Winifred Bosa.

Joel Chimhanda, the founder of JC Capital(Pty) Ltd , a financial advisory business in South Africa has at the sixth edition of the annual Innovention series, organised by the Verdant Zeal Group,  given a wake up call to African Leaders to develop their own silicon valley.

Speaking on the theme :How Technology is driving Africa’s New Narrative , Joel who also specialises in advising and partnering entrepreneurial visionaries to realise Sub -Sahara Africa business opportunities advocated for Africas transmission to their own credible and sustainable technology sector , infracstructures ,banking industry , health sector, entertainment industry, media, education system, agricultural system, business/ entrepreneurial skills etc that is economically significant over the long term and not to mimic others.

Discussants at the event are Maya Horgan-Faomdu, Founder and CEO, Ingressive; Olalekan Olumide, Senior Vice President, Jobberman; Afua Osei, Co-Founder; She Leads Africa and Temie Giwa-Tubosun, Founder, Life Bank. The session was moderated by Muyiwa Moyela, External Relations Leader, IBM Central and West Africa.

At the electrifying event , Chimhanda observed that innovation is silicon valley and thereby charged African leaders to spring up genuine solutions and mechanisms  to challenges experienced in Africa and not import solutions or appply western solutions to African problems.

“Until Africa begins to do things their own way, development and growth will remain elusive to the continent. Africa can only grow when African major leaders sit in a room to discuss a new way forward for the continent based on the opportunities technology is offering. African nations, spear-headed by Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya should tap into the opportunity provided by technology through some of the Telecom companies, and the rich Africans who are trail blazers in different fields of the economy.”

He observed that African leaders should enter into agreement with each other to upgrade cooperation through institutions and rules and promote regional economic growth while those leading should work together with their counterparts. “Those African countries that meet the terms of world investment should be allowed to lead in the region to promote investments. Nigerian Government should work with the Ghanaian and Senegalese Governments because Ghana and Senegal are acceptable investment destination, while Nigeria is not. So that at the end of the day, the regional economic growth will be given a chance.”

With this he warned , “African leaders should not sign any bilateral deal with China, India, America and Brazil. The law is the basis for contract and if we do not have the same law, they will always beat us every time and they will end up at the international tribunal. They can’t do a deal in Africa and sign it in English Law, or do a deal in Nigeria and sign the deal in America Law. African deal should be signed in African continent and American deal sign on America land,” he said.

On the place of Innovation and entrepreneurship in driving growth in Africa, Joel identified  infrastructure as the greatest impediment to entrepreneurial growth in the continent.

He said, “Infrastructure remains the impediment to growth in Africa. The Infrastructure in Africa is still colonial. It is designed to take money out. Every single deal done by the African Development bank is masterminded by an international organization andtoday , intra African trade is barely 11% as almost 90% of money spent in Africa immediately goes outside the continent to other countries. African entrepreneurs can only effect very little change as they are themselves hampered by the infrastructural deficiencies in the continent. If your cost traction can’t compete globally, you can’t build anything. If you still spend three hours in traffic getting from one place to another, there is hardly anything you can do. The solution is with government and policy makers”.

On deployment of mobile applications as well as the right computer programmes in the three major local languages to promote growth, Joel pointed out that Nigeria needs to write high quality electronic learning syllabus in Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo to bridge the gap in technological knowledge.

“technology is an enabler;  a step in that direction would facilitate the growth of problem solving softwares, as people without school degrees would be empowered to write programmes to address the nation’s challenges. It is vital for Nigeria to emulate the trend in Rwanda, which has the highest Internet per capita in Africa, because they have invested in structures to support mobile application switching. And for that to happen in Nigeria, somebody has to spend without expecting a return in their investment, and that is the role government is to play.”

He however  berated the media for misinforming Africans and for under reporting critical issues affecting the continent saying , “You can only make informed decision when you are well informed. Unfortunately 90% of Africans make misinformed decisions and the media is to be blamed for that . A new media is relevant. We need to create our own narratives and speak in African context .”

Also speaking at the event Dr. Tunji Olugbodi, Executive Vice Chairman, Verdant Zeal Group, observed that internet penetration in Africa has been gathering momentum over the last half-decade as we seek to close gap on Information Communication Technology, ICT, with western climes and with these trends, Nigeria leads the continent and is expected to be among the top 10 internet using countries in the world by 2018.

According to him, “in recent years , alot of African countries have embraced technology as a driver of development. According to staticstics updated in June 2015 , Africa has 28.6% internet penetration with Nigeria having 11.3% of the total penetration in Africa. This shows that Nigeria is a big player in the African Market. ”

But he amidst these giant strides in technology, he lamented that there still remains a huge demography of young  people, mostly women , who remain in rural and semi urban areas , below the poverty line and seem unable to tap into this new economy.

Hence , the innovention series is an attempt to provide pragmatic ways of helping Africa’s young, yet vulnerable population, gain the requisite skills to lift themselves out of poverty and participate in the global economy now dictated by technology.