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Saturday, 3 October 2015

Demo Africa and growth of tech ecosystem

Demo Africa 2015 has come and gone but its impact will ever be rate in our clime for some time to come. This stems from the fact that a platform like this is largely absent in our local tech ecosystem and startups certainly need platforms like this to showcase their innovations to the world every now and then.

I admit that there are a number of initiatives geared towards helping startups in this regards, unfortunately, however, they do not have as much impact, or rather, these platforms are not as loud as Demo Africa. What I like most about Demo Africa is that it is not a one man show. It is largely a combination of various organisations such as the United State Department of State, Microsoft, LIONs, USAID, and Startup Weekend. This is one of the reasons DemoAfrica is thick in my opinion! Some will argue that this is another form of neo-colonialism since DemoAfrica is largely influenced by foreign partnership. My response to this is that Africa must rise up and take responsibility, otherwise they should not complain when others take the lead.

The big question for me is; what can we learn from Nations that have gone beyond speeches to showing how to strategically use technology to grow their respective economies? Countries, such as India, South Korea and even China have all implemented models that we can learn from. Of all the elements of their respective models, one element I think we should imbibe as a matter of urgency is the support for what is ours. I do not just mean support through words alone, but support in action. Facebook, LG, Samsung, WeChat, Uber, Google, Alibaba etc, are what they are today because certain goverments saw them as tools to remain dominant in the world of technology, hence, they did all they could to ensure that these startups survived and became the giants they are today. We kid ourselves to think that they got no sort of government support from their respective nations. Call me a conspiracy theorists and you might be correct but when you analyse this properly, you will know that many of what we see as giant tech companies today got some sort of support or protection from their governments.

What platforms like Demo Africa represent to African nations are simply opportunities to look beyond the clutter and start identifying one or two promising startups that will be hand-held by the government until they succeed. It is high time we stopped leaving our startups to the elements and forces of nature where they might die before they even grow.

Technology is indeed a catalyst to the growth of any economy, especially in today’s fiercely competitive world. I am of the opinion that the new administration has to come up with a technology development blueprint that clearly spells out our plans towards deploying technology in the advancement of various sectors of our economy.

My suggestion will be to narrow this down and start with the following industries; agriculture, education, transportation, financial services, security and health. Worthwhile ideas that receives the right support will definitely be worthwhile investment for both the nation and the founders of those startups.

When all is said and done, platforms like Demo Africa should just be dedicated to speeches, power talks and networking alone. Our governments must evolve towards positioning Africa in the comity of nations and ensure that we stop playing second fiddle.

Nigeria, in particular, needs a robust platform that will give start-ups the opportunity to pitch their ideas to VCs, investors, tech acquisition specialists, IT buyers and ofcourse, the media, considering its huge population of adults and youths.

According to aVC4Africaresearch report, previous startups that participated in Demo Africa have raised about $27m from seed investors and venture capitalists. This is, indeed, a welcome development, however, it must be said that it is a drop in the ocean. Nigerian startups alone will gulp over $500m to $1bn, especially, if we want them to compete internationally.

Dear giant of Africa, it is time to stand up technologically as the tea party is over!

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