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http://www.siliconafrica.com/most-powerful-it-guys-in-africa/


Most Powerful IT Guys In Africa
By: Mawuna Remarque KOUTONIN
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011 at 11:10 pm.

Only an estimated one percent of web and tech startups of Black CEOs and founders and it come as a shock that a much bigger part of the population is not included. However, with the growing popularity of smart phones and tablet computers, a new niche is opening for talented Africans and provides them a platform to show the world what they can do.

Mark Shuttleworth

Mark Shuttleworth is a South African and founder of Ubuntu. Shuttleworth founded Thawte in 1995 when he was just 22 years old. Thawte is a digital certificate and internet security firm which Shuttleworth later sold to VeriSign for more than five hundred million dollars and he used the proceeds to finance a venture capital firm for tech incubators. However, Mark Shuttleworth is famous for his Ubuntu operating system which his company distributed as an open source program for free.

Ubuntu is a well known Linux based OS available for desktop computers and servers worldwide. The aim of this precision engineered operating system is to provide a clean and user friendly operating system for customers including large scale enterprise operation.

Chike Maduegbuna

Recently, Chike Maduegbuna, the CEO of a new web startup Fans Connect Online and the brains behind the now popular Afrinolly App was named winner in G-Kenya conference sponsored by Google in the first Android Developers Challenge for Sub-Saharan Africa. Afrinolly is a Nigerian developed application who took the cash prize of $25,000 in category for Entertainment/Games/Media. The success of Afrinolly catapulted Chike Maduegbuna to fame and power especially in the IT industry. Today, Fans Connect Online, under the supervision of Maduegbuna is the leading digital marketing company in Africa not to mention its hand in social media and mobile app development.

Ory Okolloh

Another African who is making name in the IT industry in Africa is Ory Okolloh. She is Kenyan and a co-founder of Ushahidi. Okolloh is a Harvard trained lawyer, a blogger, and an activist who led the founding of Ushahidi. This is an open source crowd sourcing utility project that empowers citizens and eyewitnesses around the world to report violent incidents using mobile email, SMS, and other web platforms including Twitter. Ory Okolloh is now the Policy Manager for Google in Africa and is known as one of the most influential and powerful women in global IT.

Ndubuisi Ekekwe

Ndubuisi Ekekwe is an inventor who authored Adaptive Application-Specific Instrumentation and Control Microsystems and edited the Nanotechnology and Microelectronics: Global Diffusion, Economics and Policy which won the IGI Global 2010 Excellence in Technology Research for the Book of The Year Award.

Erik Hersman

Erik Hersman is technologist and a blogger who has been raised in Kenya and Sudan but now lives in Nairobi. He is also a co-founder of Ushahidi and the founder of AfriGadget.

Jonathan Gosier

Jonathan Gosier is both a designer and software developer who love data science. Gosier is also the co-founder of metaLayer.com. The website aims to enhance the way contents are managed and analyzed by atomizing and visualizing data.

Herman Chinery-Hesse

Herman Chinery-Hesse is a software engineer by profession. Herman also co-founded the SOFTtribe Limited nineteen years ago which has become among the leading software firms in West Africa.

Kwabena Boahen

Kwabena Boahen is a bioengineer from Ghana and is the chief investigator at the Brains in Silicon lab at Stanford. His current research is focused on creating a simulation platform the will enable the inner workings of the cortex to be replicated in detail.

Mo Ibrahim

Mo Ibrahim is a mobile communications tycoon and a Sudanese billionaire and the founder of Celtel. The Celtel has more than twenty four million mobile phone subscribers distributed in fourteen African countries before it was sold in 2005 for $3.4 billion.

Bright B. Simons

Simons is both a social entrepreneur and a technology innovator. He is also a development activist who is an Executive at IMANI which is an Accra based think tank. Simons is also the president of mPedigree Network and initiated a system that enables consumers to verify immediately whether a particular medicine is safe or not via free text messaging.

Mawuna R. Koutonin, is the founder of Goodbuzz, a social marketing platform with activities worldwide. He is a world peace activist who relentlessly works to empower people to express their full potential and pursue their dreams, regardless of their background.

Born in Togo (West Africa) in a small village 200km from the capital Lome, Koutonin was the first of his father 36 children to attend University and graduated with two Master degrees (Master in Philosophy and Master in Business Administration).

In 1993, when Koutonin was forced to walk ten miles a day to go to school, he discovered a formula that completely changed his life.

In 1994, he traded his basic food allowance to pay for his first class in computers while studying art and philosophy at university. With friends, he created one of the first Togo news website on the Internet in 1995.

Koutonin’s passion for the Internet coupled with his wish to make his father be proud of him gave birth to his company.

At a deepest level, the mission of his company is to preserve and advocate the belief that “We are on earth to serve each other”. And, he envisioned a future where his company’s tools make each individual on earth an active and generous sponsor of the success of others.

Koutonin’s ultimate dream is to open a world-class human potential development school in Africa in 2017. If you are interested in learning more about this venture or Koutonin’s other projects, you can reach him directly by emailing at mk@linkcrafter.com.

superstar1: U

You are a learner on NL. We have dwelt on this severally, more established people on NL eg Chino can do the assignment for you, if they so wish.

I don't run errands for omo y1bo.

You are a blatant liar. There is no such data anywhere indicating that Osun GDP is greater than that of SE. Prove me wrong

There are a total of 11,607 industrial and business establishments in Imo State: 9,274 are in the services/business, 1,858 in the manufacturing sector, 416 in building and construction, 53 in agricultural activity, while three establishments each are in mining and quarrying as well as in water, gas and electricity.

Entrepreneur in the state need a great deal of support to enable them tool-up their factories and energize their productivity engines. In the good old days, the major state-owned industries in Imo included:

Standard Shoes Company, Owerri, which produced different types of footwear;

Clay Products, Ezinachi-Okigwe, which produced burnt bricks for all kinds of buildings;

Sack Hercules, Owerri, which assembled motor-cycles and bicycles;

Nsu tile Factory, Ehime-Mbano,

Imo Health Foods Limited, Ubakalo,

Adapalm Nigeria Limited,Ohaji-Egbema, a palm oil processing plant

Imo Modern Poultry Limited, Avutu-Obowo;

Modern Produce Inspection Laboratory, Owerri, and

Oguta Motels Limited, Oguta.

Some of these industries are still in operation but at much below world-class performance.

Industries under partnership included or still includes -

Fuason Industries, Owerri, which produces galvanized iron sheets, the

Afrik Enterprises, Awo-Omama, a pharmaceutical company,

Imo Concord Hotel, Owerri. Industries that had been partially privatized include

Card Packaged Industry, Orlu,

Resin Paints Limited, Aboh Mbaise and

Aluminium Extrusion Industry, Inyisi.

Industries in the private sector include
Sab Spare Parts and Allied Accessories, Okigwe, which make motor-spare parts,

Oma Pharmaceutical, Awomoma, which produces drugs and medicines,

Magil Industries, Atta, which makes steel, sponge, bread, polythene and paper

http://imostategermany.org/index.php/about-imo-state/industries-in-imo-state



Other private ones not on that list include Rokana Ind PLC

Now I need me a list of such from Osun State

omololu2020: u r a very foolish guy,u will bliv d central bank wen dey say we hav more igbos going to skul dan any oda tribe in Nig,u will sit down in ur huse não keep shoutin aba n onisha r d biggest market in west africa,but wen dey tell u Osun Gdp z bigger dan dat of imo u will say z a lie....it was wen i get to nairaland i saw ao tribalist u igbos r,yet igbos smile n bhave as if all z well in lagos,hav neva seen a igbo man sayin all dis shit wen we discuss abt politics in my life,but u pple com to nairaland n spew shit,now i c why pple want dis country to b divided n if dat will happen i will b very happy

You have nothing.u are poor and ignorant.

Folks, is it true that the GDP of Osun State is greater than that of all SE states combined? That is the claim made by the Osun-born and Lagos-migrant poster, Superstar1.

Where is that data, whether fake or real?

omololu2020: we also hav femogey geo limited in oshogbo,solek company oshogbo,oshogbo steel rolling mills,nigerian machine tools etc.

Rokana industries in Imo,

Oshogbo steel and Nigerian Machine tools are fed govt stuff and they are presently not working.

Oshogbo has nothing. It's very poor and parading a fake GDP

superstar1: When did Lagos become part of the land bestowed on the descendants of Cain the wanderer?

In Nigeria people are officially identified by their state of origin not geopolitical zone of origin. Why did you migrate from your state to another state?

atlwireles: Tha, till data came out showing they contribute the most to non oil export too. All we asked is just some level of respect.

Interesting. Can you share that data? I have not seen it.

ketoprofen: are we now convinced there is no industry in osun?

Of course there's none.

superstar1: To be ignored.

I stay on Admiralty way, Lekki. I am proudly OSun and will never claim Lagos for anything, like some people from the gully erosion.

If you are opportuned to trannsverse the number of states and countries i have been to, then you are blessed. I return back all the glory to God and not to despise miserable and hapless poverty stricken lives like yours.

Why do you live in Lagos and not Osun? Are you a poor Yoruba migrant?

atlwireles: I don't see any need to have this kind of discussion on this thread. I don't see any war in Nigeria, not today or in 50 years to come.

Do you realize how many Igbos were deinvested by the Boko Haram menace?

atlwireles: That's why we have courts around the world. This scenario does not apply to Igbos only. What will northerners with assets in the East, WEST and South do, or the westerners with assets in all parts of the country.

What should Nigerdeltans do with assets across Nigeria. The courts within and outside Nigeria will fix that problem. Though, I'm not expecting any forceful move en masse by any group in this country.

What will an international court do in a war or war-like situation? How many non Igbo own big investments in Igboland? Hopefully, we do not get to that point.

EasternLeopard: That is why we must go global to prevent putting all our eggs into one basket

Not just global, but home first, then global.

superstar1: Oga, it is a known fact that we have thrashed on NL, severally.

Google is your friend, my father did not sent me to school, to be assisting omo y1bo, with their under the mango tree education, to do their homework for them.

I had thanked you before, but now I know better, you cheap liar.

atlwireles: Nigeria: Its Zonal Populations And Zonal Economic Contributions

Can we return to the topic of this thread?

If there is a major upheaval in Nigeria requiring that Igbos forceable move back en masse to the SE, they will likely move w/out their investments. What happens to those investments?

omololu2020: r u tellin me dat small owerri has more beta roads dan oshogbo,sit down in ur huse não keep showin us ao foolish u r by comparin imo wit a little GDP to osun,list 3 industry dat r located in owerri

List one industry in osun.

All these Yoruba blatant liars here, where is the Osun versus SE GDP data? You think you can come here, make any claim and go unchallenged?

superstar1: You are as clueless as your post. Are the PDP guys from the moon? or what is this mengistu from torah borah mountain saying?

I repeat, how has the poverty in Osun resulted in their emigration into your gully eroded land. That means their land is better and more prosperous than your eroded red mud, that is why theyr refuse to move into the pit you are calling a region. People migrate to where there is prosperity.

Stem the wave of emigration that is a scourge in your region and stop this human desertification you are witnessing.

Dude, igbos migrate not just due to poverty but due to an innate desire to do so. Many rich Igbos migrate.

Superstar1, where is the Osun versus SE GDP data?

superstar1: See you, they did not get richer but they have better roads, schools, health services and infrastructure -- that translates to better quality of life and life expectancy.

Riches is not in Naira and Kobo alone. Get that straight.

Dude stop huffing and puffing. Osun has nothing better than any Igbo state. The rusty roofs of Osun speak volumes.

ketoprofen: For what diseases?
And mention the diseases that can be treated in kano which can't be treated in Enugu for eg.
What do u mean by one govt Hosp one can come for treatment?

Any major disease at all. And please leave kano out of it. Let's discuss our own problem. Much is expected of Igbos.

superstar1: When the stats favours you, it is the correct stat, and when it favours others, it must be incorrect.

The usual myopic view of the people from the East of the Niger.

I am from Osun and the stat currently says their GDP is better than.the whole of SE. Deal.with it.

Osun GDP greater than that of the whole of SE? Could you share that data here? Thanks.

superstar1: It does. It shows the buffer zone and shock ability of each state. If FGN removes allocations today, due to the oil wells drying up, your IGR will show whether you will thrive, survive, barely make ends meet or out rightly turn to detroit --- bankruptcy.

Allocation makes stealing easier for politicians. With IGR, the citizens are more concerned about how government/politicians are spending the money, because it is the sweat of the people. With asking of questions by the electorate, the system will induce better think tanks as politicians, sustainable accountability and progressive development.

Are you suggesting that politicians don't steal IGRs?

Even, the current state of Ariaria Market in Aba https://www.nairaland.com/1874739/current-state-ariaria-international-market is a classic example of how private wealth cannot do much for the collective good. Okay, why is every trader not tarring the front of their shop in that market?

atlwireles: But IGR and GDP are now becoming political weapons to determine, the free loaders in the system. So, states need to take them serious.

Yes, I am arguing along these lines too. Read my posts. I just wanted to tamper down Superstar1 a little bit

ketoprofen: Webometrics univ ranking? Guy, must u import every single thing to argue this?
What abt CBN stats, Common entrance stats., poverty rates that favours SE more?
The GDP and igr have been trashed severally, osun was placed ahead of anambra n abia and we have seen how osun, as economically sleeping as it is became more productive than ekwulobia or neni.
Biko, argue in line.

Yes I said University ranking was arguable

But those other stats you mentioned are still individual indices. And I have said that individually we are the best.

Can you readily mention one great government hospital in Igboland where someone from Lagos or Kano can come for treatment? Those are public things we are lacking.

ketoprofen: its like u don't know the economic and long term implications of siting the only 3 functional ports in one state and rendering the others useless.
What of the policies that put the embassies, high commissions and corporate headquarters of multinationals there?
Leave matter for Mathias.
Just open a river port in Onitsha or revitalize the ones in onne for regular importation , u go see how the thing go happen.

There are functional ports in Onne ( I worked in Onne for 5 years) and Port Harcourt. And even if they are non functional now, why is that so? GEJ has been president for how many years now and he cannot make the ports in his zone functional?

A River Port will do only as much as the feeding sea port allows. Onitsha River port will be fed by either Warri or other ports in ND. If those are not doing well, then Onitsha River Port would not do well too. I do not want to blame God for not giving core Igboland a seaport, but if we had ours thing would be way different.

superstar1: See this mengistu.

What is the debt profile of US and Europe?

This is the logic behind.public sector indebtedness. Pick up the indebtedness now to build infrastructure that will lead to more socio-economic activities and it will translate into higher IGR for govt and more amenities will be provided.

The infrastructure built by indebtedness will still be built by the ones that did not borrow in the nearest future, but at an higher cost. The cost would have increased because of inflation.

I repeat, penny wise pound foolish.

Permit me to digress, but in Nigeria, IGR and GDP don't mean much because half of the money is stolen by politicians. It's just on paper.

EasternLeopard: Pls use examples to explain what you mean by SE states are not competitive

IGR
GDP
University rankings (I know this is arguable)
GOVERNMENT-DRIVEN INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENTS
HOSPITALS

EasternLeopard: Your last paragraph is true

The question we should ask ourselves is

1) What can we do to attract population and investments back home

Elect the right leaders. Anambra seems to be getting it right now.

Abia is presently hopeless.

EasternLeopard: Gbam

Re-investing some part of our profits is more important than raising revenue for FG who will use it to develop other regions

You still need govt institutions to direct things in Igboland. The high rate of ''private-ness'' in the SE is the reason why most public institutions in SE are not very competitive. Individual Igbos are super competitive, but collectively as STATES, we are not as competitive as we should be. True or false?

ketoprofen: Global map? Which ones? what put Lagos on the global map is FG investments esp those ports n other investment which attracted service companies and created a cycle.
I was only trying to educate that super mofo, that SE is not as dry just cos it is not contributing much to the FG .
As for GDP generating tnz in the formal sector , these are tnz done by the govt which they have failed to do for se .
Like I said, u don't do them for the heck of it, the politicians shd be made to swear they will use them.
Imagine states with high gdps having the highest debt profile, does it make sense?
Let's not be carried away by these tnz when there are better tnz to worry abt

Other than the seaport, can you really mention one FG investment in Lagos that is lacking elsewhere in Nigeria? Even, seaports are elsewhere in Nigeria too. Yet, Lagos is by miles different from any other cities in Nigeria. Yes, I agree that being a former national capital put it on the global spotlight. But it has not been the capital for several years now.

Huge population and huge private investments, not government investments, make Lagos what it is today. A good portion of those private investments are owned by us, Igbos. A good % of that huge population of Lagos are us, Igbos.