About Techlaunchpad

The Nigerian Ministry of Communication Technology has launched a Technology Innovation Program called Techlaunchpad to accelerate the access to market for the local software developers in Nigeria. With venture capital fund of US$15m (from both government and private investors) to support this program and the other Incubation programs in Nigeria, the Ministry is poised to work with the private sector to accelerate the development of the local software industry.

The Honourable Minister of Communication Technology spoke about this initiative on YouTube at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV4oF37mrog

Techlaunchpad – as an IT Accelerator - is a collaboration between the Ministry of Communication Technology and industry partners to nurture and develop software entrepreneurs/developers who have a vision to build successful software companies that support the Nigerian sectors such as financial services and oil and gas industry. The program partners include Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total, Shell, First Bank, Access Bank, Accenture, Digital Jewel and others.
This first phase of this program seeks existing, new and aspiring software developers (company or individuals) who have beta or almost complete software solution for the Banks, Oil and Gas industry in the areas listed below.
 For the Financial Industry:
o Analytics (i.e. Business Intelligence)
o Mobility (Payment/Collection)
o CRM (Social Media Aggregator)
o Digital Media (Marketing, Webcast, Subscription)
o Fraud Management

 For the Oil & Gas Industry:
o Real Time Monitoring
i. Repair and Maintenance
ii. Decision Assistance
o Mobility (Payment/Collection)

Eligibility of the Solutio[/b]n

 The beta solution must meet the requirements below:
o Must be innovative and not infringe on any known copyright
o Application and solution documentation must be in English Language
o Solution should not yet have been introduced into the market; but should require short lead time to commercialization (18 months or below)
o Application must be within the stated areas of scope under the following industries:
i. Financial Services
ii. Oil & Gas Industry

[b]Benefits to Developers
Successful applicants/developers will be admitted into Incubation Centres in Lagos to develop the full solutions within 6 months. During this stage, the successful applicants will be provided office space, high speed internet access and other office logistics within the 6 months duration of the program. The software developers will be mentored by Chief Information Officers of the partners and other identified Executives to fine tune the quality and industry relevance of their solution to ensure that the solutions comply with international quality and standards, as well as accelerate the launch of the product.

Other benefits to the developers during this program will include:
o Training: covering areas such as software standards, quality, testing methodology and so on
o Access to development tools and testing environment
o Business advisory services: business registration, intellectual property protection, contact agreement
o Funding: operational expenses, providing investor access to start-up capital or venture capital
o Links to industry and strategic partners: Access to functional experts/industry, mentoring & networking
o Technology commercialization assistance: Providing access to the market to enhance fit and patronage

Who Can Apply

 Existing, new and aspiring software developers (company or individuals)
 Nationality
o Participants must be Nigerian citizens
o Participants must be of a minimum of 18 years
o Participants must be available in Nigeria throughout the duration of the programme
o Participants with business entities must be registered in Nigeria with a minimum of 51% local equity (i.e.. At least 51% of the company should be owned by Nigerians)

How to Apply
Eligible individuals and companies are encouraged to apply by submitting an application online at www.techlaunchpad.com.ng/application

Deadline for submission[b][/b]

11:59pm on February 24th 2013

it's FCMT again! can you state how much of this VC fund will be pumped into the business.
we will provide this, we will provide that wont cut it.
This is naija and we know better.

the benefit to developer part is too vague... does the developer get to own the software after development? or does he get paid for his time? if so, how is the payment plan? daily, monthly? and how much??

The VC fund is available to the start-ups that have compelling solutions with socio-economic values. This fund is not strictly government. Local and foregin venture capitalists are involved. On whether the developer own the software or get paid off for his development time, Techlaunchpad will provide legal services to help developers protect their intellectual property. It will be a mutual agreement between the developers and the industry. You can choose to embrace Build, Own and Operate (BOO) or Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT).

1. "Successful applicants/developers will be...", what determines success here?
2. With the use of "s" in applicants/developers, how many winners will emerge?
3. Who decides the winners?
4. When you say "software", that is too vague, this includes web and standalones, platform can be linux, windows or mobile.
(specifying languages wont hurt, no one want to spend close to 2 months coding in PHP only to be screened out by an unforgiving pythonista)

@webdezz
1. "What determines success here?" The beta solution must fulfil the following requirements:
- Must be innovative and not infringe on any known copyright
- Application and solution documentation must be in English Language
- Solution should not yet have been introduced into the market; but should require short lead time to commercialization (18 months or below)
- Application must be within the stated areas of scope under the following industries: Financial Services and Oil & Gas Industry
The application should be able to address the following scope:
For the Financial Industry
- Analytics(BI)
- Mobility (Payment/Collection)
- CRM (Social Media Aggregator)
- Digital Media (Marketing, Webcast, Subscription)
- Fraud Management
For the Oil&Gas Industry
- Real Time Monitoring
- Repair and Maintenance
- Decision Assistance
- Mobility (Payment/Collection)

2. "With the use of "s" in applicants/developers, how many winners will emerge?" Ans: 10 - 20

3. "Who decides the winners?" Ans: A Selection Committee comprising of the Chief Information Officers of the partners, and other Industry Executives.

4. "When you say "software", that is too vague, this includes web and standalones, platform can be linux, windows or mobile." Ans: It is inclusive of both web and standalone. The solution should be technology agnostic.

Thank you.

Thanks Bunmi.

Moderator, can we move this to the homepage?

We will put our best and just pray the winners are not known already.
i don't trust FG stuffs

Thanks webdezzi. Sincerely speaking, the winners are not known yet. The FGN is not going to be the selector of the winners. The CIOs of the partners are going to do so. In addition to that, those who are not winners will be accepted into another initiative that is similar to elance. Let me not say so much about that yet, but surely the Honourable Minister for Communication Technology has strong passion for the software developers and she has few initiatives to accelerate their development.

Once again, thank you for the confidence to be part of this.

Who Can Apply

 Existing, new and aspiring software developers (company or individuals)
 Nationality
o Participants must be Nigerian citizens
o Participants must be of a minimum of 18 years
o Participants must be available in Nigeria throughout the duration of the programme
o Participants with business entities must be registered in Nigeria with a minimum of 51% local equity (i.e.. At least 51% of the company should be owned by Nigerians)

why ??

o Participants must be of a minimum of 18 years
why ??

Ans: We understand that innovation, particularly in IT, is becoming a norm amongst younger ages. We appreciate this. As a Government Ministry, we have to respect the Nigerian labour law that stipulates 18 years as the minimum age. In a situation where anyone below 18 has solutions that address the requirements, such can team with an older group to pitch for the process. Hope this helps you.

^^^

[img]http://www.18inhd.com/download.php?videoid=292649&l=24791&t=0&v=desktop&exotracker=MjU5ODgzfHlvdXJsdXN0LmNvbXxOR0F8fDU0MDEzMDZ8eW91cmx1c3R8NjQyNTV8MTc5MTc2fDQxLjIyMC42OS41N3wxMDd8Nw==&lg=us&sl=53_62[/img]


[img]http://www.bangbus.com/t7/join/124[/img]

bunmiokunowo: o Participants must be of a minimum of 18 years
why ??

Ans: We understand that innovation, particularly in IT, is becoming a norm amongst younger ages. We appreciate this. As a Government Ministry, we have to respect the Nigerian labour law that stipulates 18 years as the minimum age. In a situation where anyone below 18 has solutions that address the requirements, such can team with an older group to pitch for the process. Hope this helps you.

I don't think your explanation is good enough. The age limit should be removed... that's all. This is software development we are talking about here.
I have seen and heard what mere 15 year old US kids have done in that field so far...

ekwah:

I don't think your explanation is good enough. The age limit should be removed... that's all. This is software development we are talking about here.
I have seen and heard what mere 15 year old US kids have done in that field so far...

I think it's well explanatory, the point here has a lot to do with the Nigerian Labour Law NOT US. Sir, take it easy...We've to respect the law.

ekwah:

I don't think your explanation is good enough. The age limit should be removed... that's all. This is software development we are talking about here.
I have seen and heard what mere 15 year old US kids have done in that field so far...

ë

A minor cannot be party to a contract.

Damn... some people are about to get used as usual. Have you asked yourself why the same FG we all know would want to help just random Nigerians like you and I, when their own kids and the political class are still alive? Well goodluck (jonathan) to y'all. Call me a pessimist, thank you in advance.

Asking onbehalf of those who are supporting the fact that we should accept CMS like wordpress and joomla as new way of Website Design,

Can a person withouth HTML/CSS and PHP expertise apply?

[size=30pt]I STUDIED BANKING AND FINANCE CAN I APPLY?[/size]

*solid*:
Asking onbehalf of those who are supporting the fact that we should accept CMS like wordpress and joomla as new way of Website Design,

Can a person withouth HTML/CSS and PHP expertise apply?

go find beter thing do abeg

*solid*:
Asking onbehalf of those who are supporting the fact that we should accept CMS like wordpress and joomla as new way of Website Design,

Can a person withouth HTML/CSS and PHP expertise apply?

Honestly, the questions some of you are asking is enough to disqualify you from the process. If you think joomla and wordpress is used for production applications, then you obviously are not qualified. CMS and Wordpress are actually publishing tools, not application development tools. The best you can do with them is use them as front end data publishing interfaces. That is actually like the proverbial "israelites journey". If you want to do software, especially business/financial software and high end production software like you have for the oil and gas industry, learn java or c/c++.

[size=18pt]You all are literarily speaking in unknown tongues [/size]

the age thing is archaic thinking in a lightening speed generation. Must FGC drag its archaism into something as innovative as software? Haba! Australean library software or so costing millions of dollars hacked by teenager, 17 year old writes innovative cancer detecting software with 97 percent or so (very high) success rate . Such minors will be in danger of being cheated in a contract , even if theyre not they dont need to share their shine with nobody! Please revise that age clause . It's so so narrow thinking in action.

can undergraduates apply?

esseay: can undergraduates apply?

looool. una guys 2 overfunny. make i go carry my deitel java book start to read, i wan do software way go detect oil for my backyard.

Applicant must be based in Nigeria