In this piece, I explain the challenges and the state of the consulting services industry in Nigeria. Then, I provide how consultants can position to win in the Nigerian economy. Always remember that Nigeria has more skilled experts (especially at the top) than the economy can absorb. With that paralysis, the supply of consultants is […]
Zenvus API Goes To Improve Soil Water Holding Capacity
Today, we entered a major relationship with one of the largest players in Nigerian agriculture. He has used one technology which makes it possible for the soil to hold up to 80% of water bodies that pass through it. It is a soil water trap which traps water, making sure crops have just enough they need for normal growth. The founder of this business is a business legend with a great vision on how to fix some of the major challenges associated with climate change in agriculture.
I am happy to share that Zenvus API will help in not just managing everything in the farms but also anchor the company’s initiative to invest in thousands of farmers through input support and produce purchase relationship. We work with farmers and this company is providing a top-grade support to farmers. In coming weeks, I will share more after the details have been harmonized. The strategy is to work through farming cooperatives across Nigeria. Please if you have a cooperative of at least 1,000 farmers, contact our team immediately for details.
Our Zenvus Services helps institutions work with farmers at scale.
Using the Zenvus Services, we do the following for institutions who work with farmers:
- Offer a leading platform through zCapital. If you want to run insurance, we provide zInsure. These services reduce frictions in supporting farmers through legendary transparency and process improvement.
- Map the boundaries of the farms to capture all farms which are going to be part of the initiative. Zenvus Boundary handles that.
- Get farmers to record their farming activities via
- Return back to the farms to buy from farmers. You might have given the inputs to be paid back with farm produce – Zenvus Services will help you on that. You can use enterprise zPrices to track prices of commodities as you buy from farmers, making sure there is no price asymmetry.
- Guarantee farm to factory via Kobo partnership coordinated locally by zMarkets
[Apply] Google AI Residency Program Accepting Applications
The Google AI Residency Program is a 12-month research training role designed to jumpstart or advance your career in machine learning research. There is a branch in Ghana managed by M. Cisse. He has put the call that people should apply. If you want to join the kings and queens in this exciting world of AI, go immediately and apply. Make sure you are not telling them how you could build a better AI for jumping cats. Focus on how you could fix a local problem in Africa (food poison, weather, agro, etc). Google has many people working on jumping cats, etc.
The program was created in 2015 with the goal of training and supporting the next generation of deep learning researchers. With machine learning fast becoming a critical area for a broad range of applications, we recognized the need to evolve our research goals and expand beyond deep learning to include a breadth of machine learning subfields. People from a wide range of disciplines are beginning to realize the importance and impact of this area of research. With growing interest in the field, there is a corresponding need for researchers with hands-on experience in machine learning techniques and methodologies.
Residents will have the opportunity to be mentored by distinguished scientists and engineers from various teams within Google AI, and work on real-world machine learning problems and applications. In addition, they will also have the opportunity to collaborate and partner closely with various research groups across Google and Alphabet.
APPLY
Applications for the 2019 program are now open!
Our team will review applications on a rolling basis, so it is in your best interest to submit your application as soon as possible. Visit g.co/airesidency/apply for more details about this opportunity and how to apply.
Sources from Google website
The Speedy Shall Inherit the World
In my first year in the university, I read two books – Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking and Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. Both books did not diverge from what I had learnt from the Church coming into the university: discipline, focus and ACTION would always triumph. By reading these men, it was evident that being talented is not just enough; you need to have the capacity to stay focused and then take action to execute any mission.
A senior student from my village had asked all entering students to read the books. First, he wanted us to have a positive attitude to anything FUTO (the university) was going to throw at us, and secondly, he wanted to challenge our discipline level that it was normal to wake up at 3am for a class starting at 9am if you desire to hear the professor! As he spoke to us in the village association chapter in the school, he repeated discipline many times. That discipline was time management – the capacity to have the control to focus on the important things.
As we know, the person that (sometimes) comes first in a class is not always the most academically talented. It could be that he/she has put more efforts than even those that are more talented. The lesson here is that skill and gifts are not enough, you need to have the capacity to stay focus and then take necessary action to execute any mission you have.
Tenacity is critical because without it, any mission could be lost. In business, I have come to understand that one of the most important skills is the capacity to do the best possible job at the shortest time possible on something with the highest impact. Yes, everything must be bounded by time because without that time consciousness you will not make progress. The world will not wait for you – you have to fit into the world as defined by 24 hours in a day.
Few months ago, someone asked me to help make a case before a Lagos bank CEO on a project. I spoke with the big man, and he noted that he would like to see a proposal. I passed the message to my guy, expecting a proposal within at most 48 hours. Ten days went and on the 13th day, I received something. Unfortunately, the “excellent” proposal was defective: it expired on arrival. He might have done better with 70% quality of the final product if he had submitted within 24 hours. The bank had moved on: bank CEOs work on hours and not on weeks! That explains why Facebook has in its employment handbook: the Quick Shall Inherit the Earth. Simply, time matters.
For digital startups, for anything you do, develop a good habit of working fast. It does not have to be absolutely perfect, but it needs to be done fast. Sure, there are exceptions on when you need to commit more than necessary time to get something perfect. Yet, even in those moments, your time investment cannot be unbounded.
My point is that mastering how to work fast will take your far. The key in this age is the Minimum Viable Quality and that means you cannot wait for a completely 100% perfect product to launch. If you launch after you have attained that MVQ, your customers will help in shaping the path to the “perfect product”.
The deal is this: the construct of quality has no meaning until the price of the product is put into considerations. I always ask entrepreneurs to build for the Minimum Viable Quality (MVQ) bounded by the product target price which market will respond. You can build rockets to fly around the world: that is an engineering possibility. But does that make a business sense if no one can afford it? Ask the makers of Concorde for answers
No product is perfect and you can never launch a perfect product – you just need to launch a product which has attained an MVQ. The implication is to understand that you need to get something out and then continue to evolve the product. They are still working on Google Search and that will continue for decades as long as Google remains in business.
30 Agro and Agtech Venture Ideas – Execution and Commercialization (Videos & Text)
I saw the traffic on the 30 agricultural business ideas I shared few days. It seems the interest is huge. So, I am moving two key contents (text form of the 30 agro ideas, and how to commercialize agro business ideas) out of the subscription area to the free section. The videos on the ideas and commercialization strategies are provided along with the text versions for those who cannot watch videos (we do hope data price drops). The contents are biased for Africa and specifically the great nation of Nigeria.
30 Agro and Agtech Business Ideas
[This was originally shared in the subscriber area; now declassified]
There are many opportunities in the Nigerian (and indeed African) agriculture sector for entrepreneurs to unlock, starting from the traditional agro-businesses to the evolving agricultural technology (agtech) businesses. We have listed some of the ideas in this piece where we noted that agriculture could be on its way to $1 trillion cumulative revenue in Africa within seven years. Agriculture employs more than 65% of Africa’s working population, making it a very important part of our economy. It presents immense opportunities because the sector is still at infancy, and can only grow looking at the renewed efforts by investors, entrepreneurs, farmers and governments to deepen African competitiveness through agricultural production and processing.
I do believe that we would reach $1 trillion before 2025 with the pace of incremental innovation in the sector. The disruptive innovation is not anywhere around because critical infrastructures like electricity and storage facilities that would enable such are not readily available yet. Nonetheless, African agriculture is getting the attention of many people in the continent at the moment.
At a broad level, we have noted ways entrepreneurs can play in the sector:
- Precision agriculture by making sensors: here, you make electronic sensors; may be a little hard depending on your skill level
- Agriculture insurance technology: making insurance products geared for farming
- Agro lending technology: delivering capital to farmers at scale supported by technology
- Agro financing – investing in farmers and farms through digital aggregators
- Direct Farming: owning farms and growing crops and/or raising farm animals
- Farming ecommerce: expanding farmers’ markets by providing digital platforms for trade
- Pricing aggregation: facilitating trading through provision of produce price data
- Storage: African farmers struggle with storage of produce. Building solutions in this area will be catalytic
- Logistics: there is a huge opportunity to facilitate the delivery of produce from rural areas to urban areas across Africa with our poor road networks
- Digitization of transactions: from payment to tracing origins of produce, we have a huge need to digitize farming systems in Africa
- Commodity trading: building exchanges for trading commodities
- Farm digitization: most farms must be digitized for them to be tech-ready
- Others: there are opportunities like making digital tools farmers can use. These could include farm diary, mapping solutions, etc
In this video, we break these themes further, making it simpler to see the opportunities. From agtech to the traditional farming, I explain how one can build businesses in Nigeria in the broad agricultural sector.
Ways to Commercialize Agro Ventures
[This was originally shared in the subscriber area; now declassified]
As promised after the publication of 30 Agro and Agtech Business Ideas for Africa that we would publish mechanisms to move most of the ideas into products, we are here sharing practical systems and processes with enablers on how anyone in Africa can get into this game. The driving philosophy is to execute locally and effectively transition the ideas into product-opportunities in local communities.
Before we delve into the structured mechanisms and practical components, we present seven ways anyone can enter into a new agriculture sector or area in Nigeria: representation, licensing, franchising, partnership, JV, acquisition, startup/scratch (all are extensively explained here).
There are many opportunities in the Nigerian (and indeed African) agriculture sector for entrepreneurs to unlock, starting from the traditional agro-businesses to the evolving agricultural technology (agtech) businesses. We have listed some of the ideas in this piece where we noted that agriculture could be on its way to $1 trillion cumulative revenue in Africa within seven years. Agriculture employs more than 65% of Africa’s working population, making it a very important part of our economy. It presents immense opportunities because the sector is still at infancy, and can only grow looking at the renewed efforts by investors, entrepreneurs, farmers and governments to deepen African competitiveness through agricultural production and processing