OpenIT4Africa

Développer des solutions innovantes pour l'Afrique

[openit4africa]

Clear-Inc., Capacity for Leadership Excellence and Research

Can you tell us about Clear Inc.?

CLEAR, Inc. was incorporated in January 2010 to provide services to health programs and research organizations and biotechnology companies with clinical programs and research activities in Africa and Asia to help them maximize their operational capacity for the conduct of clinical research in these regions.

  What is the goal of your mission?

CLEAR, Inc. seeks to promote global health through the development of independent, sustainable clinical programs and research systems in resource limited settings with stringent compliance to international standards for the conduct of ethical human research and impactful health programs. 

  You have had a brilliant career by working in North America in well-known organization, can you share your secret recipe of success in Africa, especially in Cameroon?

There’s really no secret.  I have always known that hard work pays.  Being an immigrant in the US, I knew that I learned to work hard and to go after every opportunity that was presented to me.  In everything that I committed to do, I had to make sure I worked harder than anyone so that I could rise above the crowd.  I also have to admit that I have been lucky enough to recognize good opportunities when they were presented to them. So, between hard work, luck and fruitful opportunities, I ended up doing well.  I opened the African CLEAR, Inc. branch in August 2010 and it has not been easy.

How challenging was your business establishment in Africa as opposed to North America ?

The competition for health research capacity building contracts is fierce.  In Africa, a great deal of capacity building for health programs and research are conducted by large organizations and institutions such as public health schools within major universities such as the Harvard University School of Public or the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health are mainly aiming to improve health around the world through education, research and discovery. Similar entities exist in Europe.  These schools have a competitive advantage since they are quite established with large endowments and hundreds of years in the business.  Large companies such as Management Sciences for Health (MSH) and Partners In Health (PIH) have been working on strengthening health systems in Africa for many years.  These companies are is considered as a competitor for CLEAR, Inc due to the similar services being offered as well as their access to CLEAR, Inc’s target market. 

  CLEAR, Inc recognizes the accomplishments of all of these identified competitors and will seek relationships and partnerships with these companies to subcontract on various projects were we can lend our expertise and approach to capacity building and development for research and health programs.  

What is the best advise you could give to a young business person who would like to start doing business in Africa ?

It is important to go to Africa, on the ground, and find out how business is being conducted.  There are realities on the ground that may not always be obvious from abroad.  For example, I was expected for the bureaucracy of opening a small business to be daunting.  But, I was pleasantly surprise that the process of registering a business entity was quite easy to navigate.  It seems that the Cameroonian government has significantly reformed this process so to facilitate exporting businesses into the country.  A dedicated government agency is now available for such matters.  In the past, this process could easily take 6 to 9 months.  The registration process took less than a week once all the required paperwork was in place.  

How would you spur the OpenIT4Africa candidates?

It is important to understand the African market.  A thorough market analysis is critical.  Threats and opportunities have to be identified early and continuously.  Unfortunately, information is not as easily available in Africa as in North America.  Here, we are used to have a great deal of information at our finger tips through the internet or networking.  In Africa, it may necessary to dig deeper and do some “leg work”.  Regardless of the challenges, the information is available.  With creativity, it can be found.

[openit4africa]

Coders4Africa, a vibrant community

Can you tell us about your Coders4Africa project?

Coders4Africa is an organization whose sole focus is to help alleviate some of these issues that African Software developers are facing.  We hope to provide coders with the necessary exposure, skills sets, infrastructure, environment and technologies that allow them to further compete for opportunities locally as well as globally. At the end of the day, the organization main goal is to support the creators of technology and help them find  responses to problems their respective communities and countries face.

Coders4Africa has passed the project phase. We have now evolved to a vibrant community of  Pan-African community of ICT professionals, students and enthusiasts focused on developing the ICT tools for African Agriculture, Business, Education, Healthcare, Government and general Social needs. We are at a critical stage of growth and sustainability.

  What is the scope of your mission?

Even though we are implemented virtually and physically in a handful of African countries namely: Senegal, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Cameroon, Niger and Mali, we target the whole of Africa. Moreover, the African diaspora members of C4A  play critical roles in bridging the gap by fostering  technology through knowledge transfer as well as paving the way for global opportunities to coders who reside in Africa.

At C4A we have put together a model with three interrelated programs,which is a blueprint in a sense that can be applied to any African country.

 The three programs are:

a.    A practical project based training methodology which objective is to provide strong software and application development skills in Mobile and Web using different platform from different vendors.

b.   Community Support and sustainability, which is really the driving force of this organization. We support the community through monthly, quarterly and yearly activities, in the form of technology specific bootcamps, hackathons and competitions

c.    Capacity building by introducing physical and virtual DevHub across African cities. DevHub is part of our strategic approach towards empowering our Coders4Africa members in a sustainable way. Its purpose is to be the technology enabler for local capacity and community building which is a crucial component of the Coders4Africa life cycle.

  What areas of technology did African startups invest in and focus on in 2011-2012?

For the great of the majority of tech startups in Africa the main technology focus is on mobile services. In Ghana for instance you have companies such as NandiMobile and BulkSMS who understood very early that mobile phones are the most ubiquitous hardware in the African continent. They decided to leverage that huge market and created mobile value added services that are both marketable to mobile device owners as well as businesses. They are now reaping the success of their endeavors.

We also note that there are few sparks here and there in the web space, with several companies focusing on bringing more African content on the Web for the world to see. You see directory search like web Application such as NJorku from cameroon and promotional web portal such as AfriApps that showcases Apps created by African developers.

Finally Africa is benefiting from the presence of fiber optic cables along the coasts of Africa. Moreover there is  an increasing introduction and decreasing prices of smartphones with Internet capability. It is a great time to be a software developer in Africa. This monolithic view of just creating mobile based App will gradually disappear and turn into a combination of applications that span across mobile, web and data.

Looking ahead to the coming year, what should African Startups watch out for to position their companies for success?

They should have a much better understanding of African markets and focus on solving actual needs, not just invest time in trying to create solutions that are applicable to developed countries. The key to African startup is adaptation. I see too many African developers who are looking to create the next Facebook or Google :).

  How challenging is the establishment of a tech bridge between the African Market as opposed to  North America ?

Actually in my opinion, opportunities outnumber the challenges in Africa. In terms of technology adoption and use Africa is still at its infancy, at the moment the sky's the limit for talented African developers who are business savvy . There are lot of things that are waiting to be implemented. Starting by digitizing government agencies and create database for documents and official data storage; most of Africa is still a paper society. Once the data is organized, opened and accessible, developers can then be able to create meaningful Apps to present, manipulate, manage and distribute information to citizens, business and the world.

  There are, however a handful of issues that need to be resolved in order to  give African tech professionals and the industry the extra boost they need to turn Africa into a truly continental Tech hub. Developers in Africa have to deal with issues that are taken for granted in North America, such as inadequate hardware, low or unstable Internet connection, power outages, lack of job opportunities, outdated skills, lack of experience etc...

So it is quite obvious that African developers are not faced with the same issues as their North American counterparts. Expecting to land a software development job in Africa is quite a challenge, simply because in comparison to the US for example Software development is not really an important in Africa. I have seen developers scavenge for projects. I believe that developers need to take a step back and learn to extend themselves beyond just coding and become social entrepreneur by looking around them, try to understand issues their communities are facing and finding appropriate technology for them. This methodology may not be suitable for most developers in Africa but I believe in “build it and then they will come” approach. By solving community problems through code they will gain experience, and have good projects under their belts that will look good in resume for business or employment opportunities. It will also help the level of confidence of businesses and governments into looking into using local talent instead of hiring foreign developers or buying expensive offshore proprietary software.

  What message would you convey to OpenIT4Africa participants?

Besides all kind of issues, you will be surprised on how many very talented developers are currently performing in Africa. I am thinking about: The Cameroonian: Ebot Tabit of Geofeedme, Eyram Tawia from Ghana a mobile game developer creator of iWarrior,  Charles Kithika from Kenya creator of iCow and not to forget Mouhamadou Ndoye from senegal creator of iSenegal.

Believe in African talent by getting them involved. Help them be up to speed with new technology that can solve the unique situations in their respective countries or communities, through knowledge transfer and mentoring.

And finally focus on creating real solutions that solve real problems relative to the African context, and make sure the impact is spread across large audiences.

Don’t just focus on trophy projects that benefit a few.

Coding our way to success bit by bit...dive in the hackathon!!

[openit4africa]

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” Nelson Mandela

[openit4africa]

The M-Payment: A Success in Africa

The African market has very specific needs in terms of innovation and new technology.  For example, take “le mobile payment” a concrete innovation developed on the continent of Africa.

What is, “Le mobile payment?” “Le mobile payment”, also known as “m-payment”, is a technique enabling the power to pay for products via your cell phone. The concept is to use the cell phone as a method of payment. All SIM card owners through SMS may purchase anything, pay bills, transfer money, and access credit services. The pioneer of this specific industry is “Safaricom”, a cell phone service provider, with their system “m-pesa”. Launched 2007 in Kenya, this service will enable subscribers to transfer money which could be withdrawn in every store located on the territory. M-Pesa gained roughly 5 million clients which represents roughly 13% of the Kenyan population. It is necessary to know that this service only works with the newest generation of SIM cards.  This phenomenon propagates and develops in all of Africa; notably Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Zambie. Each networks use its own tool.  How can these events be explained?

In Africa, there are a very large number of subscribers to a single service provider with this number constantly growing.  The rate of bank system is very low . According to the World Bank, less than 20% of African households have access to bank services. Due to the low rate of bank system and the strong mobile usage telephone operators were urged to develop the m-payment.

How about you? Do you know any other innovations pertaining to the needs of the African continent?  Join us on OpenIT4Africa to participate in the first Hackathon dedicated to the IT projects for Africa!

[openit4africa]

Le m-payment, un succès en Afrique

Le marché africain a des besoins bien spécifiques en termes d'innovations et de nouvelles technologies.

Prenons l'exemple concret d'une innovation qui est particulièrement développée sur le continent africain: le mobile payment.

Le mobile payment, qu'est ce que c'est?

Le mobile payment, appelé encore m-payment, est une technique permettant de payer des produits via son téléphone cellulaire. Le principe est d’utiliser le téléphone mobile comme un moyen de paiement. Chaque détenteur de carte SIM peut par l’intermédiaire d’un SMS effectuer des achats, payer des factures, transférer de l’argent ou encore accéder à des services de crédit.

Le pionnier dans cette zone est l’opérateur Safaricom avec son système M-Pesa. Lancé en 2007 au Kenya, cette offre permet aux abonnés d’envoyer des fonds qui pourront être ensuite retirés dans les magasins de téléphonie sur tout le territoire. M-Pesa a conquis près de 5 millions de personnes ce qui représente environ 13% de la population kenyane. Il faut savoir que ce service n’est utilisable qu’avec des cartes SIM nouvelle génération.

Ce phénomène se propage et se développe dans toute l’Afrique notamment au Congo, en Côte d'Ivoire au Mali et en Zambie et chaque opérateur utilise ses propres outils. 

Comment expliquer ce phénomène ?

En Afrique, on compte un très grand nombre d'abonnés à un opérateur de téléphonie mobile avec une croissance constante de ce nombre.

On peut parallèlement enregistrer un taux de bancarisation très faible. En effet selon la banque mondiale, moins de 20% des ménages africains ont accès à des services bancaires.

Ce faible taux de bancarisation et la forte utilisation du mobile ont donc poussé les opérateurs de téléphonie mobile à développer des services de m-payment.

Et vous? Connaissez vous d'autres innovations qui pourraient répondre aux besoins du continent africain ?

Rejoignez-nous sur OpenIT4Africa pour participer au 1er Hackathon dédié aux projets IT pour l'Afrique ! 

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OpenIT4Africa, la naissance d'un grand projet d'innovation...

On ne sait jamais ce que la vie nous réserve. Dans le cas d'Ibrahim et de Heri, les fondateurs d'OpenIT4Africa, le hasard a bien fait les choses.

Ibrahim Diop, ingénieur de formation, est l'initiateur d'OpenIT4Africa, un projet qu'il a démarré autour d'une problématique commune: Comment utiliser nos connaissances pour créer une technologie à destination du marché africain?  (Plus précisément de l'Afrique subsaharienne).

Le pitch peut paraître simple. Mais grâce à ce simple tweet, Ibrahim a sucité l'intérêt d'Heri Rakotomalala, lui-même ingénieur et impliqué dans de nombreux projets tels que MontrealTechWatch, Entreprising.ly et Montreal Start-Up Weekend.

Leur idée fondamentale est de proposer une ou plusieurs applications pour différents secteurs de l'industrie africaine en demande. On pense notamment à l'agriculture et ses conditions climatiques complexes mais pas uniquement. Grâce à ces outils, ils ciblent un deuxième objectif: Faciliter la prise de décisions des entrepreneurs et autres acteurs des industries sur le continent africain.

Ils atteignent donc une seconde étape: Comment collaborer?

Les médias sociaux ont permis à Ibrahim et Heri d'acquérir de la matière grise. Ils ont donc contacté des volontaires qui ont rejoints l'aventure OpenIT4Africa.

Dernière étape, planifier des conférences d'envergure internationale, rassembler des éminences grises dans le domaine des technologies de l'innovation, des gestionnaires de projets pour animer la compétition qui aura lieu le 8 juin 2012. 

En gazouillant sur Twitter deux grands esprits se sont rencontrés pour former un grand projet qui contribuera au changement et au progrès.

À suivre de près c'est le 8 juin 2012 à la Maison Notman

[openit4africa]

OpenIT vise à rassembler des ingénieurs et des développeurs web et mobiles avec des porteurs de projets technologiques pour développer des solutions innovantes pour l'Afrique, lors d'un événement en mi-juin 2012 à Montréal. Pendant toute une fin de semaine, les équipes seront mises au défi de concevoir, développer et lancer une solution innovante, que ce soit dans l'agriculture, le transport, le commerce, la santé, l'éducation, l'énergie et bien d'autres domaines de leur choix.