ICTworks by Inveneo

Over the years you will notice there have been various complaints about Nigeria’s tech community not being active. In fact it’s possible to write a book about why we don’t have a community or why our technology industry is far asleep. You know, like have always said; most of the platform other countries have, that helped them a great deal to kick start their technology advancement we don’t have them in Nigeria.

So trying to compare Nigeria with other countries will just be a shadowed look of what really is! We believe that things that we don’t have cannot fall from heaven or we expect government to just wake up someday and build them all! Yea! They can wake up but that could take the next 15years or more! For us, we don’t believe we have to wait that long to make it happen! The time is now!

So the idea is; if it does not exist, build it! We don’t have to complain our generation away while scrapping the opportunity to make our shoulders wide enough for others coming after us to ride on! Enough of the rhetoric, let’s discuss Tech Hub Nigeria!

So, what is tech hub Nigeria about?

If you have heard of tech hubs located in various countries; Techhub UK, Silicon Valley, iHub in Kenya, Silicon Cape in South Africa and in many other countries!

Tech hubs facilitates access to technology infrastructure (computer, internet, power) that helps geeks build technology solutions, network with other technologist, office space to meet with investors, startups, mentoring programmes, and resource centre. That is what tech hubs are set up to achieve!

How shall it work?

Most of us pushing stuff in Nigeria met online, mostly on Nairaland and Facebook! And so far, we have been able to know ourselves better, do business and build stuff! So we intend to leverage on that platform to build from online to offline! The last Barcamp Nigeria was super successful, as we got beyond expected participants and the enthusiasm level was so high that it needs to be sustained and advanced!

Online Tech Hub

We have created an online forum to continue conversation started at Barcamp Nigeria, also to allow any budding technopreneurs link up with others and help answer their questions. We are committed to building the online community to a massive resource centre that will foster networking and collaboration to build technology businesses. We understand that there is no viable online community for Nigerians, so we are building it! We also know that it will take time, and we are ready to accelerate that time!

Offline Tech Hub

We are raising money from our pockets and from partner companies to build a physical tech hub that will be able to take at least 100 geeks at a time. This will allow techies who are constantly battling with power problem, internet subscription and computers to get started, and build stuff they have dreamed of. The hub will also provide facilities that will help them build business around their tech ideas and mentoring from best tech brains Nigeria have! In five to six months time, the tech hub should be ready by God’s grace and it will be located in Lagos (the economic hub of Nigeria)!

I see a Nigeria where we will not only be relevant by our population but by the productivity of our technology industry towards advancement of our citizens and for the good of the world!

Complain time is over; it’s time to build, so let’s get to work!

I want to believe one of the things that captured your attention is the "bribe" in the title of this article. You have heard about the Halliburton scandal and many other high-level bribery scandals in the country including the recent NITEL sales. Truly it’s possible that the Nigerian government bribed opera, let’s look at how…

Nigerian mobile phone market

In year 2001, the Nigerian government opened the mobile market for private investment, taking the sole business off state-owned NITEL. Econet got the license, MTN followed suite and Glo also did get license and started business.

The business was so lucrative that MTN made profit it normally makes in 3 years in South Africa in just 1 year of business in Nigeria. The Nigerian telecom market is a multibillion dollars industry and is amongst the world faster growing and largest telecom market, so why wont there be bribery? Well consider the following too...

Mobile telecom growth in the country has been massively growing at a whopping rate from 266,461 in 2001 lines to 74,511,614 in January 2010. This is a massive growth compare to what the mobile lines in the country used to be in the early 2000s. Teledensity currently stands at 54%, this shows that there is room for growth as millions are yet to own a phone.

Mobile Internet in Nigeria

Looking at the cost of owning a PC and subscribing to the internet in Nigeria, it is a luxury most people cannot afford. Going mobile, with less than $50 you can get an internet enabled phone, get connect edand eureka! You are live on the internet.

The telecoms service providers have various internet plans which you can either browse through your phone or connect to your PC;

The Mobile Internet Market

I laid my hand on the Opera state of the mobile web for December 2009, the results was a good pointer to the mobile browsing pattern of Nigerians.

The above image shows the top sites and model of phones used by Nigerians. In the top button points; 524.5% in page view is phenomenon, also number of users browsing with Opera mini more than triple (315.3%) compared to 2008.

Most users want to keep up with their friends, check their email, read news and search for information. Sport and free SMS are not left out also (goal.com and mjoy.com)

Facebook is the biggest beneficiary of the opera mini craze on Nigerian mobile internet sphere.

Looking from the business side of it, no Nigerian website among the most visited sites, creating a massive market for a site that can provide interesting local content for the emerging market.

But why bribe Opera?

Really if you say Opera was bribed, you may not be far from the truth depending on the side of the coin you are looking at. The government opened the mobile market, the flood came in and the surge never stopped; if that is the incentive for the opera usage fine!

One thing that may not be clear to people outside Nigeria is the growing trends of free browsing on mobile phone across most networks. There is a loophole in the configuration security provided by the telecom operators. The method is facilitated by adjusting the settings in the opera mini and there you go… no billing just browse on!

The operators in most cases disabled opera mini use on their network, while people some have argued against this measure, urging the operators to tighten their security as opera mini provides one of the best user experience on mobile; giving fast downloads with its compression technology and reducing cost of browsing on mobile phone.

Going forward...

The growing trends show a massive market in the mobile internet market in Nigeria. I believe if the prices are lower a bit it could spur more usage and ultimately make more money for the Telco’s.

On the other hand, mobile is the future and definitely will be where internet will get to most Africans (because of exorbitant cost of PC acquisition and subscription). The current unified rate of 15kobo/1 KB among the operators is still very high and low emphasizes is still be paid to enlighten people about data plans they can take advantage of instead of 15k/KB. The operators apparently are still enjoying the bumper of voice revenue!

So to our question above, did Nigerian Government bribe Opera? If providing open market for competition to thrive means bribe, then the answer is yes but if market forces and people’s desire to consume online content is the drive for Opera adoption then the answer is no!

Nigeria is a country of over 150 million people, located in sub-Saharan Africa and one of the fasted growing telecom market in the world. Let’s me take you through the emergence of the internet market in Nigeria, the potential, and how to tap into it.

Exploring the potential

The US is a model of what internet market can become in any part of the world, the way it transformed the economy, created young billionaires and disrupted industry to create seamless market for every available product.

Now the power is shifting away from US as emerging markets are beginning to understand the impact of the internet to economic development. It is good to note that China recently overtook the US in terms of internet users, and top technology and web companies are rushing to China to tap from the potentials.

Nigeria, being an emerging market is also a big market for those who can see it now! With over 11 million internet users and massive social media adoption, the Nigerian internet market is growing heavily.

What is obtainable now…

A recent webtrendsng.com report of the Nigeria internet market found news websites are the most visited in Nigeria followed by forum, jobs, portals and the banking sector websites. As the industry grows, there are a lot of vacuum to be filled, this ranges from payment system, local content, local social networks and advertising platform. The world's leading sites still dominate the local market as only one Nigerian site is among the top-ten websites visited by Nigerians (according to Alexa ranking).

This graph looks at the most active websites by industry in the Nigerian Internet Market in 2009. The lower the rank the higher the possibilities of untapped potentials, read full report here (PDF).

Gaining insight to tap the market

As I recently commented about the lack of understanding of the Nigerian internet market by investors as the limiting factor to tapping the goldmine. Around the globe, the internet market was stimulated by synergy of technologist and investors. Same could be applied here in Nigeria! There are number of sites that discusses the Nigerian internet market and the growing trends; some of which includes; webtrendsng.com, technologytimes.com.ng, startupsnigeria.org, and nairaland.com amongst others.

Nigerian technologist and thought leaders have been taking the evangelism of the potential of the market plus their innovations to investors. This is to intimate them about their products and market values they have. Google has identified the importance of the Nigerian internet market and will be organizing an event a week from now, to bring the technologist together, teach them about their technologies and education internet markets about Google products. It also planned invite VCs to meet up with technologist at the event

Events around the internet market this year;

1. Google Day Nigeria: A Google sponsored event to be held this February between 18th and 20th in University of Lagos, Akoka, Lagos Nigeria.
2. Technology Outlook: An annual event organized by Technology times Magazine to bring industry leaders, bank managers, Government officials and technologist together to chart the course for the industry. This year’s event is significant as for the first time since its inception there will be a session for Web 2.0. This will enable Nigerian web technologists to meet with and take their messages to investors in the country. The event will be holding from 23rd – 25th of February 2010.
3. Barcamp Nigeria 2010: An “unconferenced” event organized by technologist for technologist. This event was started last year and brought technologist around the country together to share their experiences and passion for the development of the industry. This year’s event will come up around May 2010 with the theme “Creating local content for Nigerian web market”.
4. Nigerian Web Conference: The event is a brainchild of forum members on Nairaland.com, the forum that have been the most interactive and most visited Nigerian site for more than 4 years. The event also plans to bring developers together for networking and business development.
5. Nigerian Web Strategies Summit: This event plans to educate the corporate organizations about the importance of internet to their businesses and how they can explore the possibilities of the medium. One of the challenges faced by companies in Nigeria is the fact that they don’t know what the internet can do for them hence most have refused to increase their spending on internet marketing. It will also bring together solution providers in the industry to meet with their target market for business development. It is schedule to hold between August and September 2010.

The highlighted events are the ones announced so far and many more are yet to be announced. For anyone willing to tap into the Nigerian internet market, these events are must attend as it will give room for networking with innovators and movers in the industry.

What does the future hold?

As stated earlier, Nigerian internet population currently stands at 11 million, while telephone users are well above 70 million. CIA Factbook reported about 68% literacy rate in Nigeria, this is about 102 million available market, representing just the literate population of the country. The question now remains who will tap the remaining 91 million Nigerians that are yet to come online?

It is also good to note the penetration of mobile phones in the country; given the advancement in web technologies, the web is shifting to mobile so before the remaining populations are covered, mobile internet will be very instrumental to anyone willing to explore in the country.

The Nigerian internet market is a goldmine waiting to be tapped, the development around the country is pointing to the right direction, before it becomes saturated, why not get connected to the market to harvest the fortune?

What are you seeing in the Nigerian internet market? Do you think the time is now? Or what problem do you think needs urgent solution to harness the potential?

Shittu Sheriff, better know as Possicon is the founder of webtrendsng.com.