{"id":7655,"date":"2013-08-03T15:40:28","date_gmt":"2013-08-03T15:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/disnaija.com\/nigerian-newspapers\/we-need-venture-capitalists-to-invest-in-it-ajisomo\/"},"modified":"2013-08-03T15:40:28","modified_gmt":"2013-08-03T15:40:28","slug":"we-need-venture-capitalists-to-invest-in-it-ajisomo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disnaija.com\/we-need-venture-capitalists-to-invest-in-it-ajisomo\/","title":{"rendered":"We need venture capitalists to invest in IT \u2013Ajisomo"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dele Ajisomo is the Managing Director\/Chief Executive Officer, Mandriva West Africa and a Board member of the Information Technology Association of Nigeria. In this interview with STANLEY OPARA<\/b> and SIMON EJEMBI,<\/b> he speaks on the future of IT business in Nigeria and the role of local players in the development of the industry<\/p>\n

How will you rate the growth of the IT sector in Nigeria and its contribution to the Gross Domestic Product?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

The sector is growing and what we are contributing to the GDP is just five per cent. This is allowed, but we can actually contribute close to 30 per cent.<\/p>\n

The Information Technology Association of Nigeria board, for instance, is now looking at things from a different perspective. It is bringing in people who can actually help the industry. The question now is: How do we bring this about?<\/p>\n

We need funding, we need collaboration, we need development, we need training for our members of staff and this is what we really want to let people in the industry know and understand. We need all these to move ahead.<\/p>\n

In the United States, where I trained, we have venture capitalists. You are starting a company and you are putting money in there, as long as you can provide them with corporate governance, a structure, a good business plan, you will get money and that is actually why there are lots of innovations in the US.<\/p>\n

Nigerians are very creative, but without money they cannot go anywhere. That is really the difference between this country and other countries. That is what ITAN is trying to change. We want to see how we can actually have venture capitalists, but my challenge will be to get people with money in this country to actually invest in technology.<\/p>\n

Technology is ruling the world now. That is why you have your phones. Do you know what most young multi-millionaires in the world today do? They don\u2019t have fixed office hours. When they wake up, they drink coffee around their home and do programming on their\u00a0 personal computers.<\/p>\n

Thereafter, you go online and you buy a game or you buy an application for $ 3 or $ 5. If they have 10 million people buying that application in a year, multiply that by 10 million. They are still in their houses, they don\u2019t have offices, and so, when they want to trade that idea, venture capitalists will invest in it. That is the way Google started; Facebook, Twitter, and so on. That is the way they all started and that is the way the industry is going and that is the way we really need to move in this country.<\/p>\n

Do you think the Federal Government is ready to help promote this whole idea?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s not blame everything on the Federal Government. IT professionals in this country are very timid. We believe we can manage, but if we start coming out and start talking like people in other professions, people will start investing and we will also become important to the government.<\/p>\n

Anybody can easily say now that five per cent of the GDP is nothing. But what have the other industries provided that is better than us? It is just that we are not talking. If we are talking, we\u2019ll get funding.\u00a0 When the farmers\u00a0 started talking, agriculture became a major issue\u00a0 in the country, so that is the way it has to go.<\/p>\n

Yes, you have to force your government to act; government will sit waiting for you. We always forget that government is for us. So, we really need to go after the government via talking, by doing something. Nigerians can produce all these banking applications that we are talking about, the programmes can be written in this country even by kids that are under 24. But where is the funding to do that?<\/p>\n

Imagine how much a bank spends on IT in a year, that is just one bank in this country. And there are 23 to 24 major banks now. If you look at the amount, it is in billions of dollars; not naira.<\/p>\n

If that money can reside here we can create more jobs for Nigerians, we can create more wealth for Nigerians and a lot of things can go on; and we can contribute towards our schools.<\/p>\n

If we can buy technologies from local manufacturers, they will use that money to hire Nigerians and more Nigerians will be put to work. So, those are the types of things we need to look at, we need to start talking.<\/p>\n

But why are IT professionals not talking?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s is our background. For example, when I started out in the US, I started with IBM. I had a room in my office and everything. I can stay in there on the floor, not because I did not have a chair, but I preferred putting the keyboard on my lap and I can stay there and not even look at the time or think about food.<\/p>\n

It might have to do with the nature of the IT profession; we just need a quiet place where we can just think. I still do that. Sometimes, my wife will accuse me and say, \u2018Why are you mild?\u2019 And I\u2019ll say, \u2018I\u2019m not mild, I\u2019m just thinking.\u2019 She\u2019ll ask, \u2018Why are you upset\u2019 and I will say, \u2018I\u2019m not upset, I\u2019m thinking\u2019. You see, it might be our nature, but we need to come out of that shell. Also, sometimes, we keep too much to ourselves, we don\u2019t share. If you keep things to yourself, saying you don\u2019t want to share because someone else might do them before you, you may have more difficulties. But if you collaborate \u2013 I might not know what you know or who you know \u2013 then we can expand it. Let\u2019s share it. Eventually, government will start hearing us.<\/p>\n

\u00a0How competent are Nigerian professionals, especially in the IT sector when compared to their foreign counterparts?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

This takes me to the oil industry. The oil industry has been hijacked; you might not know. Some of the people working for oil companies won\u2019t be able to clean my shoes in the US, but we call them expatriate here because they have white skin. We put them in nice houses, and we worship them as if they were great; it\u2019s a fact.<\/p>\n

I went to school with them, I know what they know and I didn\u2019t fail or drop out of school, So, what\u2019s the big deal? I did the same thing they did. I\u2019ve worked for an oil company before \u2013 BP, which used to be Amoco Oil.<\/p>\n

We do a lot of these things for them, we bring them here and the white folks you see, their bosses, who will also be white, will tell you that there are no competent Nigerians to do that and we accept that, while there are competent Nigerians. Before, they used to say we cannot develop any software in this country, but now, there are lots of software developed in this country. So, those are the types of things we need to look at.<\/p>\n

In Nigeria people keep complaining that the quality of local product is below international standards. What is ITAN doing about this?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Let me say this; we don\u2019t have patience, and that is something we don\u2019t have in common with Americans. Every time you do something, people will start judging you and comparing you with people who have been doing it for over 200 years. You can buy a HP Computer today and tomorrow it might not work, you can also buy IBM today and tomorrow it might not work; it can happen to anybody. We need to be patient. I bought a cloth here one time and a tailor sewed it for me and I sent the same material to my wife in the US and she sewed it there. People here were saying hers was better than mine, while people in the US were saying mine was better than hers. That is the problem. Anything international, we just double it up; it\u2019s our mentality.<\/p>\n

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Posted in Nigerian Newspapers. <\/a>A DisNaija.Com<\/a> network.<\/p>\n

Source: Punch Newspaper<\/p>\n

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