₦airaland Forum

Seun: We really appreciate your desire to help and will not hesitate to contact you when we need any help.

Okay sir, that is good to know. Happy Sunday to everyone.

sealteam66: Proper english you don't know it is now ethical hacking and cyber security you will know.

Thank u 4 your opinion but I meant I can provide ethical hackers (people who do ethical hacking for a living) and cybersecurity can be spelt like:

A. CyberSecurity
B. Cyber-Security
C. Cyber Security

So if Mr. Seun Osewa or any other nairaland notified member is interested, please let know.

I can provide your sir with cybersecurity information and ethical hackers if anything is needed.

asalimpo: the infrastructure for launchg d nxt gen in africa was never laid. First myopia in our leaders saw them seekg power to strenghten their turfs. Samuel doe, idi amin,mobutu ,abacha all they wanted was to stay in power horde wealth,perpetuate their reign and eliminate all opposition.
So today, there is no power,because funds for electricity had been looted.
There are no world class universities cuz no funds,not to talk of research. No roads etc basically africa isnt in a position to rise to relevance even in d next 50 years. Not wishg evil,just based on data. Where is d cheap affordable electrcity 2 build an i.t infrastructure on?
Where is d research center or even appetite for knowledge to generate innovation (stanford birthed google, and apple ,harvard facebook). Where is decent standard of livg to keep thinkers focused on productive thinkg instead of strikg to get minimum wage . I cud go on and on. Africa just isnt ready anytime soon.
The internet penetration in 9ja for example is d hard result of telecoms broadeng their infrastructure. Without them we'd b in d dark.
D middle class tht has been are a result of d investment of multinationals and foreign companies (with a few govt parastatals) recruitg 9jans and foreign transfers from nigerians abroad. So we are not ready and d few willing youths alone can pull this thing off without serious capital backg. We need angel investors but beyond tht we need an entire corporate environment for nurturg i.t startups into global companies. So far we dont hav such an environment. Sorry, minister of information dont know jack , the banks and their m.d's are too conservative to think out of their shells. Theyr also competg with nollywood stars (if u may call thm dat) for vain media attention. No innovation,no vision.
Think of mobile money-y has this not been spear headed by d banks/finance houses since? An innovative exec cud hav forseen d need for a paypal-like servce.
If govt cant help and money houses wont and foreign investors dnt count afrca as anythg i.t wise then too many dreams will die pre mature,cuz some dreams require mammoth fundg to really take off.
Bankg took off after soludo raised d capital requirement 2 a very serious amount.
Afrcas i.t isnt lackg ambitious youths were lackg booster rocket fundg to push some of our ideas into orbit in d form of a viable feasible corporation.

Yeah, how did those people get 2 be president? How did they make it 2 da top? Also when they were at da top, y didnt they care 4 others?

DONOCSO: done. check http://sureguys.com tho no data

Yeah, nice site but there is nothing on there. Is there suppose 2 be something on there?

Here is how Hardware Startups do in Silicon Valley, not to even talk about Naija ~> http://www.businessinsider.com/hardware-startups-silicon-valley-2014-3?op=1

Software is cheaper and at times free. All one needs is creativity and determination to reach goal, despite obstacles.

There was an article that didn't want 9ja people to create clones or something like that. Here it is ~> http://techloy.com/2012/02/25/how-to-launch-startups-in-nigeria/

You live in Nigeria or any third world country, are a techie and thinking of starting a tech startup? Here are some reasons why your startup is doomed to fail.

1. Your startup is a solution to a “WANT” and not a “NEED”. If you can remember your basic economics, you should know what “WANTS” and “NEEDS” are.

Quickly, I would define a “NEED” as something you have to have, something you can’t do without e.g. food, clothing and shelter, while a “WANT” is something you would like to have. It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be a good thing to have. A good example is music.

When developing your startup idea, ask yourself, “is what I am creating a solution to a NEED or a WANT?” According to the Nigerian Bureau of statistics 60.9% of Nigerians in 2010 were living in “absolute poverty” i.e. less than $1 per day.

Do you think that taking a hiatus to create a music startup to enable these people living in abject poverty listen to music amounts to a good use of your time? or “skills”?

2. Your startup is a clone of some popular first world website or application. The current fad in Nigeria is creating clones of Groupon.com. It once used to be Twitter clones, bulk sms and then Facebook clones.

Why coders still do this kind of beats me. Instead of cloning, why don’t you build on these sites and take advantage of things like Facebook’s “Social Graph” etc and develop innovative solutions?

Developing another DROPBOX wont meet the need of the average Nigerian, he has no need for it, and if he does why wont he go for the original? Patriotism? please!

Why would you clone when there are a myriad of problems you could develop solutions for? If you are developing a clone, ask yourself this question “why would anyone use this (***insert the name of your clone***) instead of the main thing (***insert the name of the website you cloned***)?” .

3. Your startup will require loads and loads of traffic i.e. pageviews with gullible people who would be ready to click on Google ads before it can generate income.

In Nigeria, there are no VC’s, no Angels, no startup accelerators, no Government support programs, no infrastructure, regular electricity supply is a pipe dream, Internet access is patchy and expensive, in short, “NO NOTHING”.

So it kind of beats me why anyone would base his startup’s business model on the benevolence of Google? In between the time your startup comes online to the time it can generate enough traffic to keep the lights on and the servers humming, how would you survive?

Do you have some gold bars stashed under your mattress somewhere? If not, why don’t you just develop a product where you can start charging from the very first day?

Despite the fact that 60.9% of Nigerians live under $1 per day and there are 90 million mobile subscribers in the country with at least 1 mobile phone, these phones have to be loaded with “call credit” by these people because communication has become a NEED and not a WANT.

So despite the grinding poverty in the country, the major Telco’s still declare mind boggling profits every year, with Nigeria now having the largest mobile phone market in Africa with 60% penetration.

So in order to be successful, develop a solution to a NEED and not a WANT.

4. Reading too much of TechCrunch et al. These tech blogs are written by elitist white techies who live in Silicon Valley where the difference between over there and here is like light and day. Any advice you can glean from those sites just isn’t applicable here in Nigeria.

Sarah Lacy, a former columnist for TechCrunch came to Nigeria in May 2011 and advised techies not to read TechCrunch et al. Its of no use, the stories of billion dollar valuations for six month old companies that do nothing but count your number of Twitter followers will actually screw with your head.

That can never happen here, this is Nigeria, be creative, be innovative, think local but act global.

asalimpo: Ebay - nigerian version. Complete with buyer protection and all.
Complete with a paypal equiv.

LinkedIn - again highly naijacentric.
Jobberman cud actually xpand their scope to sth like this , its all about connectg employee to employers.

Google.
This cant b stressed enuff. This kontry is cryg for a good search engine. Apparently, this country wouldnt have enuff content to populate a sizable database or warrant a small scale data center but a toe hold now is good for d future. Google doesnt cater adequately to nigerian content.
China did it, russia did it, y cant we do so too. If nigeria is too small a goal of servcg sub haran africa shud keep d engine busy.

2go: this is easy enuff for an ambitious team on nl to tackle. 2go has features tht are restrictive, its language list is scanty and it isnt fully representative of nigeria. Yet for chatting its all d nigerian youths ve gat?!

Facebook:
yeah d venerable fb. Actually i dont know how well this wud fair. I'm doubtful but if started how well cud it fare in 10 yrs time? It may either bcome a viable alternative and a preferred choice or not(fail gracefully) but one cant tell until one tries.

Nigerian computer manufacturers.
There's zinox.
They cud b more not just 1.
The issue isnt about innovation but brandg. E.g lenovo was an ibm sellout yet its thrivg. Its a recent entrant to d pc market but its doing well. (i thnk its a chinese corp). Besides computers, they cud b phones,tablets,etc. We dont have d manpower for design and engineering like apple etc does
so the focus cud just b on plain old re assembly and brandg while growg the man power. This is where d looters of our educational sector hav really left an impact-half baked graduates.

9jn video games.
- ea, take2, microsoft studios,konami etc wont do it. They'll never create an afro centric title. Never. Its left for those who care for such stuff to fill in d niche.
With game publishg budgets in millions of dollars this may b a pippe dream to us. But let's keep dreamg.

An example dat proves d point:
nairaland - 9ja centrc forum.
It makes a difference walkg into a room full of nothg but ya country men.

Getting Hardware Manufacturer will definitely take some time, but I think that is the future since every other country are raising their least minimum wage. I think for now, Africans should focus on Software. The only problem we have with that is that the internet is not good or stable but yet we can still do what we have with offline apps.

By the way, is it that Google is not fast for most people in Nigeria? Those without smartphones, can they access Google, Facebook and other internet service with SMS? So 2go is not good for most of us or how is WhatsApp?

DONOCSO: It will only take a little more time and hardwork. We will soon get there.

I think that we need to be faster. We don't have all the time in the world. Africa is the last in everything and we really need to step our game up. Looking at this Carna Botnet ~> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carna_Botnet we can conclude that Africa is the last. Why is that always? Why are we always victims?