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Barcamp Nigeria 2011 was held on the 11th and 12th of March 2011 at the Center for Information Technology & Systems of the University of Lagos under the theme ‘Technology business models’. The event was streamed live via Ustream.tv and on Twitter. Sheriff Shittu of Webtrends Nigeria & Kayode Yussuf did a phenomenal job putting it together.

Now you can read Raphael Afaedor's take on the event at Barcamp Lagos 2011; Attendee’s perspective + Photos:

In the west they have watches, in Africa we have time; so naturally, it started with a bit of a delay. That apart, things went rather smoothly both days, with all the basics, like food, refreshment, technology and other relevant infrastructure all in place and functioning like a Swiss watch. Even the NEPA behaved. The atmosphere was homely and welcoming.

On day one, Chika Nwobi, who founded and IPO’d MTech gave a talk on business models. He drew almost exclusively from the work of Peter Drucker and was to the point and very insightful. Lola Masha of Google Nigeria also came around and had informal chats with just about everybody. With my group, she talked quite a bit about the fact that Googles strategy for Africa is really to participate actively in the local tech scene and drive its growth, as against just to come and seek profit. Not that one expected her to say anything else, but it is heart-warming to see a global tech giant thinking about taking an African market very seriously.

Read more of Barcamp Lagos 2011; Attendee’s perspective + Photos

BarCamp Nigeria says Barcamp Lagos was super-successful last year and expects to replicate and surpass that this year.

Last year, Barcamp Lagos discussed local content, and this year Barcamp Lagos will focus on start-ups, mobile revolution, e-payments, business and monetization. We do recognize these are some of the challenges we are facing in the industry. We will bring those who have experience building technology business from scratch to taking it public.

Barcamp Lagos has confirmed attendance of Chika Nwobi, Founder of Mtech communications, Stefan Magdalinski of MIH Internet Africa, Lola Masha of Google. We will update you as we progress but in the meantime, we do recommend that you register to attend, remember; your registration is your entry ticket.

If you wish to sponsor us, talk to us now. barcampnigeria@gmail.com or call 08096880957

Click here to register.

Date: 11-12th of March 2011.
Theme: Technology Business Models; from Idea to Profitable Business.
Venue: University of Lagos

The Barcamp Nigeria team is proud to announce Barcamp Kaduna!

Barcamp Kaduna will be holding for the first time, we hope to extend the vibrancy in the technology community in Lagos to other parts of the country. Kaduna is the leading state in the North with technology startups with good influence in the industry.

Barcamp Kaduna
Date: 21-22nd of January, 2011.
Theme: Creating Wealth through Technology… Putting Nigeria on the Map!
Venue: Dialogue Plaza, Ugwan Dosasa Kudan Road, Kaduna State.

BarCamp is an ‘unconference’ – ad-hoc gathering of people with the simple desire to share and learn in an open environment. Unlike a conference, at a BarCamp everyone is both a speaker and a participant. The content is provided by all attendees based on their interests.

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!

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.