IT ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION

1. 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

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

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

4. 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 Communications Sector Chemical Sector Commercial Facilities Sector Critical Manufacturing Sector identified 16 critical national infrastructure namely Dams Sector Energy Sector Defense Industrial Base Sector Financial Services Sector Food and Agriculture Sector Government Facilities Sector Healthcare and Public Health Sector Information Technology Sector Transportation Systems Sector, Water and Wastewater Systems Sector Nuclear Reactors, Materials Emergency Services Sector

5. 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 INFRASTRUCTURE NATIONAL INFRASTRURE

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

7. 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.

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

9. Is our identified infrastructure as a nation meet with these yardsticks? • If 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. You need to answer this question: Whichever the answer of your choice, innovation is central to achieving a dependable and sustainable infrastructure, call it IT or national or critical.

10. INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP INNOVATION • A product, process, service, technology, or idea that is ready and available to markets, governments, and society. • Physical: an invention that enters the market and is successfully acceptable to consumers (= commercialised invention). • Non-Physical: a practicable business or management process or technique. • Innovation is the tool of entrepreneur by which opportunities are exploited to bring out new products or process or create new market. • 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. 

11. 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. Schumpeter (1934) considered an entrepreneur as an innovator A D Say and Turgot sees the entrepreneur to be a person who possesses managerial skills, creates and develop new business. A,B,C,D views expressed above presents an entrepreneur as an innovator and establishers of micro-scale enterprise (Ismail, et al, 201).

14. CASE STUDIES OF 2 DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS • In 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: • Konga, • Iroko TV, and • jobberman blazing the trail in their various area of expertise in Nigeria.

15. 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.

16. In the movie industry Nigeria created a Nollywood, a semblance of a sort of US Hollywood. • For example: • China has RenRen, the equivalent of Facebook. • Kenya 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 industry.

17. 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 address these challenges ? These are questions to ponder on ? WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DAY @ CCGH, OAU, Ile-Ife, Tue. 26th April 2016

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

19. 1 NUC, approved the integration of comprehensive end-to-end Entrepreneurship curriculum into the Nigeria university academic curricula in 2014. INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP: UNIVERSITY ROLE (CASE STUDY OAU) 3 2 • As 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 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.

20. Finance Venture Fund Venture Fund Brokerage, Interface, Bridging Institutions Policy Instruments Policy Instruments Policy Instruments Policy Instruments FGN CHAMS SIDMACH TECH RLG IBM OBAFEMI AWOLOWO UNIVERSITY Finance – SKYE BANK WORLD BANK • 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.

21. 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.

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

23. 250KVA ,150KVA • 50KVA Generators • Solar Panels • 144KVA Inverters • 930 Mbps Bandwidth • Robust Campus Network

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

25. 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 disadvantage.

26. 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

27. POSSIBLE 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. 1 The system of mentoring, apprenticeship and tutelage which existed in the past should be re-introduced and strengthened. 2

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

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

30. TOWARDS A DEPENDABLE AND SUSTAINABLE NATIONAL IT INFRASTRUCTURE A major area that begs for immediate attention is in the national infrastructure - national statistics, banking, power, transport, oil & gas. 1 Consider the case of incessant fuel diversion. Are 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. 2

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

32. 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 leadership by the three actors.

33. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION