As the 21st Century closes its second decade, Africa is confronted with daunting challenges of building a new generation of workforce and critically-needed infrastructure to not just compete globally but also to prepare for its post-mineral era. The continent needs to foster a climate of innovation and pursue sustainable growth despite evolving economic realities that […]
1.0 – Innovation for Development
Across most African capitals, a new movement is taking place. Young people with their chisels, laptops and hammers are congregating and working to grab the future in their own hands. They are the makers with enclaves of hackers, enthusiasts, hobbyists, artisans and indeed people with the mindsets to revolutionize Africa from within, by doing something […]
About the Author – Ndubuisi Ekekwe, PhD
Short Bio: Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe invented and patented a robotic system used in minimal invasive medical robots. The United States Government acquired assignee rights to the technology in 2017. Dr Ekekwe holds two doctoral and four master’s degrees including PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the Johns Hopkins University, USA. He earned B.Eng electrical and electronics engineering from Federal University of Technology Owerri where he graduated as his class best graduating student.
While in Analog Devices Corp, he worked in the team that designed an accelerometer for the iPhone and he created the company’s first wafer level chip scale package for inertial sensors.
A recipient of IGI Global “Book of the Year” Award, a TED Fellow, IBM Global Entrepreneur and World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, Dr Ekekwe has held professorships in Carnegie Mellon University and Babcock University, and served in the United States National Science Foundation ERC E&D Committee.
The founder of Zenvus, a global leading precision ag tech company, and Chairman of Fasmicro Group, writes regularly in the Harvard Business Review. Dr. Ekekwe is a selection board member of the $100 Million Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program.
Bio: Dr. Ndubuisi Ekekwe holds two doctoral and four master’s degrees including a PhD in electrical & computer engineering from the Johns Hopkins University, USA and MBA from the University of Calabar, Nigeria. He obtained BEng from Federal University of Technology, Owerri (Nigeria) where he graduated as his class’ best student.
A US semiconductor industry veteran, his working experiences include Diamond Bank, Analog Devices Corp and NNPC. In Analog Devices, he worked in the team that designed a generation accelerometer for the iPhone, and he created the company’s first wafer level chip scale package for inertial sensor.
He writes regularly in the Harvard Business Review, and previously served in the United States National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center E&D Committee for four years. He was also a PACE Chairman and Gold Chairman of IEEE Boston section. Prof Ekekwe is a Co-Chairman of JPL Financial Group, a California-based financial advisory firm which syndicates capital for projects in Africa.
An inventor, author, he held professorships in electrical & computer engineering, Babcock University, and Carnegie Mellon University electrical/computer engineering. He is the recipient of IGI Global 2010 “Book of the Year” Award. He is also a TED Fellow, IBM Global Entrepreneur and World Economic Forum “Young Global Leader”.
As the Founder/Chairman of Fasmicro Group, he controls companies like Zenvus, an agtech pioneer in Africa; First Atlantic Cybersecurity Institute (Facyber); Milonics Analytics, an IBM PartnerWorld member; First Atlantic Semiconductor & Microelectronics; among others. He recently co-founded Atlantic Americas, an engineering firm, handling major operations in most parts of northern Nigeria.
Dr. Ekekwe is a selection board member of the $100 Million Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Program. He has written many books, authored many technical papers, and invented technologies. The African Leadership Network has honored him as a “New Generation Leader for Africa”.
Preamble
For centuries, Africans devised means to survive. They mastered the herbs and cured the most poisonous snake bites, melted iron and made cutlasses and hoes, and formulated compounds and fixed broken bones. The Egyptians pioneered the field of geometry, out of the need to re-partition plots of land near River Nile, whenever it overflowed its banks. The Ethiopians invented an indigenous way of writing, and documented some of the earliest components of African history. The ancient trade routes from Accra through Kano to Khartoum were anchored on the ingenuity of Africans who dyed clothes, transformed hides into leather, and improved agricultural yields through self-taught farming mechanisms like fallow and erosion control. Yet, Africa had a dark period through the vagaries of slavery and self-inflicted tragedies of wars that destroyed a virtuoso system of innovation built and refined over generations.
But the good news is that Africa is emerging again, stronger. It is a land of Sankofa innovation where legends painstakingly reach back, pick old ideas on processes, concepts and tools, and improve on them, while applying new techniques. In the east, west, north and south, the spirit of innovation is being rekindled in the continent. There are sparks of African innovators who want to drive Africa’s future in their hands. They have noticed that years of mining metal and drilling hydrocarbons have not accelerated the welfare of the citizens. For them, the best roadmap for sustainable and equitable economic development, where GDP growths correlate with better living standards with better jobs and opportunities, will be African-driven and Africa-led. They envision a future where homegrown common sense policies that understand the African realities are enacted to drive trade and entrepreneurship. The results are triple helix partnerships across the continent with governments reforming, industry innovating and training being revamped.
Sankofa is a word in the Twi language of Ghana that translates as “Go back and get it” (san – to return; ko – to go; fa – to fetch, to seek and take) and also refers to the Asante Adinkra symbol represented either with a stylized heart shape or by a bird with its head turned backwards carrying a precious egg in its mouth. Sankofa is often associated with the proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” which translates as: “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” (Wikipedia)
Indeed from Lusaka to Dakar, new innovation ecosystems are being formed. These are innovation spaces where Africans are congregating to create products and services that solve local problems. The players are students, makers, artisans and grassroots innovators. Some want to transform consumers of increasingly foreign obfuscated technology that permeate daily lives of Africans, into producers and creators of what they use. It is a movement, and the world is paying attention; investors are opening their wallets, the press is writing about them, and more African diasporas are coming home to join them.
While it is very early to assess the impacts, it is already clear that these innovators offer a platform for a new economic system that taps into the brainpower of Africans to seed shared prosperity. If they succeed in replicating the wonders of Kenya’s financial sector, through mPesa, that enables a mother to pay a child’s school fees on her way to the farm instead of spending a day in the bank in other business areas, Africa will exert greater influence in the world. The continent is already seeing marks of relative pre-eminent technology production cities with Nairobi in East Africa, Lagos in West Africa and Cape Town in Southern Africa.
Though there are challenges in infrastructure, education and property rights, which need to be fixed for the effervescence of change in the makerspaces and hackerspaces around the continent to become anchor firms, with capacities to provide thousands of jobs and other opportunities, the future is one of hope. The resilience of the African people is unprecedented because when the world called them “hopeless”, “dark” and “forgotten”, they persevered and today no other people can take the credit of the progress in Africa than Africans. All the challenges are opportunities for young Africans, and they will lead in fixing them.
In this book, we share inspiring stories of innovation in Africa. We chronicle the redesign taking place in the innovation ecosystem of the continent. We provide analyses on how the continent can strengthen its march to greatness by connecting the rich informal sector into mainstream ones for scalability. These analyses are not just our ideas; we tapped into the rich knowledge base of African innovators and innovation enablers.
Around the world, the study of innovation has a unique methodology and format: R&D data and patents are usually the reference points for understanding innovations in science and technology, especially in developed nations. Their numbers always correlate to inclusive domestic economic growth and participation in the global economy. By looking at the data, one can appraise the strengths of knowledge creation, R&D impacts and economic innovation. R&D data in Africa is patchy while patent data is limited for any major inference and deduction. So, we devised different ways to assess the innovation ecosystems in Africa.
We designed a survey[1] which was sent through different networks to innovators and innovation enablers across Africa. The survey was designed to understand the perspective of thought-leaders and innovators on the state of S&T innovation in the region, the form and its trajectory. It was not structured for the data gathered to be extrapolated to represent any population through sampling. We merely sought for opinions and insights. More than 1,000 participants completed the surveys —administered in three languages (English, Portuguese and French) — and spoke with our team. Participants from 32 countries participated. Supporting the survey was extensive desk research and interviews with technology thought-leaders. Insights from these surveys and interviews were used in different chapters of this work.
The African Institution of Technology (AFRIT) has an in-depth database of African innovators and innovation enablers. The surveys were sent to the contacts, social media and Africa-focused news sites. It was also promoted in an article in the Harvard Business Review. The survey data was collected, analyzed and then incorporated into the book.
Also, in our analysis, we looked at a recent survey conducted by African Science Technology and Innovation Indicators initiative (a program of Africa Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development) that covered 19 African countries: Angola, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zimbabwe[2]. They focused on R&D data with two key R&D indicators — gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD), and human resources devoted to R&D to assess innovation outlook in Africa. R&D data collected included those from business enterprise, government, higher education and private non-profit sectors. The work underpinned that by measuring science, technology, and innovation indicators, comparisons at national and regional levels can be made. Also it noted that indicators are critical for policy formulation, performance assessments, accountability, and market participations as investors can use such insights to evaluate ecosystem development. The perspectives from this important NEPAD work were important in our efforts in understanding governments’ innovation strategies across the continent.
Though we have used Africa in the broad sense, it is very evident that recommendations cannot be universally applied, without customizations, across countries. Also, while a continental innovation plan will be important, a regional one will serve Africa better owing to the disparity in the levels of development. We envisage a more actionable roadmap to accelerate the pace of reforms and development so that Africa can take advantages of the present economic optimism.
Finally, I thank individuals, entrepreneurs, innovators, companies, government agencies, universities and thought-leaders who took our surveys, offered their time via interviews, or assisted in this work. The reality is that my LinkedIn page is my most important source of real-time insights on Africa and its position in the world. I sincerely thank those that comment on my page for the daily perspectives which continue to shape my understanding of the continent and the world. I close by thanking my family, especially my wife Ifeoma, for being the best friend possible.
I hope you will enjoy this book.
Ndubuisi Ekekwe, PhD
African Institution of Technology
September 2017
[1] The African Institution of Technology has relationships with more than 100 universities and institutions in Africa
[2] NEPAD (2014), African Innovation Outlook II
Beyond Samsung Galaxy, Apple Attacks The Root Of The Competition
This is a Short Note.
Apple wants to have a plan B on its business relationship with Samsung Electronics. It is working with Bain Capital to buy Toshiba’s flash memory business which is on sale. Toshiba is selling the business to help it manage debt stemming from its investments in the US nuclear sector which went terribly bad.
The iPhone maker is in talks with Bain Capital to bid for the Tokyo-based company’s unit, in competition with a group that includes KKR & Co. and Western Digital Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. Bain had previously submitted a 2.1 trillion yen ($19 billion) offer with another group of backers that included state-backed Innovation Network Corp. of Japan and Development Bank of Japan.
Apple depends on flash memory from Toshiba in its iPhones and iPods, and wants a continued supply so it’s not dependent on rival Samsung Electronics Co. “There are supply shortages of that type of memory,” Michael Walkley, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity. “They’re always looking to work closely with key suppliers and lock in long-term supply agreements.”
What Apple is planning makes sense because Samsung is clearly its main smartphone competitor. By sending the money to Samsung, for supplies of chips, it is arming the opponent. I see three ways why this deal is good for Apple:
- Apple will be the new Toshiba flash business main customer. That means Apple is buying a business where it will be the biggest customer. That is a good strategy especially when that means not sending money to Samsung, a competitor
- In the short-time, this is a huge capex, but over time, Apple will benefit. The price of flash memory will likely come down when Samsung knows that Apple is no more in the market to source. So in a scenario where the new Toshiba flash business cannot meet Apple’s demand in volume, Apple could end up buying from Samsung at a more competitive rate. Samsung cannot sell to Apple at more than market rate, by law, even though Apple is a competitor.
- Apple has billions of dollars stocked outside United States. It does not want to pay taxes on this fund and continues to leave them outside U.S. The implication is that it can use some of those funds and do this deal.
Yet, it is not likely that Apple/Bain Capital will get this business. It is not certain Western Digital will give up as it continues to fight for this prized asset.
Western Digital Corp’s (WDC.O) CEO apologized to his counterpart at Toshiba Corp (6502.T) for strained ties after the U.S. firm sued to keep their chip joint venture from being sold to rival bidders, according to an Aug. 11 letter
The embattled Japanese conglomerate has put its chip unit, – worth between $17 billion to $18 billion, up for sale as it scrambles to cover liabilities at its bankrupt U.S. nuclear unit. Relations between Western Digital and its chips partner quickly frayed, however, as Toshiba entertained other bids.
While the Western Digital consortium can fight, to get the business, it is not clear that Japan will like to see Toshiba flash business disappear in this way. So, it is possible the government could mount a bailout.
All Together
Generally, the lesson is this: it does not make sense for any person to fund an army that will attack it. Apple has funded Samsung, providing the cash which continues to make the company better through innovation and scale. As that happens, Samsung is empowered, challenging Apple the more. If Apple begins to find a way out of that, it could be the factor that may decide who wins the smartphone market. Most have seen this from the smartphone angle, but what is happening goes beyond iPhone and Galaxy. Sure, Apple has its exclusive hardware massively differentiated by its software, unlike Samsung Galaxy, which is based on the open source Android. There are may ways the basis of competition diverges. Yet, without Apple, Samsung will not be as financially sound as it is, and without Samsung, Apple may not have had the supply chain efficiency it has enjoyed in chip sourcing. But if Apple breaks this relationship, at least partly, that is when the competition will begin.