Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Friday, August 17, 2012

High tech Nigeria

When headlines from Nigeria are full of corruption, terrorism, bombings, polio, natural disasters, and polluted environments, it's good to remind ourselves that Nigeria is a huge, diverse country. If we try to analyze government and politics against a background of disaster and failure, we'll miss important parts of the "story." Here's at least one aspect we should keep in mind.

Nigeria's low-cost tablet computer

Adepoju's tablet computer

Nigeria's Saheed Adepoju is a young man with big dreams. He is the inventor of the Inye, a tablet computer designed for the African market.

According to the 29-year-old entrepreneur, his machine's key selling point is its price - $350 (£225) opposed to around $700 for an iPad.

He believes that, because of this, there is a big market for it in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, particularly amongst students.

He is also hoping to sell his tablet - which runs on the Google Android operating system - to the Nigerian government and plans to have at least one computer in each local government area…

"You have the standard software applications that come pre-installed and then you have the ones that we are working with various local developers to bundle on," he added.

Among those local apps there is one designed to raise awareness about HIV and others related to water and sanitation…

Mr Adepoju has a background in software development and is a Sun-certified Java programmer.

After doing a first degree in maths and computer science in Nigeria, he completed another one in advanced computing by research at Bournemouth University, in the United Kingdom…

He borrowed money from friends and family, raising a total of about $60,000.

According to him, all of that went on the devices and the logistics - there was no budget for marketing, so early advertising was "word of mouth" on social media…

According to Mr Adepoju, the company and the apps it develops are focused on preserving local culture through technology and making products which are specific to the local market…

However, he says that it has not been easy to raise capital in order to develop the business faster.

"Here venture capital (VC) is still in its infancy and most VC firms wound want to invest in tried and trusted companies that have gained some form of traction," he said…