The first ever Nigerian ICT barcamp held last weekend in Lagos, and from what I’ve been reading, it was a success.
One the innate problems I think most Nigerians have — based on my experience and observations since 2005 — is the lack of cohesion and reluctance to pursue common purpose goals. These limitations, plus the over-aching lack of focus of the top national policy makers — as Oro blog points out, have resulted in a Nigerian ICT sector that has repeatedly failed to live up to expectation, particularly in comparison to other African countries like Rwanda, Kenya, and South Africa.
It is uplifting to read about the BarCamp Nigeria; my hope is that the event will translate into a series of ripples that invigorate the entire nation, both private and public sectors.
As the most populous African nation with a burgeoning base of Internet users, (Nigeria is currently second to Egypt at 10 million internet users), nature and geography have bestowed on Nigeria the ability to take huge strides; it is an absurdity that Nigeria lacks a national agenda on ICT.
One area I think Nigeria stands to gain the most is the use of web and related technologies in effecting/augmenting/facilitating changes at the social, economic and political levels of endeavor. The emphasis should not be ‘clone-hatching’ of existing works, but a creation of value-adding applications, deplorable at the enterprise level.
A great example of a value-adding venture is the Taiwo Ayedun/Fola Adeola-led Credit Registry, Nigeria’s pioneer private credit bureau. Credit Registry is unique in its use of biometrics to address identity fraud and the country’s lack of national ID numbering system. See Grandiose Parlor profile of CreditRegistry.
In closing, it will nice if the organizers of the event would release and post a communique of the event and future ideas and plans.
Interesting…so how does someone not in the ‘clique’ appraise what happened at the camp…without having to sign up and read the never-ending chatter on twitter, or visit several blogs to read narratives? I guess this is where the communique comes in useful, for me at least.
I would love to know what went on over the weekend and if there is prospect for more of these kind of grassroots activities…
CreditRegistry…umm, that is more interesting than the company that got licensed by the CBN last month.
See this: CBN licenses first credit bureau: http://www.dailytrust.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6436&Itemid=7
April 28, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Thanks for the link Ben. It is interesting that XDS Credit Bureau Limited is being touted as the first credit bureau in Nigeria. The XDS was incorporated in May 2005, two years after CreditRegistry started operations in December 2003.
April 28, 2009 at 9:57 pm
BarCamp Nigeria 2009: Overview, Photos & Videos…
25th April 2009 was the day and Tom Associates Training Centre in Lagos Nigeria was the venue. Geeks, web entrepreneurs, and other like-minded people in the IT industry gathered to deliberate on Web 2.0, dot-com startups, web marketing strategies, mob…
May 4, 2009 at 1:49 am