Business
Key challenges that Nigeria’s startup space needs to conquer
”Aside from the obvious task of building out critical broadband infrastructure, the ministry of communications technology has entered into quite a few active partnerships with companies like Microsoft, Google, IBM and more, leading to initiatives like iDEA and the TechLauchpad accelerator,” Oluwafemi told ITWeb Africa.
“Nigeria’s technology ecosystem has been better for the activities of quite a few international technology interests that have been operating in the country for up to a decade or more. As the market matures, they have begun to ramp up their activities and increase their footprint in the country.
“However, we have reached the point where the biggest stakeholder in local innovation, the government organ that oversees the technology sector, has assumed increased responsibility for stimulating innovation, and has deployed myriad creative stratagems to address the startup scene’s biggest problems — infrastructure and funding,” added Oluwafemi.
With the advances made in the face of stiff challenges, Nigeria’s up-and-coming business community has the benefit of being in an environment where economic growth has averaged over 6% over the last decade. Nigeria is also firmly positioned among the hottest economic grouping after the BRICS, that is ‘MINT’ (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey). From an outsider’s perspective, then, Nigeria’s startup space has a lot of potential, says South African Kabelo Makwane who is the new Microsoft Nigeria country manager.
“We’ve seen that there’s a very large developer community that sits in Nigeria, but they really require support and nurturing in order for them to actually create viable enterprises,” Makwane told ITWeb Africa. “Some of the top apps on Microsoft (Windows) store come from Nigeria… There’s a very concerted effort going into incubation, startup incubation,” Makwane added.
Makwane; though, listed several challenges that he has picked up on from travelling to the country. “What becomes quite prominent is access to information…. In such a vast country, it’s always a challenge to make sure the word gets out there, or the resources are available for people to tap into for the purpose of driving commercial enterprise.”
Furthermore, he added, “Access to platforms for them to develop interesting software and applications is also another area where I think there is a lot of opportunity.” Ultimately, though, regardless of any challenge, the entrepreneurial spirit of Nigeria is set to grow even more, and with the right help it could become a great global force to be reckoned with.
Sesan told ITWeb Africa, “While startups are now sexy, there’s still a major gap in actual capacity.” He proceeded to conclude, “It’s one thing to say you’re a good developer, and another to get the chance to be better because of competition. We need that capacity building gap fixed for better (wo)manpower for startups.”
Source: ITWeb Africa
