me at publisher@nigeriansreport.com

pc guru:

I just did that today they refered me to Nokia Forum or Forum Nokia i guess this is the first step towards that trying to get my hands dirty though nothing advanced just a simple task to see if i can make of something u can't see Apple doing stuffs like this for Nigeria,Closed System

See https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-401445.0.html

sent

Nigerian bloggers should send me their contact e-mails for future participations.

@pc guru, and poster,

Sending you to Forum Nokia, is absolutely rubbish on Nokia Nigeria's part. I'd like to get the phone number of one of those there execs and give them a good lashing/beating.

Forum Nokia, is a the global Nokia Developer site for Mobile Developers. As a result, they cannot not cater for the deep developer issues facing 'regional' places like Nigeria.

I expect more from Nokia Nigeria - organizing events which reach out to developers , building strong,vibrant developer communities in the universities , schools, and the like, and encouraging the general growth of mobile applications development in Nigeria;that can fix some of our country's problems.
Compared to their counterparts in regions like South Africa, Kenya , and outerside Africa; like China and India , Nokia Nigeria is not doing squat ! about mobile development. All they are focused on is about sales, marketing and distribution, which is utter rubbish in my opinion, because any Freaking Business establishment/company can do just That. !!

The Real 'Nokia' i know., does and goes BEYOND phone SALES.
In reality, there is a severe limit to what Nokia Global can do in Nigeria, regards mobile app. development issues and the sort, if the local units aren't doing anything.

Go to the Forum Nokia site, and check under their 'Events' tab, then check under "Events for 'EMEA' ", you'll notice they have a good number of developer, training events&activities for countries in the african region , most especially South Africa. There's one of those training events holding March 3-5 (next week), in South Africa. Quite a number of the events they've had in S.A, were organized and hosted BY Nokia South Africa. And quite another good number were hosted in partnership with many of the Universities and Research Institutes in the South African region. - and it's not like Nokia SA doesn't have their own share of 'regional problems'. Of course they do ! , but they're still able to do stuff besides announcing new phones, or having Press Meetings to talk about Ovi (which is quite useless in Nigeria, at the moment, in my own opinion).

And don't give me crap, telling me, about them having RESouRCE Constraints, because a good number of Global TeCh gIant companies,having subsidiaries in Nigeria, also have REsource constraints - but they're able to do Meaningful stuff within their limits, and not just to benefit their pockets with sales. A very Good example is Google Nigeria.

During the last Unilag G-Nigeria 2010 event, it was a very good attempt, by Google, to establish their presence here in Nigeria, . And they were largely 'focusing on their strengths' in this region - i.e. Web and Google Technologies.
In that they left out mobile and a couple of other areas, because having understood the Nigerian environment ,via past events they've organized and surveys they've made, they have been able to recognize which areas they are strongest at. Despite the fact ,that they just got established in Nigeria, in the middle of last year.

Nokia Nigeria, on the other hand, have been in this country for DoNkey Years,(maybe year 2005 or 2003, i can't remember exactly.) and they have yet To Do JaCk! with regards mobile development , except selling phones that have applications which are noT even written by NigerIans.

To cut long thing short, and in summary, i feel it Is a BlooDy excuse for Nokia Nigeria to send you/anyone over to Forum Nokia just to get stuff sorted_out regarding your dev. work.

Forum Nokia ,is the 'developer' part of Nokia, which every sensible Nokia regional base is suppose to either HAVE, Create , OR BuilD. And this can be done in several ways. -as emulated by alot of their other (Nokia) branches around the world.

The potential of the mobile device in Nigeria , massively outstrips that of 'web' and 'desktop' put together. The space is untapped, largely uncharted and not fully explored.
We don't need long statistics to point this out. :
The Penetration rate of the major mobile (development) platforms ,iPhone, Android, WinMo, Bada, etc is is not just infintesimal but insignificant to that of Nokia's, in Nigeria.

Nokia's strength ,in Nigeria, is 'mobile' , they should 'Use it' ,as is done elsewhere, to help fix Nigeria's myraid of problem, and stop exploiting us - with their sales_upon_sales of phones . Of which ,now, we can hardly even differentiate them again from China mobile devices.

And if you happen to be a Nokia Nigeria employee reading this, talk to your Boss (executives) , and get your CrUmmy asses together - this is Nigeria , not Taiwan - and Nokia's even doing better over there , without 'killing' people.
And if you're a Nokia Nigeria exec, and want to sue me for libel , you can send me an email at: david.o (at) computer (dot) org , and i'll be so much happy to do naija-business with you.

N-Soul:

@pc guru, and poster,

Sending you to Forum Nokia, is absolutely rubbish on Nokia Nigeria's part. I'd like to get the phone number of one of those there execs and give them a good lashing/beating.

Forum Nokia, is a the global Nokia Developer site for Mobile Developers. As a result, they cannot not cater for the deep developer issues facing 'regional' places like Nigeria.

I expect more from Nokia Nigeria - organizing events which reach out to developers , building strong,vibrant developer communities in the universities , schools, and the like, and encouraging the general growth of mobile applications development in Nigeria;that can fix some of our country's problems.
Compared to their counterparts in regions like South Africa, Kenya , and outerside Africa; like China and India , Nokia Nigeria is not doing squat ! about mobile development. All they are focused on is about sales, marketing and distribution, which is utter rubbish in my opinion, because any Freaking Business establishment/company can do just That. !!

The Real 'Nokia' i know., does and goes BEYOND phone SALES.
In reality, there is a severe limit to what Nokia Global can do in Nigeria, regards mobile app. development issues and the sort, if the local units aren't doing anything.

Go to the Forum Nokia site, and check under their 'Events' tab, then check under "Events for 'EMEA' ", you'll notice they have a good number of developer, training events&activities for countries in the african region , most especially South Africa. There's one of those training events holding March 3-5 (next week), in South Africa. Quite a number of the events they've had in S.A, were organized and hosted BY Nokia South Africa. And quite another good number were hosted in partnership with many of the Universities and Research Institutes in the South African region. - and it's not like Nokia SA doesn't have their own share of 'regional problems'. Of course they do ! , but they're still able to do stuff besides announcing new phones, or having Press Meetings to talk about Ovi (which is quite useless in Nigeria, at the moment, in my own opinion).

And don't give me crap, telling me, about them having RESouRCE Constraints, because a good number of Global TeCh gIant companies,having subsidiaries in Nigeria, also have REsource constraints - but they're able to do Meaningful stuff within their limits, and not just to benefit their pockets with sales. A very Good example is Google Nigeria.

During the last Unilag G-Nigeria 2010 event, it was a very good attempt, by Google, to establish their presence here in Nigeria, . And they were largely 'focusing on their strengths' in this region - i.e. Web and Google Technologies.
In that they left out mobile and a couple of other areas, because having understood the Nigerian environment ,via past events they've organized and surveys they've made, they have been able to recognize which areas they are strongest at. Despite the fact ,that they just got established in Nigeria, in the middle of last year.

Nokia Nigeria, on the other hand, have been in this country for DoNkey Years,(maybe year 2005 or 2003, i can't remember exactly.) and they have yet To Do JaCk! with regards mobile development , except selling phones that have applications which are noT even written by NigerIans.

To cut long thing short, and in summary, i feel it Is a BlooDy excuse for Nokia Nigeria to send you/anyone over to Forum Nokia just to get stuff sorted_out regarding your dev. work.

Forum Nokia ,is the 'developer' part of Nokia, which every sensible Nokia regional base is suppose to either HAVE, Create , OR BuilD. And this can be done in several ways. -as emulated by alot of their other (Nokia) branches around the world.

The potential of the mobile device in Nigeria , massively outstrips that of 'web' and 'desktop' put together. The space is untapped, largely uncharted and not fully explored.
We don't need long statistics to point this out. :
The Penetration rate of the major mobile (development) platforms ,iPhone, Android, WinMo, Bada, etc is is not just infintesimal but insignificant to that of Nokia's, in Nigeria.

Nokia's strength ,in Nigeria, is 'mobile' , they should 'Use it' ,as is done elsewhere, to help fix Nigeria's myraid of problem, and stop exploiting us - with their sales_upon_sales of phones . Of which ,now, we can hardly even differentiate them again from China mobile devices.

And if you happen to be a Nokia Nigeria employee reading this, talk to your Boss (executives) , and get your CrUmmy asses together - this is Nigeria , not Taiwan - and Nokia's even doing better over there , without 'killing' people.
And if you're a Nokia Nigeria exec, and want to sue me for libel , you can send me an email at: david.o (at) computer (dot) org , and i'll be so much happy to do naija-business with you.

You have made very important observations.
I have forwarded your reply to the appropriate Nokia office, because I cannot speak for Nokia.

i don't have to wait for Nokia Nigeria to start program awareness before i can learn how todeploy on them ,forum nokia is very useful there are free and online learning training session that even noobs will find it easy to code but though u speak some sense in ur comment.

@op,
Thanks for the email.
Though i have a pretty good idea of what the content their reply email will be, as this is not the first time. However, still look forward to hearing from them.

@pc guru,
It is key and at some point in time, the element of 'awareness' will be seriously needed, in Nigeria. It's merely a matter of time.

The Awareness thing is totally right,from my pov Nigeria is only seen as a Demographic Sales Market rather than seen as a place where Software Development can take hold,

@op,
No reply from them yet ? Or perhaps they are not really bothered about such people or topics. -since it's only one person complaining.

Anyways, i've clarified with some of my contacts. Nokia has developer centric events planned for Nigeria this year. So i'll update this thread when i get more 'publicly-sharable details' (as since it's still in the works,i'm not suppose to share too much detail(s) than i'm suppose to).
Cheers.

N-Soul:

@op,
No reply from them yet ? Or perhaps they are not really bothered about such people or topics. -since it's only one person complaining.

Anyways, i've clarified with some of my contacts. Nokia has developer centric events planned for Nigeria this year. So i'll update this thread when i get more 'publicly-sharable details' (as since it's still in the works,i'm not suppose to share too much detail(s) than i'm suppose to).
Cheers.

The Nokia Head for MEA has been following updates on this thread.

Any new events from Nokia it's been kinda Silent by Event i mean Workshop or Seminar

We are , Er, Sorry i mean 'they', are working on it.
Sorry about the mid-silence thing. What i can ascertainly say is that lots of stuff are being put together.
Hopefully, by God's grace, in the coming weeks there'll be a few public announcements regarding this mobile development topic and the planned roadmap for it in Nigeria.

Still no word on seminars anyway anyone interested in creating Widgets should simply ignore using Symbian SDK that stuff will frustrate you just go to Symbian.org and get WRTide,Aptana fans will find it easier to use and Guaranai UI (jquery lib for nokia), i think it's unfair for Nokia not to have any plan for Nigerian Dev.i have to go through forum nokia just to get answers oh ga o

pc guru:

Still no word on seminars anyway anyone interested in creating Widgets should simply ignore using Symbian SDK that stuff will frustrate you just go to Symbian.org and get WRTide,Aptana fans will find it easier to use and Guaranai UI (jquery lib for nokia), i think it's unfair for Nokia not to have any plan for Nigerian Dev.i have to go through forum nokia just to get answers oh ga o

If Nokia has no plans for Nigerian mobile apps developers, I have plans to invite them to the launch of our Startup Weekend to share in the opportunities for developers of mobile apps to compete and get the attention of top American investors. I had a meeting with Stanbic-IBTC Bank today and the bank is going to roll out some products and services to attract Start-ups by young techies in Nigeria.

Hmm, this is not bad at all.
Interesting

Been around, , its just so darn hard clicking the reply button these days.

Gamine:

Been around, , its just so darn hard clicking the reply button these days.

Gamine,
Sontochukwu Okeke is doing her Masters in the UK.
Have you been keeping in touch?

Apps developers should submit their apps on http://n8makemyapp.com/.

This should be enough for now.