CAN NIGERIA LEAPFROG INTO THE INFORMATION AGE?

Seventeen years ago in 1997, one of Africa’s pragmatic entrepreneurs and computer geek Phillip Emeagwali delivered a moving speech in New York City titled: Can Nigeria Leapfrog into the Information Age? Below is an abridged version of his 40 page speech delivered on the occasion.

Why should Nigeria invest in the software industry? Because that is where the development, empowerment and money is. Computer industry is a trillion-dollar (yes, that is a “T”) market. Today, the richest companies in the world are in the computer industry. Half of the ten richest men in the United States made their money from computer related-industries.

What We Must Do

We must overhaul our universities and polytechnics to enable them to produce 200,000 well-trained scientists and engineers each year. These engineers should be hired by NEPA to bring us constant electricity, NITEL to bring us reliable telephone services, and NNPC to discover and recover more oil.

The computer industry rewards creativity and penalizes conformity. We must encourage creativity and produce an entrepreneurial work force. Nigerian culture encourages conformity, deference and respect for elders, teachers, and leaders.

We must have a technological Cyber Corridor, an approximately 300-square-mile region allocated for information industry workers such as computer programmers, video-games designers, and Web-site developers. Nigeria should collaborate with AU and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in developing the proposed Cyber Corridor.

We should entice the big multinational infotech companies such as Microsoft, Netscape, IBM, Sun Microsystems, British Telecom, Motorola and Sony to Cyber Corridor by developing the infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables, good roads, safe water, constant electricity, reliable telephones, good schools, modern hospitals, quality housing, leisure and entertainment facilities. In addition, we should permit foreign information technology companies to operate tax-free, bring in highly trained foreign workers, liberalize our laws to allow foreign investors to repatriate some of their profits with less protocol, assure the personal safety of both indigenes and foreigners, rectify our image as the most corrupt nation on earth, ensure political stability by eliminating coups d’etat, and train the workforce for the new Information Age.

The Cyber Corridor could become the Hollywood of Africa, where information technology is used to produce educational and entertainment shows. Today, most movies, television game shows, documentaries and dramas shown in Africa are produced in Hollywood or Beverly Hills. They do not reflect African tastes, values and culture. Information technology will enable African producers to enrich our lives by weaving our glorious history, legend and folklore into movies.

The African Cyber Corridor could be the technological capital of the continent, the regional headquarters of major infotech companies, and a source of cheap labor that could draw jobs away from California’s Silicon Valley. Other nations want to build their technological city. India has built its Information Technology Park. Egypt is building its Pyramid Technology Park. Israel, Taiwan and many other nations are planning to build their technology cities.

We must connect major cities to the Internet with at least a 10-gigabyte digital optical fiber backbone which would simultaneously allow us to place more reliable telephone calls and avoid Nigeria’s unreliable telephone system. Ten gigabytes would allow us to e-mail a copy of the Nigerian national anthem to every African by the time you say “Arise, O compatriots.”

We Africans were the first to enter the Agricultural Age. The first to build in stones. The first to pioneer in technology. The Greeks learned our technology and taught it to the western world. Two thousand years later, the West is leaving us behind as it prepares to enter the Information Age and the third millennium. We must hurry to enter the Information Age.

Let us not be the last country to live in the Agricultural Age and poverty. We must soar with the wind of good fortune, like the eagle, to where the real wealth of nations is. We must adopt a quantum-leap strategy to catch up with Europe.

Ladies and gentlemen, we must ensure that Nigerian children are properly educated. When we invest in our children, we will find that our standard of living grows, too. We should invest in education and technology not because it is easy, but because our children will be the beneficiaries tomorrow of the decisions, we adults, make today. Investing in education and technology will be our legacy to our children; because it will bring the best out of them as well as all Nigerians and enable us to reach our potential as individuals, as communities, as a nation.

Thank you very much.

The Abuja Technology Village was first conceived by Philip Emeagwali in this 40-page speech delivered in August 1997 in New York City. Emeagwali named it the "African Cyber Corridor" and envisioned it as a 300-square-mile African Silicon Valley.[color=#000099][/color]