Entrepreneurs create business opportunities in apps, data warehousing
Olumide Soyombo, a system engineer spoke with RAZAQ AYINLA on how he dropped the idea of becoming a medical doctor for system engineering, which has now made him the chief executive officer of Leadpath Nigeria, and co-founder of Bluechip Technologies Limited, based in Nigeria and Zambia.
Business
While Bluechip Technologies Limited, a Nigeria and Zambia-based ICT solutions firm, which enjoys international partnership with Oracle and Microsoft, focuses on data warehousing solutions and business intelligence and performance measurement, Leadpath Nigeria is a seed capital fund that provides short-, medium- and long-term funding and mentorship for small- and medium-sized start-up business in high growth technology areas such as software, web and mobile technologies.
According to Olumide Soyombo, CEO, Leadpath, jointly managed by Kazeem Tewogbade and Ajao as well as the co-founder of Bluechip Technologies Limited that is chaired by Kazeem Tewogbade, the group of the ICT solutions firms were established to support each other in the areas of vendor-neutral solutions, client data management, human capacity building and funding.
Although, Bluechip Technologies Limited was established about six years as data warehousing solutions, business intelligence solutions and other ICT-based service provider for telecoms, banks and other related industries, Leadpath was just established to provide funding and mentorship for up-and coming technology entrepreneurs on the development of software, games, apps, web and mobile technologies.
Speaking further on what the group of firms have been doing in the area of human capacity development, he said the organisation had put in place six-month intensive training for young graduates where they will be trained on different Oracle tools and business domain understanding, opportunities for them in the ICT, banking, telecommunication and insurance industries.
He said: “Oracle has over 30,000 products and we have what we call Business Intelligence Training (BIT) Programme where we have graduates who do some IT skills, we bring them into Bluechip Technologies for the training.
“It is a six-month intensive programme; during the six months, we train them using certain Oracle tools, we train them on understanding different domains, understanding the value-chain in banking, insurance, telecoms industries, we also put them on site to have the field knowledge.
“After the six-month training, we absorb the successful ones into our programmes and give them full employment. One of the first set of the training is now running in one of our large implementations in Zambia as the head of operations.
“But Leadpath is specifically created to get right capacity, funding and mentorship. What we want to achieve in Leadpath is to create that vehicle that supports technology entrepreneurs to achieve products development. With Leadpath, we are evaluating the applications we have received for funding and mentorship in our programmes.
“We have just opened an entry and we have had over 170 applications from people who can develop apps, games, payment solutions, e-commerce platform. In fact, I have been impressed with what I have seen, especially from many of the young lads who passed out from private universities like Babcock, Covenant, since the curriculum has been fashioned around entrepreneurial studies and that has really helped in churning out vert smart students.”
Inspiration
Olumide Soyombo disclosed that he was inspired when he was in Airforce Secondary School in Ibadan, Oyo State, back in 1995, when he gained access to his father personal computer and was convinced thereafter to drop medical doctor dream for system engineering in the University of Lagos, before he later sealed his career with Masters in Business and Information Technology at Aston Business School, Birmingham, England.
“Right from 1994-1995, I was in secondary school then, I always wanted to be a medical doctor. I was in Airforce School in Ibadan, and I came back home. I think around 1995, and I saw something that looked like TV on my dad desk, a little box below and I saw my dad on it. Then I put it on when he had left and I saw Window 95 and I asked a few questions.
“Throughout that holiday, I was on Window 95 PC. I think later we got Linkserve internet, that was the first internet service provider around Nigeria. So, I fell in love with Window 95 platform. Over the years, I played on internet almost all-day, I was so engaged in it, that was how I dropped my dream of medical doctor and pursued computer science/computer engineering career,” he revealed.
Staff
Apart from the trio of Olumide Soyombo, Kazeem Tewogbade and Tope Ajao that sit on the management of the Bluechip Technologies Limited and Leadpath Nigeria, respectively, the firms also have 52 consultants and hundreds of other staff members in Nigeria and Zambia.
Future prospects
“We have seen a lot of needs in the market now, these needs have also driven our capacity to meet up and enable more people to meet up the needs with the solutions and apps that we and our applicants are developing. I hope in the next five years these apps can have global reach,” he said.