If you are an NGO working in the broad medical/healthcare sector in Africa, we want to pass the message that our Medcera technology is available to support your mission. Medcera is our full intellectual property, and we can customize, adding any feature you need. If you are working say on polio and need specific ways to collect records in the field, let us know; we would work to help in Medcera. We already have Encounter in the Medcera physician portal.
We only require one thing: everything must be done under the supervision of a licensed physician who must implement necessary patient privacy as stipulated by the local law. Medcera has ways to make such happen but the lead physician must design the controls in the practice/facility admin account.
Medcera is a cloud-based electronic medical record / health record system with both patient and partner management engines. It delivers services and is engineered to become a healthcare operating system for Africa.
Besides, Medcera can put your brand in a sub-domain. For example, you can have HealNGO.Medcera.com, and from there, your team and others can relate on your mission, powered by Medcera technology. From login to customizing your presence, we ensure you have the technology you need to execute your mission.
It launches Aug1, 2018. Some images from the patient module.
Over the last few years, I have made a case that Nigeria should create an office of the National Chief Information Officer (NCIO). From software licensing to harmonization of technology policies, I believe that it would save Nigeria money. Imagine if all software purchases by the Federal Government for Nigeria are acquired by one office and then shared by the MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies).
We would save money, fixing the problem which exists today where every unit of government acquires its own software. It is very painful reading Nigerian tenders. You see waste because no one is harmonizing simple acquisition of technology assets.
Here, I am using software licensing as an example; the benefits extend beyond that. I had suggested for anyone who holds the title of the DG of NIMC (National Identity Management Commission) to be upgraded to NCIO since NIMC has been focused on consolidating the disparate datasets across the nation.
What is happening in telcos is happening in Immigration, Drivers License Office and clusters of entities across Nigeria where they continue to capture biometrics. I do think that Nigeria may need to redesign the Acts that govern NITDA (National Information Technology Development Agency) and NIMC (National Identity Management Commission) to deal with many pressing issues on technology and data management. If we collapse them as one, we can have an Office of Chief Information Officer, for Federal Republic of Nigeria; call it National Chief Information Officer (NCIO). The present Director-General of NIMC can assume that office as NIMC has more roles in the consolidation of the disparate databases in Nigeria, and certainly more strategic than NITDA.
Adapting from a similar role in U.S., the CIO will be the administrator of the electronic government evolution in Nigeria. The position will be appointed by the President and will oversee national technology spending, federal IT policy, and strategic planning of all national IT investments. The NCIO will be charged with establishing a government-wide enterprise architecture that ensures system interoperability, information sharing, as well as maintain effective information security and privacy controls across the Federal Government.
But it seems this campaign is not just about me. Dr. Yele Okeremi, the president of Institute of Software Practitioner of Nigeria (ISPON), is making the same case. I think we need to do it by not necessarily creating another bureaucracy but my elevating and restructuring an already existing bureaucracy.
You have once canvassed for the establishment of the office of Federal Public Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the Presidency. What would be the role of such an officer at that level since we have the Minister of Communications?
My position on the office of a CIO General of the Federation remains unshaken.
The office actually is different from the office of the Minister of Communications Technology.
Firstly, we need to understand that the job of a minister is to ensure that the programme that has been set out by the government of the day is achieved by working with the bureaucrats; while the CIO General should be responsible for the technology strategy of the country.
The CIO General should be responsible for harmonization of all government technology initiatives to ensure cohesion and reduce duplication and conflicts.
The CIO-General will be the custodian of all technology deployed by the federal government and part of his responsibilities will include issues like cyber security, and, indeed cyber sovereignty of the country. This should be a career and not a political position.
Yes, the NCIO will help to harmonize projects, removing duplication as I have noted in the software licensing. He/she will be the person that will see the execution of all government technology projects to closure. The NCIO will be the custodian making sure that all government projects are aligned and well integrated to the national vision.
Mr. President, make it happen – we need a National Chief Information Officer in Nigeria.
As a Nigerian startup founder, do not be too fixated with your fellow enterprise-competitors. It is very likely that typical competition is not the reason why you are not doing well. Focus on executing the Mission at hand with necessary adaptation when markets call for it. Yes, that a competitor has raised more money and added more product features should not throw you off-balance. You must take note, and plan ahead with that awareness. I can assure you that in Nigeria with our largely infant industrial sectors, if you stay focused and just get things done, you would be fine. And what you have now may not be too bad.
Your biggest competitor in Nigeria is Lack of Execution. If you compete against your Lack of Execution and win, you would thrive. People buy anything in Nigeria. Your enterprise-competitors will do well. You would also do well. One “good” thing in Nigeria is that our market imperfections make scaling anything hard; so, no one can out-scale you with reckless abandon overnight. That ecommerce company is big in Lagos but has no presence in Owerri. Simply, that you have won in Kano is irrelevant in Aba because of the heterogeneous nature of our economy. That you overcame in Uyo does not mean anything in Lagos. One key reason is that despite the web, most sectors in Nigeria run on atoms and not really bytes. That could change but that is the state today.
The path to onboard many Nigerians into the financial systems would involve reaching them at the levels they are, right now. It may involve thinking less of bytes and more of atoms. Yes, human-platform banking over digital-platform banking.
So, get out and begin to EXECUTE. Do not spend too much time just thinking about your competitors. Think more on how to get what you want to do get DONE. The app may not be 100% ready, get it out into the market. The last I checked, they are still building Facebook, Instagram, etc, and will continue for years. Just have a MVQ and hit the markets.
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.
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A product Minimum Viable Quality (MVQ) is that version of a new product which allows a team to sell the maximum amount of products to customers with the least effort and at the best optimized price even when delivering value. That is where you need to build as you launch your product, and even at product maturity, do not deviate from it.
In Nigeria, we are in a moment. The world is believing – there is no reason to wait any longer.
This is the problem FIFA is causing with the VAR (video assistant referee). What do you do when there is no video for a football game? They consult an oracle who takes the ancient African approach with largely debatable outcomes. The native doctor calls the game. Watch, some native doctors will form an association for hire for football games, offering zen-like VARs where video technologies are not available.
This is the problem FIFA is causing with the VAR (video assistant referee). Video is not affordable. So, bring the oracle who can consult spirits to make the calls when disputes arise in games. https://t.co/atekBsDXN1 pic.twitter.com/SRF5T6VhKE
Many months ago, we created Zenvus Boundary to help farmers in Northern Nigeria to survey their farmlands. The agents that worked with partner-cooperatives informed us that we should make a public version that would enable anyone to self-survey his or her farmland. Today, from the engineering lab of Fasmicro, we announce the launch of Zenvus Boundary.
Unlike the hardware version that comes with Zenvus device, this one is an app which requires a mobile device (smartphone or tablet) with GPS capability. It does not require internet access to survey a farmland but does require one later for data transfer to Zenvus portal. For enterprises/agents/partners, there is no limit on the number of properties which can be surveyed before data transfer.
Zenvus Boundary – Introduction
Zenvus Boundary maps farmland perimeter boundaries, calculates the areas and populates the data onto Google Earth. From Zenvus portal, the surveys can be downloaded or printed. It supports cooperatives, governments and individual farmers, enabling these entities to have survey reports at a fraction of the typical cost of surveys.
Property owners can do this without any external help. And when done, register with their cooperatives which help them ratify the boundaries with governments. We use this to formalize farmlands and properties, enabling financial inclusion like agro-lending, using farmlands as collateral.
A farmer upon using Zenvus Boundary can download a PDF of the farm boundary report (sample here) in Zenvus account. The Zenvus Boundary also enables cooperatives or unions to have their logos and names emboldened in the reports for each member-farm..
Installation /Manuals
To download and install Zenvus Boundary app, do it on Google Play here with your Android device (either tablet or smartphone). Our app is called Zenvus Boundary. The following are the manuals (PDF) on how to use the app and also print the survey results:
Mobile App manual (this explains how to use the app; should be used first)
Web manual (after using the mobile app, this explains how to download the report on Zenvus web app).
Brief Usage Instruction
If you download Zenvus Boundary app on Google Play, follow the screen instruction (register, login, etc. Please note the NIN as you need it to access the survey later). Click BEGIN PROPERTY to enter scan mode, put the property info, and click CAPTURE as you walk around the property perimeter. When you are back to the original position, click EXIT PROPERTY. That completes the data acquisition. Once that is done, click the SERVER TRANSFER mode when you have internet on the mobile device. If you are an individual property owner, put 0000 (four zeros, i.e. numerals) on the field code (agents/partners/enterprises, capturing many farmers at once, use the code we sent you). When transfer is done, it will say “…successful”. (Our algorithm will construct the survey with the data, superimposing on Google Map to deliver a survey which puts your property in visual relationship with other properties around.) Copy this link to your web browser https://boundary.zenvus.com/ ; your log Id and password are both the NIN you used for this property in the mobile app. System will ask you to create password and email. Inside you will see your survey to view and print. For Agents, the process is different as you would have access to all properties under your control, read the manuals.
Verification
If you plan to use your survey to apply for loan, government verification of property, security, etc and you need the party to check the authenticity in our records, use Zenvus Boundary public search. Use the code on your report (it begins with SB) and check it here (looks like below).
Zenvus Boundary Property Search
Cost of Service
We have set the price of using this solution to map a farmland perimeter with the survey printed on Zenvus portal at $20 (N7,000 Nigerian naira) per property to maximum of 5 acres [for example, 6 acres would be captured as two farms, for $40]. You would have the opportunity to include your name, LGA, National Identity Number, BVN, etc. Most of those entries are optional.
Franchise/Agent Opportunity
We have franchising opportunities across Africa for those interested in helping farmers, landlords, etc to digitize their property perimeters and locations at bulk. Here, you could have a contract to map farms in a whole village tied to each farmer.
It requires a one-time license fee [email for details] and offers 80% royalty on sales [You charge the farmer $20 but you send 20% to us while keeping 80%].You would have an enterprise account which will make it possible to map thousands of farms. If you are interested, contact zenvus@fasmicro.com. Note: our team has demo logins you can request via email to see how the system works and how you could build a business with Zenvus Boundary.
Sample of Zenvus Boundary
NB: This solution has been used to support Zenvus farm sensors (focusing on governments and cooperatives at the moment) as we need farm boundaries to provide granular insights to farmers using Zenvus AI systems. Farmers with Zenvus hardware do not need the app, just put the sensor in boundary mode and walk round your farm; the map will be done.
