‘Why North is slow in ICT’

What is the project Startup Arewa all about? The Startup Arewa is a project that is powered by ‘TECH3,’ an umbrella body for our different IT companies. I am from Jigawa State and Jigawa has been counted as one of the lowest ranking states in terms of education and development as well. My interest in […]

What is the project Startup Arewa all about?
The Startup Arewa is a project that is powered by ‘TECH3,’ an umbrella body for our different IT companies.
I am from Jigawa State and Jigawa has been counted as one of the lowest ranking states in terms of education and development as well. My interest in technology made me realize that we have a very large handicap in technology in the North. I own a technology company in partnership with Andy Madaki. What made me go into technology was that, I was watching social media week, it happened in Lagos  and I was following its happenings and I realized that out of the 500 that participated in that platform, there was no single northerner but all the VIPs were from the north. Everybody has this mind set that Lagos is the silicon valley of Nigeria, they may be ahead of us but it is because we don’t have the same opportunity; our youths don’t have platforms  and I disagree with the notion that Lagos is the silicon valley, Jigawa is also the Silicon valley as well, and because of the foresight of people like Saminu Turaki, he spearheaded IT in the north, especially for Jigawa State.
He held executive meetings through Skype and we have an informatics school that teaches solely IT, and they are one of the best students every university desires to have. So I decided to go on Nitex and it was great, I have about 15 exhibitors who had created awesome things and they were all northerners.  After that, I kept thinking how we can help all the young people who are interested in technology. Interestingly, most of these youths have a smartphone to themselves, instead of using these smartphones for negative things, usually wasting their data on social media – either insulting the government or their officials – why not channel these negativity into positive things? So we decided to set up Startup Arewa and it is going to be launched in Kaduna from the 17th to 19th of November. We chose Kaduna because the state has an existing IT ecosystem but we want to go through all the 19 northern states and then set up IT hubs and incubators and hopefully, an accelerated programme in all the strategic cities.

How do you intend to do that?
What we intend to do on Startup Arewa is to call all the youths to come and showcase their ideas. What we plan to do is that we will group them in categories and if you are in the idea stage, we would categorize the viable ones. We want solutions in health, education, governance, commerce, agriculture and then, I added military, parenthood, and security. We want an everyday solution for everyday people. I remember a mobile app I came across in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it is called Mummy’s chitchats. So there are similar things, or even more sophisticated ones that we can get our young ones to do. And with little encouragement they will excel.

So what opportunities are the targeted audience going to benefit from?
We don’t just want the Startup to come and showcase their ideas, talents and brilliance; we want to be a home to them and that is why we are setting up all these innovation hubs to train them. Those with ideas, we would train them to go to the next stage and those who have ideas and have started working on them, we perfect those ideas and see how investable they are. For those who have already perfected their own innovations, we have a business plan to market and get investors, we already have investors lined up for these youths. So it is like a school , we want to train them and then get them investors. When you have a startup that is like a company you can now employ other youths, so it is more of a youth empowerment programme under IT.

Talking about funding. How far have you gone in that regard?
Right now, for the World Bank and other international donors, it is a long term thing, we are in the process and it is positive, we have gone far and they are also interested. Our major sponsors are private firms which we have reached out to. Some just want to make T-shirts for us, some are giving us free Wi-Fi  in the state and some just want to follow us along, so funding is primarily by us and from the private organisations we have reached.

How would you assess technology appreciation in this part of the country?
The youths are fully aware of what technology is, our parents at the age of 50 and above, they know what Facebook is and they also use smartphones but that is about it. They don’t use the internet to get information on things, they just use the internet, maybe, to read their news. That is what we are trying to change by  creating more awareness. The startup project is therefore a very good idea.