IT ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION BY G A Aderounmu

IT ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION BY G. A. Aderounmu, FNCS President, Nigeria Computer Society and Director, Information Technology and Communications Unit Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife

What constitute National IT Infrastructure? Broadly speaking, a national infrastructures, systems, and facilities serving a country, city, or area, including the services and facilities necessary for its economy to function. Example 1 roads, bridges , Hard Infrastructure tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, telecommunications Defined as: The physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions). and so forth 2

What constitute National IT Infrastructure? Example 2 financial system, educations Soft Infrastructure system, health care delivery, egovernment and Defined as: The institutions which are required to maintain the economic, health, and cultural and social standards of a country. emergencies services. 3

Communications Sector Critical Manufacturin g Sector In developed countries, national infrastructure are well defined and delineated for proper monitoring and control. For instance, the department of Homeland Security in the United States Energy Sector Financial Services Sector identified 16 critical national infrastructure namely Chemical Sector Dams Sector Nuclear Reactors, Materials Defense Industrial Base Sector Food and Agriculture Sector Government Facilities Sector Information Technology Sector Commercial Facilities Sector Healthcare and Public Health Sector Water and Wastewater Systems Sector Transportation Systems Sector, Emergency Services Sector 4

Some countries also do have a well defined national scientific infrastructure that is comprising both hard and soft structures that engender research - laboratories and software. HARD SOFT INFRASTRUCTURE NATIONAL INFRASTRURE 5

Therefore: A nation IT infrastructure consist of : Hardware, Software Data centers Facilities and related equipment used to: develop Test Operate Monitor manage and/or support these critical sectors/services 6

In Nigeria, infrastructure of critical importance are • oil and gas infrastructure, • power, • telecommunication • financial system. Presently some of these are IT driven while some are yet but create an avenue for further development. 7

A dependable and sustainable infrastructure will therefore be one that is : v. Functional v. Adheres to International standards v. Efficient, high productivity and serviceable v. Be an environmentally friendly one. 8

You need to answer this question: v. Is our identified infrastructure as a nation meet with these yardsticks? ØIf your answer is ‘Yes’, there is certainly an opportunity for further development. However, if your answer is ‘No’, then there is a window of opportunity for a better system. Whichever the answer of your choice, innovation is central to achieving a dependable and sustainable infrastructure, call it IT or national or critical. 9

INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP INNOVATION Ø A product, process, service, technology, or idea that is ready and available to markets, governments, and society. Ø Physical: an invention that enters the market and is successfully acceptable to consumers (= commercialised invention). Ø Non-Physical: a practicable business or management process or technique. Ø Innovation is the tool of entrepreneur by which opportunities are exploited to bring out new products or process or create new market. Ø In the traditional system, innovations are product of knowledge institutions while an entrepreneur is someone who commercializes the innovation. This view, however, is fast changing. 10

B A Is a self-employed person with tolerance for risk inherent in providing for his own economic well being (Cantillon, 1730) Creates, operates and assume the risk of a new business feature. C Hence, for you to become an entrepreneur, you must have some business ideas. A Schumpeter (1934) considered an entrepreneur as an innovator D A, B, C, D views expressed above presents an entrepreneur as an innovator and establishers of micro-scale enterprise (Ismail, et al, 201). Say and Turgot sees the entrepreneur to be a person who possesses managerial skills, creates and develop new business. 11

S/N Disruptive Technologica l Innovations Name of Founder and year Activity Current Value Remarks 1 Uber Travis Provides ride $41 billion Cordell sharing services by (equivalent of • Kalanick facilitating a Nigeria and Garrett connection budget for Camp between two years). • • independent contractors (drivers) and riders with the use of an app. • One of the world most disruptive innovation. Becoming in 7 years (technically) the world largest car fleet operator. Presence in Los Angelis and 457 other cities worldwide (with Abuja as the 400 th city in March, 2016) and across 58 countries. Currently, Uber employs 6, 700 employees and complements national transport infrastructure of most countries of operation 12

S/N Disruptive Technologica l Innovations Name of Founder and year Activity Current Value Remarks 2 Air. Bn. B Brian Chesky Trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world online or from a mobile phone or tablet. The company • Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk ; (2008) net worth is about $25 billion. • • • In 2014, Air. Bn. B surpassed most major international hotels chains in the number of lodging. It hires employee at the rate of 2 -3 employees per day. Airbnb connects people to unique travel experiences, at any price point, in more than 34, 000 cities and 191 countries. Airbnb is the easiest way for people to monetize their extra space and showcase it to an audience of millions. 13

CASE STUDIES OF 2 DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS ØIn these two case studies, evidence shows how innovation by very few people not only became a global money spinner but also generated employment. In spite of lack of adequate documentation, there have also been few success stories of local tech firms such as: v Konga, v Iroko TV, and v jobberman blazing the trail in their various area of expertise in Nigeria. 14

POPULATION: NIGERIA MAIN STRENGTH FOR INNOVATION Nigeria population is about 178 million with the age-bracket between 15 and 54 accounting for 48. 9%. More so, another 49% lives in the urban area (World Bank statistics) So what does this demography tells us? It is a huge potential for a demographic dividends. 15

For example: Ø In the movie industry Nigeria created a Nollywood, a semblance of a sort of US Hollywood. ØChina has Ren, the equivalent of Facebook. ØKenya mobile money platform, M-pesa is a leading mobile money channel, not just in Africa, but globally in the world. This singular innovation, brought about by Vodafone, is responsible for 10% of Kenya GDP. Not only this, it has drawn international focus to the country, further creating attraction for Kenya tourism 16 industry.

One area of possible innovative solution is in the area of cyber security. With increasing use of IT also come its consequences of cyber threat. Need to develop apps that help ensure cyber safety. The gaming industry is also another area begging for attention. Nigeria has rich cultural heritage and indigenous knowledge. Tourism apps can come up to document these heritages for use by visitors coming to Nigeria. When will social media in Nigeria language be developed? My point here is leveraging on the Nigeria population, let there begins the innovative race to create services and products that address our local challenges. Nigeria is faced with so many challenges. Challenges, they say, are precursor to inventions. How come then that innovative solutions are not emanating from the Universities, Civil Society Organisations, Military institutions to WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DAY @ address these challenges ? These are questions to ponder on ? CCGH, OAU, Ile-Ife, Tue. 26 th April 2016 17

INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: UNIVERSITY ROLE (CASE STUDY OAU) Finance Policy Instruments Government Venture Fund Policy Instruments Education and Research Policy Instruments Brokerage, Interface, Bridging Institutions Industrial Production Typical structure of interactions among the elements of the National Innovation System (Adapted from Tiffin , 1997) by Siyanbola, 2008) 18

1 NUC, approved the integration of comprehensive end-to-end Entrepreneurship curriculum into the Nigeria university academic curricula in 2014. 2 Beyond this however, is the need to create atmosphere for technology innovation or else, the entrepreneurship programs will just be another academic exercise without any practicable output. INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: UNIVERSITY ROLE (CASE STUDY OAU) 3 ØAs noted by Diaconi and Dutu (2015), innovative entrepreneurship, not just entrepreneurship, contributes to the economic development, increasing wealth, creating with considerable added value as a result of harnessing the opportunities and innovation in entreprenurship 19

The Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife, through a seed grant from the Step-B/World Bank established a Centre of Excellence in Software Engineering using the NIS model. Finance – Finance SKYE BANK WORLD BANK Policy Instruments FGN Venture Fund Policy Instruments OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY Policy Instruments Brokerage, Interface, Bridging Institutions CHAMS SIDMACH TECH RLG IBM 20

The Centre through a progressive mentorship arrangement, provides students with hands-on experience in solving real-life problems with far wider implications. I am glad to note that some innovative product of the Centre developed in partnership with a Nigeria major IT firm is being deployed now at national level (issues of non-disclosure agreement will not allow me to go to details). What is however important here is that, some of the points and challenges raised in this paper, do not need rocket science to address but committed leadership, institutional support and collaborative disposition. 21

IT ENTREPRENURSHIP AND INNOVATION: OAU MODEL OAU IPTTO Students 300 L 400 L 500 L FGN Private Sector • Problem Identification • Marketing of Product • Generate Fund OAU Software Research Studio • Problem solving unit/Research • Software product/Apps • Articles for Publication • Capacity building in Software development • Employment generation

• 250 KVA , 150 KVA Generators • Solar Panels • 144 KVA Inverters • 930 Mbps Bandwidth • Robust Campus Network

PROPOSED NCS IT INNOVATION CENTRE Service Broker Government/Business/V enture Fund Find Publish NCS Education and Research Service Provider Bind IT Industry Service Requester Modified NIS 24

s AND PROBLEMS OF IT ENTREPRENEUR ! Lack of fund to implement the business idea especially the fresh graduates. ! High rate of bribery and corruption where an entrepreneur have to bribe their way out in doing business. ! You must know somebody at the top before a contract is awarded. ! Contract are always awarded to unqualified entrepreneur which always put young entrepreneur at a 25 disadvantage.

s AND PROBLEMS OF IT ENTREPRENEUR ! Lack of entrepreneurial capacity building in Nigeria. (Government patronizes foreign products). ! Lack of governmental support in education, funding and the provision of resources to equip our graduates for the challenges as entrepreneurs, ! The program curricula in our universities is focused on intelligence and not on creativity; ! Lack of practical experience by our graduates; ! Lack of focus by our students during internship, and ! Lack of clear cut strategies to provide high skilled graduates specialized in specific areas ! Weak University-Industry linkage 26

POSSIBLE 1 The creation of a one-stop-shop entrepreneurship website where both IT entrepreneurs would turn for information, advice, and guidance on business models, is long overdue. This is to enable young IT entrepreneurs learn. The system of mentoring, apprenticeship and 2 tutelage which existed in the past should be re -introduced and strengthened. 27

POSSIBLE Split-site arrangements should be encouraged 3 to enable young researchers to be acquainted with new trends, globally Research centres, technology parks and incubators should be established to facilitate 4 collaboration between researchers and industry, and the sharing of research results. 28

POSSIBLE Capacity Building through Workshops and 5 Symposia. 6 Seek additional sources of external support: fund-raising through workshops, conferences, partnership/collaboration, and consultancy services. 7 System of Mentorship that existed in past should be re-visited 29

TOWARDS A DEPENDABLE AND SUSTAINABLE NATIONAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE A major area that begs for immediate attention is in the national infrastructure - national statistics, 1 banking, power, transport, oil & gas. Consider the case of incessant fuel diversion. Are 2 there comprehensive database of fuel tankers and associated drivers? What sort of monitoring and alert system are in place to checkmate diversion? Using gps tracker, an automatic alert be set up once a fuel divert from its intended destination. 30

TOWARDS A DEPENDABLE AND SUSTAINABLE NATIONAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE Nigeria is data poor and when data are available, they 3 failed the test of openness i. e. machine-readable, accessibility, timely etc. So the country need number crunchers to help 4 transform its closed data to an open one; analyze such and bring out information critical for national planning, local and international use. 5 CPN to immediately implement her mandate. 31

In achieving this, government, knowledge institutions and private organizations must collaboratively come together to invest in technology innovation within a frame of well defined roles and functions which are non mutually exclusive. This calls for readiness on the part of the Universities, political will by government, financial support from private institutions and 32

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION 33