THIS year, Nigerian youths have participated in quite a number of competitions aimed at bringing out the best in them, especially in the area of information and communications technology. One of such competitions, and perhaps the biggest and the most glamorous is the Imagine Cup competition, sponsored by software giant, Microsoft Corporation.

Also, search engine supremo, Google, has also sponsored contests aimed at unleashing the hidden potentials of Nigerians youths. At the local level, the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria, ISPON, has also organized a software contest which was won by a team of developers from Abia State Polytechnic.

Very soon, by the grace of the Almighty, we will enter a new year, and the round of contests by various companies and organizations will begin again. Our youths will participate, the media will report their participation, and as seems to be the case, that will be all, until the next competition comes round.

Private sector apathy

While our governments have their problems, one is quite disturbed at the attitude of captains in the private sector. Here, nobody seems interested in commercializing any local invention, unlike in the western world. Can we count the number of people that made money from the inventions of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla?

In an earlier instalment of this column, I wrote about a university don, Dr Ajibola Meshida who won the NLNG Prize for Science in 2008. Dr Meshida’s invention of lateralite, an earth substance, qualified him for the prize. Lateralite, which I saw at Dr Meshida’s laboratory at the University of Lagos, had been immersed in water under different conditions for months; Dr Meshida said that if used in road construction, our roads would not be failing every rainy season as they do now.

His expectation was that some investor would happen along and a lateralite works would be set up, which construction firms can buy and use to make our roads. Since we all profit more from roads that fail serially; nobody has deemed it wise to invest in Dr Meshida’s lateralite.

Local software solutions

In ICT, there are many software firms in this country with lots of reliable solutions for business. My own wonder is why all these software developers have not packed bag and baggage and left for Burkina Faso, since businesses here, especially banks obstinately prefer to use software developed in the US, Europe, India, or some other South-East Asian nation.

What they forget, and conveniently too, is that these nations got to where they are today by patronising local talent, which then grew in leaps and bounds to become global giants that we know them to be today.

Once upon a time electronics products from a particular South-East Asian nation was popular here and we called them sub-standard; but that is now in the past. Our repeated patronage of that country’s “fake”products enabled them to grow, and now are quite global in standard, commanding prices like “originals”from Japan or Europe.

This is an appeal to our private sector to have a rethink and patronise local software, it is the only real way to grow local expertise in ICT. Even if our governments set up countless technology incubation centres that churn out ICT products and patents by the thousands, if there is no market for them, the effort would have been wasted. Let’s think, talk, walk, and work Nigerian, all the time.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/12/it-incubation-centres-expect-new-generation-of-software-entreprenuers-johnson-promises/

funny enough, you and I were thinking in the same direction. I was thinking of setting-up a incubation hub in Port Harcourt next year to tap young talents.

I remember with nostalgia the frustration I received when I was going from place to place seeking patronage for my software products.
.NET