USAID’s initiative will empower 500 tech start-ups in 2017
The numerous commercial opportunities in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem are increasingly attracting the attention of investors from around the world and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is not left out. Recently BusinessDay’s FRANK ELEANYA had a chat with Jill Moss, Tech Adviser, USAID at a dinner organised by the US Consulate in Lagos. Jill Moss disclosed two US government initiatives that will potentially impact the tech ecosystem in Nigeria and Africa.
Tell us about USAID latest initiative with tech start-ups?
We want to understand the tech ecosystem in Nigeria and Africa because we are working with 500 start-ups in March 2017 on enabling them. USAID recognizes that in the 21st century, for us to modernize our development enterprise we need to be engaging more in the utility of science and data, evidence generation for proof of impact in the development work we are doing. We also need to be thinking about the technological advances the world is going through and how we can leverage those to develop the work we are doing. Part of that includes the innovations that young sociological hubs like those here in Nigeria are coming up with. These are the social impact innovators who understand the local context, understand the challenges and they work in this country.
Because of their innovations we see opportunities to leverage that knowledge, to leverage what they are coming up with and to utilize it in the development work that we are doing. We are also seeking to understand how we can build partnerships between private individuals, public – government to government partnership, partnerships with high valued individuals and USAID or multi-stakeholder partnerships. We know that our development dollars go a lot further with partnerships. So my work in West Africa is to continue to nudge USAID in the direction of using science and technology innovation and partnership and I am in Nigeria to better understand the ecosystem.
You met with some tech start-ups recently, what was your experience?
At Co-Creation Hub we had the opportunity to meet with some of the innovators who are utilizing the space to better understand the challenges that they are facing, the commitment that they made to help inspire and generate potential economic opportunities in the work that they doing. We also had the chance to visit iDea hub next door to CCHub and it was in the visit that we sat down with young entrepreneurs who have a vision, who recognize in other to bring that vision to fruition they needed mentoring, they needed a space to work, they needed connectivity and seed funding. Seed funding is the essence of the tech tour and the events that have transpired this week. We were at the Africa Angel Investors’ Summit yesterday where we convened a variety of angel investor organisations, venture capitalists groups and representatives of venture capitalist funds. We had long conversations around where there were opportunities to lean in on investing in the new economy that is being built here in Nigeria. the events that we held today, High Growth Africa Summit at Landmark Centre was a way to pull together innovators, incubators, investors, organisations like USAID – donors, and have fruitful conversations about how to stimulate your initiative, how to seek seed capital, how to secure seed capital, where government can lend assistance in this process, what is some potential regulatory hurdles that are barriers to making smart investment and young entrepreneurs successful. So it has been a very fruitful two days that hopefully have generated some good ground lane for an initiative that USAID will be bringing back to Nigeria in 2017.
What is the initiative in 2017 all about?
The tech tour and the two events that we held in the Landmark centre were an opportunity to understand the ecosystem from my perspective. In doing this ground work – if you will, USAID has committed to working with 500 start-ups in partnership to bring in March 2017, a group of Silicon Valley investors, venture capitalists, high valued individuals, organisations that have interest in Africa but do not necessarily understand the ecosystem or the hurdles of investing here. That is the opportunities we will be creating with the Geeks on A Plane Initiative which is how it is being framed. These are kinds of geeky individuals and because they are so smart, venture capital opportunities, we will put them on a plane and we will transport them to Africa. We will be stopping in Accra, Ghana for three days and we will be doing a series of events in Accra. We will then be travelling to Lagos for a series of events in Lagos and we will be travelling to Johannesburg and Cape Town. These geeks are going to get exposed to four ripe markets in Africa where opportunities to invest exist.
These Geeks on a Plane is a consequence of President Obama’s global entrepreneurship Summit initiative. Over the last few years the Obama administration has held global entrepreneurship summits falling in from around the world for entrepreneurs who want to invest in entrepreneurs who are doing exciting work. Last global entrepreneurship summit was held in Silicon Valley. After that event the Obama administration announced this follow up Geeks on a Plane Initiative specifically focusing on Africa.
Are you going to collaborate on providing connectivity support to these start-ups?
We do talk to the innovators about the challenges that they are facing which simply because of the lack of bandwidth and the lack of connectivity. One area that the US government can help we believe, the Obama administration has recently announce the global connect initiative. This is a US government project. We recognize that around the world there are 4 billion individuals; these are base of the pyramid people who live in rural pocket perhaps do not have electricity, drinking water, connectivity, they are impoverished. Global connect is an effort to bridge at least 1.5 billion of these individuals into the world’s global markets. So one way that I believe the US government can help in this process is to use satellite technology – Ka-Band Satellite Network hopefully, to lever two way broadband connectivity into rural areas. But this is a process that will take a lot of stakeholders in the US government to convene and to agree and to potentially coordinate purchase of Ka-Band Satellite transponders. If that is happening then the opportunity to deliver broadband connectivity is only that much closer to the possibility or reality. So let us assume we are able to deliver Ka-Band delivered Satellite Broadband Internet Connectivity, this is not something that the US government will want to do singularly. We will certainly need government buy-in from Nigeria, we would want community buy-in. It does not help for us to deliver connectivity without a community seeing the value in it or understanding organically where there is utility in what we can deliver. So delivering it to schools, hospitals and potentially delivering it to local community and government offices. This is a starting point that I believe is possible under the global connect initiative.