Great Business Opportunities: Abuja Technology Village

final layout of the mega project













Federal Government gives its approval for Nigeria's Technology Valley

12/5/2005

Vanguard (Lagos)

Emeka Nwosu

The Federal Government recently approved the establishment of a Technology Village for software and manpower development in the area of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), in Abuja, Nigeria's federal capital. The tech village is expected to cost between $600 to 800 Million Dollars.

According to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir el Rufai, who appears to be prime motivator behind the initiative, "what we hope to do with the village is to have the highest quality infrastructure attracting the best brains in information and bio-technology, pharmaceutical and IT research". The technology village is expected to provide employment for about 60,000 people, with the eventual aim of boosting growth and performance through information technology.

The Minister said though the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology had been working on the village since 2001, Nigerians in the diaspora interested in the village made it a reality by investing millions of dollars to do the business plan and feasibility study.

One of the aims of Nigeria's IT policy is for Nigeria to be an exporter of information technology products. India, which has already led other developing nations in this regard, benefits tremendously from the performance of its information technology industry. India is today the recognized and leading IT outsourcing hub in the world. With the global trend indicating phenomenal growth in outsourcing Nigeria can't afford to be left behind.

Some have dubbed the technology as Nigeria's Silicon Valley. The aim of the National IT policy and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) is ensure Nigeria as a nation not just benefits from the advances in information technology, but also becomes a key player in information technology.

While information about the technology village mentions the involvement of Nigerians in diaspora, reports indicate that it is largely a government affair with still little input from local IT professionals.

Interesting some active participants in Nigeria's ICT sector are not too enamored with the choice of Abuja. For instance, the Computer and Allied Products Dealers Association of Nigeria would have preferred a development of Ikeja technology market - also known as the computer village - in Lagos which is Nigeria's current IT hotspot. And for many involved in IT, Lagos and not Abuja is where most IT activities are currently concentrated.

However, to make a meaningful impact, it is expected that the tech village will be a collaborative effort that addresses issues involving all stakeholders. It certainly appears to be a positive step for information technology empowerment in Nigeria.

The construction will begin in early 2007.


Here is the final layout of the The African Institute of Science and Technology within the Abuja Technology Village














Italian Star Architect Fuksas to Design Science and Technology Institute in Nigeria


08/08/2006

By Robert Such

“I wanted to design something to remember the Mandela philosophy,” says Massimiliano Fuksas of the African Institute of Science and Technology (AIST). In May the Italian star architect won the RIBA-organized international competition to design the AIST, which will be located immediately south of the Nigerian capital of Abuja and will help foster the economic development of Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Built for the private organization The Nelson Mandela Institution for Knowledge Building and the Advancement of Science and Technology in Sub-Saharan Africa, the 2.6 million-square-foot, $360 million complex will provide research and education facilities for scientists and engineers. Faculty and administration buildings will surround the central Nelson Mandela Square.

Constructed from local timber, stone and brick, campus buildings will incorporate sustainable technologies, such as water harvesting and photovoltaic technology. Traditional textile patterns and African “red earth” structures inspired Fuksas’s design: In plan view, residential quarters are designed as long, sinuous interconnecting shapes. Individual faculty complexes, each one different from the other, comprise buildings grouped around internal streets and courtyards. Vertical openings in the buildings’ timber skin will filter light and promote natural ventilation.

The site will be crossed by access roads linking the institute to a planned public park and open-air museum on a former mining site to the west and a future sports complex to the south. The Abuja Technology Village, a cluster of high-technology companies and for-profit research intuitions, will develop around the campus.

Fuksas was selected from a shortlist that included Allies and Morrison Architects, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Saucier + Perrotte Architectes, SeARCH, and Rafael Vinoly Architects. “This is much more than a huge project,” says Fuksas. “It is also a way of seeing whether it is possible to do architecture in a continent which has seen so much suffering in the past."

Why is nobody taking up the dicussion about this great project that is going to be built shortly? If such a project had been posted on an Indian forum, a lot of people would have already joined the discussion ith great enthusiam.

Guys, this is not the right way to move our ountry forward

This is a great business opportunity for every Nigerian and the thread goes unanswered. It is a pity, sorry!

Constantin,
Thanks for sharing these nice images / press releases (i've already seen them though!).

The project is very ambitious, there's no question about.  I share your disgust with how pessmistic, cynical, and unmotivated Nigerians are today.   It's as if they lack the intention to become worthy of international status - it's their country, yet (and partially understandable) their main concern is putting food on the table.

The good news: This project will be privately financed.  Therefore, the person above who commented "we don't want to be deceived" should review the project brief and have a little faith in his country before spreading hopelessness and depsair.

Projects like this should be encouraged.  It will help reduce Nigeria's dependence on its oil resources and diversify the economy towards service-industries, for a change.

Next time I'm in Abuja i'll visit the site and post photos if construction began (will be there somewhere mid 2007).

This is a good plan, as is with all good plans that have come from great minds in Nigeria.

I hope the project is completed on time, on budget, according to plan. I also hope that there will be steady power in the country by the time it is supposed to commence operations, cause if there is none, then the project will be still-born.

Nigeria is no poor country, but the spate of ill leadership, ill policies and ill planning has slowed our development to a crawl. A project like this has the potential to position us to tap and grow fat on the outpouring of oursourcing from the developed countries.

Many thanks for bringing this information to the attention of the forum.