The Mobile Monday Nigeria team will be discussing their research into the following;
MEF Africa, in association with Vodacom, is carrying out vital research to understand the state of the mobile content and commerce markets in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria. This is an important, independent benchmark study to identify the specific opportunities and challenges in each of those African growth markets and we would like to personally invite you to participate in the study.
Here’s a mesage from our friends at IsraelDev, CleanWeb Initiative and Terralab Ventures
On the 14-15 November 2013 we will be hosting the Dev4Dev CleanWeb Hackathon in Tel Aviv, Israel, an event that will focus on Developing Apps for the Developing World. The aim of the Dev4Dev CleanWeb Hackathon is to connect Israel’s leading entrepreneurial and technological community with the needs of the developing world.
We hope to harness the talent of the next generation of programmers and developers for addressing the most pressing needs of the developing world by raising awareness and forming partnerships with local stakeholders in these countries. For more information please visit www.dev4devcleanweb.com .
This report was made possible by Oge Onuoha, Willie Aniebiet and the rest of the Online Team here at Mobile Monday Nigeria.
On September 30th, 2013, we had our September 2013 meet up, which doubled as one of the events slated for the Google Entrepreneurship week, an annual week celebrating innovators and entrepreneurs around the world (September 30th to October 4th, 2013). The event was themed “Economic Impact of the Internet in Nigeria” and it covered a broad range of topics including the ICT Sector in Nigeria, the market structure in Nigeria and the Impact of the Internet on the Nigerian Economy. It was a night to remember as delegates and invited guests from Konga.com and a host of other companies were in attendance to listen to the facilitators of the report and to also ask from questions from the Panelists who were invited to share their thoughts on the report and their personal views about the Economic Impact of the Internet in Nigeria.
The panel included Simdul Shagaya of Konga.com, Femi Akinde of Slimtrader, Deji Adewunmi of Jobberman, Deepankar Rustagi of VConnect.com, Femi Taiwo of INITS Limited and Google Developer Group Lagos, Mike Ogbalo of FirstBank, Akin Oyebode of Stanbic IBTC, Olalekan Olude of Jobberman, Robin Miller of Dalberg, Yinka David West of Lagos Business School, and Jason Njoku of Iroko Partners.
Its Networking Time!
The networking session commenced by 5:00pm as guests streamed in to the e-Learning Centre and the IDEA Hub. Early birds had more time to network while munching some small chops. The house was a full one as we saw MoMo Nigeria members from neighbouring cities like Ibadan and Ife show up for the event.
Presentation of the Report
By 6:30pm Mayowa Owolabi kicked off the event by introducing the special guests and inviting Dalberg’s Robin Miller, for her presentation on the Economic Impact of the Internet in Nigeria. Attendees at the IDEA Hub watched the event live via Google+. Etisalat provided internet service for the Live Hangout.
Her three-tier presentation shed light on the good, the bad and the unfulfilled potential of the impact of the internet in Nigeria.
The good: She highlighted the Increasing access to affordable infrastructure; Infrastructure investments; Connections across the continent via the social media; Innovation; socio-economic impact (access to education, job opportunities and financial services) and Public, private and philanthropic investments.
The bad: She pointed out the challenges holding back growth to be Access to the internet, Innovation policies by the government and the bad reputation of ICT in Nigeria with regards to Cyber Crime and Corruption of executives.
The unfulfilled potential: Dalberg’s Robin Miller recommended continuous investment in infrastructure and proper innovation policies, to unlock the unfulfilled potential of the internet in Nigeria.
After the insightful presentation by Robin Miller, The MoMo Nigeria executive chairman, Tomi Davies introduced the panelists, questions and comments from the audience were discussed and answered by them.
The evening was concluded by the Chairman enlightening the audience of the iHq project, an industry led initiative that aims to accelerate the growth of technology innovation and entrepreneurship for economic prosperity in Nigeria and the e-Learning Centre, an ultra modern resource centre for knowledge seekers.
Post event interviews and video of the main event can be found below
Post event Interviews
Video of main event
Google+ Hangout with IDEA Hub
UPDATE: Spaces at the Lagos State E-Learning Centre have been sold out. Register to attend at the IDEA Hub below
The Internet is a tremendous, undisputed force for economic growth and social change. Not only has it unleashed new forms of connectivity, but it has also provided an outlet for new forms of innovation, entrepreneurship and social good. The Internet has also proven a dynamic tool for stimulating economic growth in developing countries, with the World Bank reporting that a 10% increase in broadband correlates to a 1.38% increase in GDP growth
Beyond GDP growth, the Internet also provides opportunities to pursue social and developmental objectives. Throughout the developing world, the Internet is connecting remote populations to markets and strengthening the overall efficiency of service delivery in areas such as health, education, livelihoods and financial inclusion, as well as creating access to government services for the most marginalized populations.
“The Impact of the Internet in Nigeria” report gives an insight into how the Internet has facilitated change in different sectors of the Nigerian Economy. A representative from Dalberg will be available to present the report.
This report provides detailed assessments of the current and potential impact of the Internet on socio-economic growth across seven sectors: agriculture, education and labor, energy, financial inclusion, governance, health and small and medium enterprise (SME) growth. It also examines the role that government, private sector and donors have played in building the ecosystem for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) innovation and driving this impact.
Also there will be a panelist session with some of the leaders in the Nigerian IT Industry giving their own thoughts about the findings of the report. This event would be the first of it’s kind. You’ll be sure to meet :
Femi Taiwo, Manager, Technology Services at INITS Limited – a Software Development and IT Consultancy company. Femi is a young, seasoned entrepreneur and a graduate of Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Lagos. With a knack for many languages, he has made major contributions to the new, improved face of elections in Nigeria through his involvement in the Platforms – OpenVR (Voters Registration Software) and OpenVC (Election Results Collation Platform) both open source solutions. Femi has bagged years of experience in building large scale desktop applications, Linux Server Deployment – File and Database Clustering, Bandwidth management, and Mail Servers. View his full profile here.
Oshone Ikazoboh, CEO naij.com – a one-stop Nigerian portal for all Nigerian news – politics, business, arts & culture, and entertainment. A thorough businessman,entrepreneur and multiple Director, Oshone holds a Bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering and a Masters degree in Engineering Networking and Telecommunications from Liverpool John Moore’s University, UK. View his full profile here
Opeyemi Awoyemi & Deji Adewunmi, Co-founders Jobberman.com -Nigeria’s No. 1 jobs website with over 700,000 users and 6,000 companies. Opeyemi and Deji are alumni of Obafemi Awolowo University. Taking advantage of the Internet, they have bridged the gap between job seekers in Nigeria and employers of labour. Hence, Jobberman.com has been described by Forbes as “West Africa’s most popular job search engine and aggregator”. View Opeyemi’s full profile here and Deji’s full profile here
Francis Ebuehi, COO Spinlet – a mobile music download platform making musical content available to Nigerians whilst leveraging the growing payment system available in the country. Francis started his career with Accenture where he worked on and led several consulting projects in process re-engineering and strategy. He has also worked for 2 major banks where he was responsible for setting up the banking products and electronic banking products divisions. He has worked in Airtel as the Divisional Head of Product Development and was also the CEO of Chamsswitch Limited. View his full profile here.
Deepanker Rustagi, General Manager VConnect – a local search engine and an information service provider founded in 2010. VConnect provides information about various products, services and companies in Nigeria. View his full profile here
Simdul Shagaya, Founder and CEO konga.com, Nigeria’s largest online shopping portal. Simdul has been named the Entrepreneur of the Year by Johnnie Walker Blue Label CNBC Africa “All Africa Business Leaders Awards 2013”.
Since it’s beginning in 2012, konga.com has offered low prices and fast delivery services on thousands of products nationwide. Sim is a graduate of George Washington University, Dartmouth College and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Olayinka David-West, Faculty Director at the Pan Atlantic University/Lagos Business School, Dr. David-West works with Nigerian organisations in information technology decision making by providing an understanding of the business value obtainable from information and its related technologies. In the Government, Dr. David-West contributes to ICT policy and strategy formulation, Internet Governance, and skills management processes. Dr David-West holds a doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) from Manchester Business School; an MSc in Business Systems Analysis and Design from City University, London; and a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Lagos.
Shina Badaru, Founder, Technology Times Media – a web portal unveiled in July 2004 to provide free access to news and debates on ICTs in Nigeria. Shina is a multiple award-winning Nigerian technology journalist covering the Nigerian ICT industry for leading local and international media organisations. He started his journalism career in THISDAY Newspapers in 1996 where he was the pioneer IT Reporter, pioneer IT Editor and pioneer Electronic News Editor. He graduated from the Department of Mass Communications, University of Lagos in 1993. He has earned many awards and recognitions including the first Nigerian recipient of the SAP African Technology Reporting Award in 2001.
Olumide Balogun – Partner Manager, Developer Experience, Nokia West & Central Africa – A seasoned software engineer, Olumide works with the aim of accelerating the growth of mobile software companies in Nigeria.
Wole Lawani – Managing Partner, Hyve Capital Ltd., the leading management consulting company servicing active companies within Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
Jason Njoku – Co-Founder of Iroko TV and Spark.ng. Iroko TV is the largest digital distributor of Nigerian music and movies, with a library of about 1600 licensed movies. Mr. Njoku holds a BSc in Chemistry from The University of Manchester. He was a speaker at TEDxEuston in 2012
Join us at the E-Learning Centre (Odunlami Street, Lagos Island) and IDEA Hub (Herbert Macaulay Street, Yaba) for the event on the 30th of September, 2013 and remember to start preparing your networking session yarns 🙂 .
This event is sponsored by 
This event is part of Google for Entrepreneurs Week which is an annual week celebrating innovators and entrepreneurs around the world. This year, from September 30 – October 4, 2013. Googlers in more than 45 cities around the world will host events including community meetups, mentorship sessions and training workshops. Google’s goal is to equip entrepreneurs with the skills they need to build and scale their businesses. Last year, more than 3000 entrepreneurs attended Google for Entrepreneurs Week events in 29 cities in 14 Countries.
The key, Horace Dediu says, is to think of the iPhone as a data services salesperson.
FORTUNE — The short answer for why Apple (AAPL) charges so much for its iPhones — e.g. $549 for the new iPhone 5C that most analysts expected would sell for somewhere between $300 and $400 — is that it can.
“Anybody would if they could,” writes Horace Dediu on his Asmyco blog.
“That’s a poor question. So the right question should be: why does anybody pay this much?”
Dediu’s answer reveals much about underlying workings of the mobile phone business — and indeed, the whole Internet economy. His key points:
Consumers, by and large, aren’t paying those high prices. It’s the operators — 270 mobile phone carriers — who pay the full freight.
The decisions operators make on whether to carry the iPhone are driven not by fashion or fanboyism, but by hard economic realities: ARPU, churn, network costs, depreciation, ROI, etc.
For many operators — about two thirds of them — the iPhone doesn’t fit their business model. Verizon held out for years. DoCoMo just came around. China Mobile may soon as well.
Following the money, Dediu concludes that the operators who pay Apple’s steep prices do so because the iPhone helps move users to higher revenue data services.
“These are more profitable services for operators,” he writes, “and the subsidy model creates more loyalty and thus reduces churn and creates a stable cash flow which can then be leveraged through debt to upgrade networks and attract yet more loyal iPhone users.”
But that’s not the end of the money trail. Consumers end up paying most of the iPhone premium in the form of higher monthly phone bills. It’s not itemized in the invoice, but Dediu estimates that $10 to $15 of every monthly bill in a subsidized plan goes to paying for the phone.
“So in a way,” Dediu writes, “Apple has managed to place itself on many people’s monthly phone bills. It’s a nice place to be.”
Some consumers see that transfer of payment as a thinly veiled con. It smacks of misdirection. The value of the iPhone is apparent to the user, but the payment for that value is not.
“In fact the whole Internet and all business plans that are built on it depend on a subtle ‘something for nothing’ type of misdirection,” Dediu writes. “The Internet runs on the arbitrage between a consumer service market where everybody consumes but nobody pays and a separate data market where nobody consumes and everybody pays.”
His conclusion:
“The iPhone could thus be finally understood as a complex service business. It captures value through the phone bill but delivers value through a screen. A misdirection magic trick which many have tried to pull off. It’s essentially tapping into the $1.3 trillion communications market, skimming profits by delivering the ‘content’ which lights up the wires.
“It’s great except it does not work everywhere. Not yet at least. The complexity of services means that they are usually found in more advanced so-called service economies and rare in less developed so-called goods economies.”
Now that’s what I call smart analysis. Why don’t we get more of it from the guys who are paid to do it on Wall Street?
Link: S is for Service at Asymco.com, where much of the value comes from the quality the conversation in the comment stream.
Culled from: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/09/12/apple-iphone-asymco-dediu/
There’s an event happening today at the IDEA Hub focused on Windows Phone Development. NOKIA is giving African, including Nigerian developers, the opportunity to develop and sell apps for their LUMIA brand of devices. The event hopes to bring out the best in Developers and Potential Developers (and non-developers) by engaging them in contests and training regarding development of Apps for the Windows Platform. It aims to go round West African countries until more than a thousand apps are created and published.
Crafted by Willie Aniebiet. You can find him on Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/aniebiet )
After bustling for the last Monday of the month of August, health experts, developers and enthusiasts hung out at Lagos State e-Learning Centre for the August Edition of Mobile Monday. Representatives from the World Bank were exceptionally punctual. The event slated for 5:00pm saw just a few attendees available at the set time; the ‘African-time’ bug. A well known figure in the Tech-Space in Nigeria, Tomi Davies, welcomed participants and painstakingly registered each unregistered participant in his “database”.
Join us as we discuss about mHealth in Nigeria. We’ll also be inviting individuals who are involved in mHealth initiatives that are making impacts in Society.
Speakers:
Temie Giwa of One Percent Project: She will be speaking about what she’s doing with the One Percent Project and recent projects she participated in including the “LifeBank App“
Kareem Giwa of Sproxil: He will be talking about how Sproxil is leading the way in drug authentication using their MAS (Mobile Authentication System).
Adekunle Jinadu of Lifesaver : He will be speaking about Lifesaver, a mobile app which can be used in emergency situations.
Event Location , Date and TIme
Location: The Lagos State E-Learning Centre
Date: 26th August 2013
Time: 5:00pm – 8:30pm
At the event, Location Based Services and its benefits to Nigerian Businesses was discussed. The speakers were Gabriel Dada of Twinpine, Aniedi Udo-Obong of Audax and Jacqueline Raquai of Google.
The First speaker, Gabriel Dada Spoke about Location Based Advertising and how Twinpine’s ad serving platform works. He also gave some statistics about Online Advertising:
– 78% of Nigeria’s internet users are between the ages of 19-35.
– There are at least 9 Million Nigerians on Social Media
– There were more website visits from Mobile (60.69% of traffic) than Desktop (30.31% of traffic)