As Nigeria currently feels the ecstasy that accompanies her 61st Independence Anniversary, she equally needs to embrace a sober reflection with a view to addressing the epileptic physiognomy of the country’s economy.

One could boldly assert that the country’s current economic outlook is unequivocally synonymous with the medical anomaly popularly known as epilepsy.

Epilepsy is a severe neurological disorder marked by abrupt recurrent episodes of sensory disturbances, loss of consciousness, or convulsions, associated with unusual tremor in the brain.

It’s noteworthy that the aforementioned medical vice can be addressed through the application of lobotomy, a surgical operation in which some of the nerves in the human brain are cut.

The present Nigeria’s economy – likewise that of other apparently growing African nations – is arguably epileptic, thus requires such major surgery as lobotomy if the governments at all levels are genuinely prepared to deploy the needed political will towards salvaging it.

However, it’s pertinent to acknowledge that the recommended measure cannot be successfully applied if we fail to employ a tech-driven approach. This implies that technology remains inevitable towards salvaging the country’s economic posture that currently bears a pathetic look.

Development at any phase is always linked to technology and the latter takes place when there’s advancement in science. In other words, science, technology and development are all proportional to each other.

It’s imperative to acknowledge that development is required in every individual as well as nation, in all aspects. And for such effect to occur, science and technology must go hand-in-hand. Science is known as the study of knowledge, which is made into a system, and depends on analyzing and comprehending facts. Technology is the application of this scientific knowledge.

For any successful economy, particularly in present times, science and technology are the rudimentary requisites. If any nation fails to utilize these, then the chances of getting itself developed becomes minimal.

Technology is associated in all means with modernity, and it’s an essential tool for rapid development. Hence, any country that’s not able to prosper in this regard would never be able to sustain the lives within its jurisdiction and may have to solely depend on other countries for survival.

It was estimated by the World Bank that seven of the ten largest economies of the world by 2020 would be in Asia, including Japan, China, India, Indonesia, South-Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan. At the moment, the economic prophecy has conspicuously come to pass; this is because the countries in question were able to leverage the impact of technology on societal growth.

Just a few decades ago, most of these countries were known to have poor policies, low discipline and no advancement. But with an effective introduction of technology, they have succeeded in making waves all over the world.

Nigeria obviously needs to emulate them. Rather than begging them to come over and help us develop the country, let’s ascertain how they made it to the top, so we can apply the same techniques without seeking their assistance since we have all it takes to perform independently.

The truth is that the required manpower and resources abound in Nigeria. What the government needs to do is to recognize the needed labour-force and the available endowments, then consequently endeavour to do the needful.

They must be prepared to devote reasonable commitment, which is a product of time. This is where political will comes in. You must be willing to sacrifice your time and energy to a cause you believe in, if you really want it to become an absolute success.

Nigeria is ostensibly being taken aback by her leaders. If not, this country would have gone several steps ahead of where it is today. If the government must do the right thing as expected, it has to revive all moribund technical colleges across the country, resuscitate the ongoing Students Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES), and adequately equip all the science-oriented departments in institutions of higher learning.

Furthermore, teachers’ wages must invariably be taken very seriously. These are the fundamental ways the country’s education sector can be strengthened. Similarly, the health sector, which is awash with outdated facilities, must equally be liberated by providing befitting structures and equipment that can stand the test of time. The country is already blessed with countless health experts, but they lack the needed environment to showcase their expertise.

Moreover, Nigeria lacks an industry where science and technology can thrive, thus she needs to create one by setting up an enabling environment that can accommodate every professional irrespective of their field or area of specialization.

Owing to the lack of such an anticipated environment, the country loses hundreds of talents and patents on a daily basis via brain drain. The government must be willing to assist anyone who has an idea, and not to abandon him or her to rot. A reliable agency that can listen to people’s ideas and channel them to apt quarters ought to be set up by the governments at all levels.

For urgency’s sake, we must embrace the agric sector through implementation of mechanized farming instead of the ongoing crude pattern. As regards the mining sector, the concerned authority must extend the hand of fellowship to the cognoscenti who must be indigenous, towards acquiring efficient output.

The power sector cannot be addressed if we fail to supplement the existing hydro pattern with other such available generation sources as solar, wind, biomass, and coal. The Tourism industry can equally be made more viable by inculcating tech measures in the system.

Security, on its part, cannot be left out while discussing technology. If the needed resources – both human and material – are eventually made available but aren’t well safeguarded, it would be an effort in futility in the long run.

Among all, tax evasion can only be properly tackled if we employ adequate forensic techniques. It’s not anymore news that countless establishments domiciled within the shores of the country have unabated dodged payment of taxes, yet nothing is being done about it, perhaps because the required mechanism to tackle the menace isn’t made available.

There’s no way we can solve Nigeria’s numerous economic crises without engaging technology. Even corruption, which remains the bane of the country’s democratic system, can’t be duly fought if we overlook tech techniques.

If someone is still skeptical that a tech approach can aptly and timely fix Nigeria’s epileptic economy, then he’s asleep and needs to be awake in earnest.

As the end of the fossil fuel ramps up, the battle for who will own the supply chain infrastructure of the net-zero energy age is gaining steam across the West and China. In this energy shift, we believe the West and China should bore all the huge costs of this transition. But then we contend with urgent local climate change issues also. If we are to make significant progress, we will need the costs of the energy transition to be distributed fairly. Yet African businesses must provide leadership into this net-zero age.

Because of the gradual shift in investment capital to green ventures, we should expect that citizens will take a chunk of the rise in energy costs; that’s because it is expected that fossil fuels will become more expensive in the years ahead. With lots of African nations living in energy poverty, it is even going to be tougher to drive in the message of clean energy. But we believe that energy-related behavioral change can help make an impact on energy transition strategy, which can only be possible with African businesses driving a consistent heightened energy awareness targeting Africans with well-aligned incentives.

Getting the African private sector to support this transition will demand a harmonized renewables sector. A sector fragmented and also having to contest against oil and gas projects with juicy yield remain challenging. To kick start this process, African private firms will have to join public sector investment. African government will have to work with its development partners to source long-term capital, while its private sector will fill in the balances, with a strong proposition of public good.

It is expected that this energy transition would cost Africa billions of dollars over the next decade yet African governments are faced with the paucity of funds and competitive modernization projects. A graduated, measured transition will help us navigate the net-zero age. African governments would have to work with development partners and private firms to share the cost. The increasing pace of the global energy transition means that each African nation would have to develop its national recovery plan to attract investments required for the transition. The bulk may be covered by private companies.

Fueling the transition

We expect that investment in the oil and gas sector will slow down, becoming very expensive. But we can forge new partnerships to develop storage and logistics projects toward hydrogen, ammonia, and renewable fuels. For countries like Nigeria that are looking for solutions to navigate volatile oil and gas revenue, they could join the Transhydrogen Alliance. This was set up for the production and import of green hydrogen and green ammonia into Europe. A strategic decarbonization effort, providing storage assets for the next generation of low carbon fuels. Africa should participate in this alliance or develop its alliance with key partners so we can all work together to meet the ambitious, and essential, Paris carbon reduction targets.

It is time for African firms to invest in the energy transition. We believe such investments should focus on local companies driving or benefiting from the emerging net zero-age pulling us from fossil fuels. The categories should include distributed energy, electrification, mobility, and resource efficiency.

Disruption is coming to a business near you

We anticipate that 500 multi-billion-dollar energy companies globally are going to be disrupted in this energy transition. Those companies operate in every area of our economy. We view the energy transition as a far-reaching shift in fuel sources (from fossil fuels to renewable, carbon-free sources) and fundamental changes in how energy is generated, distributed, and consumed

This means shifting from a centralized, highly regulated set of technologies and markets with passive consumers to much more distributed, intelligent, and networked technologies and markets, and more active consumers. African businesses must take advantage of this opportunity to invest across these multiple themes- electrification, distributed energy, mobility, and resource efficiency. COVID19 has taught us the essence of resilience. We need to support the evolution of ecosystem technologies and products which are necessary to drive the massive shift underway from gasoline-powered transportation to electric transportation.

Many new business cases will require financing for low carbon energy solutions and transition finance to assist in making the shift. The focus should be on transitioning the whole value chain, rather than just the scope of the business. This will lead to significant climate impact and better returns. We can only do more if we measure our climate actions by participating in industry metrics, disclosures, ratings, carbon budgeting, and carbon pricing. We will need to build digital platforms where this can happen.

There are climate action financing opportunities for those who demonstrate the right combination of financial and climate returns in the context of a planned transition. Inaction also means missing out on the commercial opportunities from innovative propositions and business models, as offered by this energy transition.

In all, For African businesses to make significant progress on this energy transition, we will have to marry business and technologies as the transition depends on them. Each driving the other and sustaining the other. But R&D will be the lubricant while African businesses must innovate their business models as R&D provides cost-competitive technologies. African businesses must invest to decarbonize with a mindset of transition rather than cleansing, engineering out emissions in all scopes, or even building an oasis of green. We have to acquire the leadership know-how, align our corporate and community incentives and promote an internal experimental culture to excel in this energy transition.

When do you begin the Growth phase in your company? When you can retain customers and that demonstrates that you have a product-market-fit. If you ramp up growth when you cannot retain customers, you will burn money, and achieve nothing.

More so, retaining customers means that your next cohort of customers MUST have better experiences than the previous, demonstrating that you are closing the gap between the frictions in the markets and the solutions you have for them.

That gap must keep getting smaller as your product continues to mature. In further mathematics in secondary school, they call it an asymptote (closing the gap as the limit tends to infinity).

Do not scale a product that does not have a market fit yet. You will waste your resources. Have patience, get a market fit and then ramp-up.

I used to be super-academic here with bluntness and perspectives anchored on data, telling companies how I see it. But I have stopped those posts as they made many lose confidence in themselves. I recalled asking a company which raised more than $100m to sell itself. That ecommerce firm was using money to attain growth when the product had not attained any fit in the market.

In Tekedia Mini-MBA, many asked us to give them options to prepay for 5 years; Emmanuel S Akintunde first asked, and now we have dozens. Immediately, we knew that we had obtained the optimal state that members could pay for an online school 5 years ahead. With that validation, we began the growth phase.

El Salvador, the first and only country that has taken the weird decision to adopt bitcoin as a legal tender, has found a succor to the energy challenge that comes with bitcoin mining.

On Friday, President Nayib Bukele tweeted that El Salvador is delving into volcano-powered bitcoin mining. The move, which is expected to erase the concern about the effect of bitcoin mining on the country’s electricity supply, is the first major step Bukele is taking to calm critical nerves.

His decision to make El Salvador a bitcoin country has been widely criticized, including by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank.

The flashy 25-second teaser video the president tweeted on Tuesday, includes shots of a government-branded shipping container full of bitcoin mining rigs, technicians installing and plugging in ASIC miners, as well as sweeping landscape aerials of an energy factory in the thick of a forest, bordering a volcano.

In June, Bukele said that he had instructed state-owned geothermal electric company, LaGeo SA de CV to “put up a plan to offer facilities for #Bitcoin mining with very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanos.” The video, which has since gone viral with more than 2.3 million views, is captioned simply with “First steps…” and is believed to be a sign that the president is moving to fulfill the promise he made three months ago.

“We’re still testing and installing, but this is officially the first bitcoin mining from the #volcanode,” Bukele tweeted, explaining that the project still has a lot of work.

Bukele explained that Salvadorians are embracing the bitcoin idea with rapid increase. He said that 2.7 million people are already using Chivo, a virtual wallet created to enable fee-free bitcoin transactions.

Other bitcoin miners were quick to support the volcano-powered bitcoin mining. SMSTR founder and CEO, Michael Saylor said the “mining upgrades thermal energy into digital energy that can be exported anywhere in the world and stored without power loss.”

As bitcoin lovers race to contain the concerns hanging around the carbon footprint of bitcoin mining, Volcano-powered energy has been widely touted.

“It’s just geothermal energy,” said bitcoin miner Alejandro de la Torre, who recently made the move from China to Texas. “Iceland has been doing it since the very, very beginning of bitcoin mining.”

Bukele’s delve into volcano-generated energy is the latest boost to the push to use cleaner energy alternatives to ameliorate bitcoin’s carbon footprint. It also sets El Salvador on the path of a new energy-based economic boom, given that the Central American country is home to volcanoes. Geothermal energy accounts for nearly a fourth of its domestic energy production, according to official data.

?A fully renewable, untapped energy resource has been put to work strictly because of bitcoin,” said bitcoin mining engineer Brandon Arvanaghi. “Bitcoin is the greatest accelerant to renewable energy development in history.”

El Salvador has mined 0.00599179 bitcoin, or about $269, with power harnessed from the volcano, amidst growing support by Salvadorians.

In June, El Salvador became the first nation to approve bitcoin as a legal tender, and has been working to contain the changes the decision will bring. Bukele said in June that the country is working on a new law that would grant permanent residency to any individual who invests three BTC into El Salvador’s economy. He added that the government will act as a backstop for entities that aren’t willing to take on the risk of a volatile cryptocurrency, since businesses are mandated to accept it.

The government has been increasing the volume of bitcoin on its balance sheet, buying the dip whenever bitcoin takes a dive. However, the future outcome of the decision remains uncertain, and will make or mar Bukele’s political career.

Companies are established to fix market frictions, not to unveil new technologies. The most catalytic innovations happen at business models, not necessarily at the tech stack. Innovators, spend time evaluating your business model and do not think tech can unlock opportunities which your business models cannot capture.

The biggest innovation in Tesla is the pricing model and that is the reason Wall Street gives it multiples than other car companies. Yes, even if you take all the cars in Tesla and give them to Toyota, without the SaaS-like business model, nothing will change in Toyota.

IBM got about 9,130 patents in 2020 while Apple received 2,791. IBM is worth $128 billion but Apple hits $2.36 trillion. IBM runs an industrial age business which does not benefit from the compounding acceleration of returns which digital aggregation has unleashed in our world, via a near zero marginal cost. Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Alibaba, Tencent, etc are united by one thing: DNA of aggregation in some key products.

So, if you do not have the right model, technology will not change the outcome. The solution is not more tech, but a better business model.

More so I am not sure your economics textbook has been updated with Aggregation Construct and that is why you may need to update.

Comment on LinkedIn Feed

Comment #1: Value creation, delivery and capturing, the trio holds everything on business model.
Now it’s not enough to be making money, but rather how you make it, the latter is what places premium on what you do.

Comment #2: Good thought-provoking piece there. I am in agreement with all that has been said so far except for paragraph 3. IBM ACTUALLY runs an industrial age business that DOES BENEFIT from the compounding acceleration of returns that digital aggregation has unleashed in our world. The issue is more of consumerism (the preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods). Every year, Apple releases the same product with minute feature change at higher prices, status based class-driven lifestyle product, like a commodity. IBM products have a smaller market audience and an expectation of at minimum 4 to 10 years lifespan before a refresh by the customer can occur. We can’t compare both companies at all, they do not serve the same target market or audience. One is end-user computing, while the other is infrastructure computing. However, the piece is totally thought-provoking and a good read.

My response: IBM makes hardware like Tesla but Tesla runs a better business model. Tesla is the 6th most valued company in America. Do not think the problem with IBM is its market. The challenge is that its business model is bad. Sure, the new guy is updating it. Apple was trapped in the iPhone until it stopped reporting its numbers and upgraded its playbook, unlocking massive opportunities.

Comment #3: Ndubuisi Ekekwe ; correct me if I’m wrong Sir, I’ve noticed that you are more impressed by companies whose business model make bigger guarateed returns than companies whose value creation might not be big on financial returns. Which is a capitalist mindset I’ll say. I think it is time to start seeing business operations from the point of greater societal impact with moderate returns. Apple’s playbook is annoying I’ll say, it runs purely on rich folks insatiable hunger for items of ostentation. I have more respect for Tesla I’ll say!!!!

My Response: :Sir, I’ve noticed that you are more impressed by companies whose business model make bigger guarateed returns than companies whose value creation might not be big on financial returns.” – Tesla makes 500k cars in a year and is valued about $750 billion while Toyota makes 10.5 million and is worth less than $300 billion. Toyota brings a revenue of $275 billion while Tesla is about $31B. Toyota made a profit of $20B while Tesla $721 million.

So, your statement is not correct because across most indicators Toyota generated more $$ but I still liked Tesla. Where Tesla did better is valuation, not because of financials on $$ on business model. Any car sold by Tesla today can be earning revenue till it stops being on the road. Toyota, that is not possible. That makes Tesla a software company!

The Aggregation Construct