Nigeria’s Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), an institution that coordinates tertiary education entrance examinations in the country, likes controversy. Otherwise, it would not have  made 100  (out of 400) a pass mark. There is no credible institution in the world where 25% is considered a PASS.

The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, had on Tuesday stated the cut off marks as 120 for degree awarding institutions, 100 for monotechnics and polytechnics and 110 for innovative enterprising institutes.

But JAMB has reasons. It wants to prevent Nigerians from sending their kids to foreign schools. So, it has to make the pass mark so low that everyone could possibly qualify to study in Nigeria. It does not really matter that the country does not have the capacity to absorb all the students.

THE Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, explained, yesterday, that the decision by stakeholders in education sector to reduce tertiary institutions’ admission cut-off points, beginning with the 2017 academic calendar, was to stop the quest for foreign education by Nigerians.

JAMB has forgotten that the foreign schools have standards and will not have accepted those it is accepting with 25% score.

The Problem with 25% Pass mark

I do believe that JAMB does not collect retention data of Nigerian students after first year in colleges. That would have helped it to examine if there is a correlation between cut-off marks and freshmen (first year students) dropout rate. Empirical data shows that when you have extremely unprepared students, you end up having many dropouts. These students would have pushed their parents to take loans for the unfinished journeys, making things harder, afterwards, for the poor parents. Also, cultism is primarily driven by students that need help to keep going even when their brainpower cannot sustain them, in schools. They band together with their fellow cult members to stay in schools through any means possible.

I will share data from U.S. News which tracks the top U.S. universities.

• The average six-year graduation rate is 95 percent for the top 10 National Universities and 93.9 percent for the top 10 National Liberal Arts Colleges.

• The average freshman retention rate is 98.1 percent for the top 10 National Universities and 96.6 percent for the top 10 National Liberal Arts Colleges.

• For comparison, the average six-year graduation rate among all numerically ranked schools on the National Universities list is 71.3 percent, and the average freshman retention rate is 86.9 percent.

• For comparison, the average six-year graduation rate among all numerically ranked schools on the National Liberal Arts Colleges list is 75.2 percent, and the average freshman retention rate is 85.6 percent.

Checking the data, it is very obvious that students of the top 10 U.S. universities graduate; they record 95% graduation rate. These students are well prepared to pursue tertiary education. Also, they do not have many dropouts after first year of study, enjoying more than 98% retention rate. I can argue that the other 2% could be those changing to other schools which are recorded as dropping out even though they have merely transferred to other colleges. The elite schools’ average graduation rate contrasts with all nationally ranked schools at 95% vs. 71%. While the top 10 national U.S. universities enjoy a mere 3% gap between freshman retention and graduation rates, the whole ranked schools have a spread of 16% (71% vs 87%). Simply, the students survived first year but could not cope in subsequent years, causing 11% to further drop out.

This means that as the quality of the admission process increases, both graduation and retention rates correlate positively with it.

All Together

Nigerian authorities cannot be talking of poor educational quality, vices in our schools, and all challenges in the schools if they cannot manage the admission process. It is an illusion to think that everyone graduating from secondary school is ready for post-secondary education. We simply have to expand opportunities so that some students can go into vocational training and other endeavors, where it is evident they cannot cope with college education. Reducing the admission pass mark to 25% will not advance any known cause in Nigeria, except that we will have more graduates adding to the statistics of degree holders, but largely unprepared for emerging opportunities.

I am truly troubled by this decision by JAMB. JAMB is failing in its primary purpose to our schools. It is either it is not testing the right things causing the students to fail en masse or it is simply incapable of serving as a gatekeeper into our post-secondary institutions. It quickly needs to find a solution fast because what it is doing is very shameful to the nation. It is not JAMB’s duty to fix a broken secondary education by lowering pass mark into the colleges. That is so obvious that JAMB does not need to be reminded of that.

Nothing is more important in a startup than having the capacity to acquire new customers, easily. A startup must grow because without growth, the alternative is bankruptcy. So, over the last few years, we have seen companies introduce new roles like Head of Growth, and Vice President of Growth. In a network effect business, the most important product is “many users” because the more the users, the more useful the product becomes.

Facebook understood this at the early phase of its business when it appointed Chamath Palihapitiya to lead its user growth unit. Simply, the goal was to add as many users as possible. There is a reason for that: for all the features in Facebook, without users, Facebook offers only marginal value, to users. Understanding that construct in a digital business is very important. It cuts across fintech, insuretech, social media and indeed anything that happens on the web from the consumer angle.

But knowing that growth is important is certainly obvious, for every founder. The challenge is executing the growth strategy. Companies like Google and Facebook which can acquire customers at ease, even at low or zero costs, have huge scalable advantages. It means they can scale without much burdens, financially.

When a startup has a huge scalable advantage, it becomes very exciting to investors. Also, its valuation moves up because the path to huge returns is very clear. Such companies have defined trajectories for success because there is nothing that is more impactful in a digital business than growing customers, at scale, and then doing so easily at low cost.

In a perfect internet market, as I have noted many times, the marginal cost for a digital product tends to zero. Companies like Google and Facebook that get close to this zero cost find huge success. Others like Groupon and Blue Apron that may require incurring costs to add new users or serve them, cannot see big valuations. (Groupon employs many people to meet and market merchants on its mass discounting business, disguised as an ecommerce operation).  While Groupon is limited by the physics of locations, Facebook does not have such burdens since the latter can add users easily. While it seems that Groupon has users as the main customers, the supplier base is more strategic for its business. So, I think it has to do more to handle the supplier (the real users, in my opinion) before the consumer facing side can do well. Facebook deals with publishers but the publishers largely come to it, and not the other way round. Facebook product is very appealing even without publishers, unlike Groupon, which must first perfect the suppliers’ side before value can be created for the typical consumers.

Pricing is very important and making customers to feel like winners is very important. If you know how to do that, you will have a great product launch. That is why understanding your customer matters. If you do not understand them, you will be leaving money on the table. If your business is selling digital products, the best strategy is value-based pricing since cost-based model does not make a lot of sense: in a perfect market, the marginal cost of a digital product, under most scenarios, is zero. I am confident you will not give out the product for free, unless your business model is freemium, since theoretically the price should be zero.

Another illustration is using Blue Apron, the digital company that sells meal-kit. For Blue Apron to add new users, it must have business presence in that country and also have the capacity to serve the customers, physically. Facebook and Google rarely have to worry for such. We were using Google Search in Nigeria before Google came to Nigeria. Simply, users go to Google and Facebook. Blue Apron does not have a good scalable advantage, compared to Google and Facebook.

Your Scalable Advantage

Your digital startup cannot grow if you do not have a scalable advantage. You must have a means to add new users at a cost model that tends towards zero. In essence, if the market has been perfect (it is not, and nothing is), you must serve customers at zero prices, on the web. But you do not do that since you need to make profit to exist as a business. That is why you have a cost on your apps or you extract tax via advertising.

If your startup has that scalable advantage, the next level is to defend the flanks. That means, you have to think how others can come and attack the advantages that you enjoy. Initially, MySpace, the social media company, had a huge advantage but it did not defend its flanks when it made it nearly impossible for third-parties to build apps and plugins on MySpace. Facebook introduced a way for companies to connect Facebook and their web apps, opening a new feature that moves many users away from MySpace. Of course, there were many other reasons, but this was one of them. The largely open architecture of Facebook that helps others to make plugins to interact with its ecosystem was critical to companies. Companies did not just want to be in MySpace. They also wanted to interact with the users who were following them. MySpace did not support such apps, then.

One of the main things you must do in your startup is to understand your cost model. Most times, entrepreneurs do not spend efforts to know how much it is costing them to acquire customers. Also, it is also important to know how much it costs to retain the customers as well as to serve them.

The business strategy does not end in acquiring customers. I have seen websites spend money to build traffic, and within months the customers disappear. There is nothing more valuable than having great products that delight customers. That is the main rule for customer acquisition and retention: provide value to the customers.

Playing The Advantage in Africa

Running a business in Africa is naturally hard because of infrastructure. Yet, for the fact that many things are broken provides an opportunity to demonstrate value to customers. Personally, I always ask people to ensure they stay away from businesses the ICT utilities like Google and Facebook are involved, unless you can find a pipeline to integrate in what they do. For example, you can have a digital marketing business that feeds on Google. But running your own advertising network may not make a lot of sense in the age of Google and Facebook.

Google, Twitter, Facebook and other big firms in their categories enjoy immense scalable advantages which are largely unbounded. But in some specific areas, they have weaknesses in Africa. For example, Google may not know much about healthcare owning to the unique nature of the business where medical data are not public. Also, agriculture is there and Google may not offer the best value since the data it needs are not available online for it to enjoy its usual aggregation advantage. You can take advantage of the data asymmetry in many sectors in the continent and build a real business. That Google makes it services free does not mean that you have to make yours free. Sure, I understand the challenge in monetizing digital products. 

In this piece, I explain why it is very hard to monetize digital products in Nigeria and indeed Africa. The core reason is that in a perfect market, the marginal cost of producing digital product is zero. This implies that its pricing will inevitably go to zero. This is the heart of the freemium model where you get many things free, which is possible because of the aggregation construct, where companies provide those digital products and then create an ecosystem to sell adverts. They benefit more than the suppliers by providing the platforms. As noted in the plot, great companies deliver the $0 marginal price even at high value, making it challenging for anyone that carries a non-zero marginal cost to compete, exacerbated if the product is even not top-grade.

All Together

In military, they talk of closing the flanks to avoid the enemies from gaining advantage. In an internet-based business, the best defense is really acquiring customers at the cheapest cost possible. By the nature of the web, this cost should be zero, marginally. But it does not have to be for you to find glory in your firm. Pursue a business model that gives you a clear scalable advantage that brings a fusion of growth at low cost, removing the limitations posed by physics of location, unlock-able via new investments. Ecommerce business in Africa does not have a high scalable advantage because new customers require expanded logistics. You need a business that can scale, at low cost, even with the flanks well protected for attacks by competitors. When you discover and execute such, valuations go high because the trajectory to success is visible to all stakeholders.

Neuromorphic systems are inspired by the structure, function and plasticity of biological nervous systems. They are artificial neural systems that mimic algorithmic behavior of the biological animal systems through efficient adaptive and intelligent control techniques.

They are designed to adapt, learn from their environments, and make decisions like biological systems and not to perform better than them. There are no efforts to eliminate deficiencies inherent in biological systems.

This field, called neuromorphic engineering, is evolving a new era in computing with a great promise for future medicine, healthcare delivery and industry. It relies on plenty of experiences which nature offers to develop functional, reliable and effective artificial systems. Neuromorphic computational circuits, designed to mimic biological neurons, are primitives based on the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor materials.

Dr. Carver Mead, professor emeritus of California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena pioneered this field. He reasoned that biological evolutionary trends over millions of years have produced organisms that engineers can study to develop better artificial systems. By giving senses and sensory-based behavior to machines, these systems can possibly compete with human senses and bring an intersection between biology, computer science and electrical engineering.

A Retina chip that mimics the human retina (source: Nature)

Neuromorphic systems depend on parallel collective computation, adaptation, learning and memory implemented locally at each stage of processing within the artificial neurons (the computational elements).

Analog circuits, electrical circuits operated with continuous varying signals, are used to implement these algorithmic processes with transistors operated in the sub-threshold or weak inversion region (a region of operation in which transistors are designed to conduct current though the gate voltage is slightly lower than the minimum voltage, called threshold voltage, required for normal conduction to take place) where they exhibit exponential current-voltage characteristics and low currents.

This circuit paradigm produces high density and low power implementations of some functions that are computationally intensive when compared with other paradigms (triode and saturation operational regions).

A triode region is operating transistor with gate voltage above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage lower than the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. For saturation region, the gate voltage is still above the threshold voltage but with the drain-source voltage above the difference between the gate-source voltage and threshold voltage. Transistor has four terminals: drain, gate, source and bulk. Current flows between the drain and the source when enough voltage is applied through the gate that enables conduction. The bulk is the body of the transistor.

Artificial neuromorphic systems are applied in the areas of vision, hearing, olfaction, touch, learning, decision-making, pattern recognition among others to develop autonomous systems in robotics, vehicle guidance and traffic control, pattern recognizers etc. As the systems mature, human parts replacements would become a major application area. The fundamental principle is by observing how biological systems perform these functions, insights are obtained in designing robust artificial systems.

So the philosophy of neuromorphic engineering is to utilize algorithmic inspiration of biological systems to engineer artificial systems. It is a kind of technology transfer from biology to engineering that involves the understanding of the functions and forms of the biological systems and consequent morphing into silicon chips.

For instance, the study of the structure of the muscle in an animal inspires the creation of locomotive robots that do not rely on heavy and power hungry servo motors. The fundamental thing is to understand how biological nerve tissues represent, communicate and process information. That would become the prelude to engineer electronic devices. Understanding the biological algorithms of animals are vital and fundamental to reverse engineer the biological systems information representations and then develop systems that use these representations in their operations.

The fundamental biological unit mimicked in the design of neuromorphic systems is the neurons. Animal brain is composed of these individual units of computation, called neurons and the neurons are the elementary signaling parts of the nervous systems. Neurons, which have common shape, produce electricity or chemical signals to communicate with other neighboring ones.

Though these neurons are similar in shape, different connections with each other, muscles and receptors produce different computational results in biological systems: locomotive control, perception, sensory processing, auditory processing etc. Neuron is made of made up of input area (the dendrite) and output area (the axion) and is connected with other neurons by synapses.

Since neurons are the basic cells of the nervous systems of all kinds of animals, building silicon neurons (or neuromorphs) endowed with fundamental life-like characteristics, could enable the emulation or modeling of the neural networks in biological nervous systems.

By examining the retina for instance, artificial neurons that mimic the retinal neurons and chemistry are fabricated on silicon (most common material), gallium arsenide (GaAs) or possibly prospective organic semiconductor materials.

In conclusion, it may not have changed the world, but the prospects of neuromorphics in medicine are many and could possibly herald the era of bio-grade artificial electronics human organs.

Neuromorphics in Africa

After the present state of AI, my prediction is that the fusion of biology and AI will be the next wave. Biology remains the most perfect system. AI will come home and we will see more interface. That will engineer the AI 3.0 producing a high level of autonomy, and precipitating possible chaos, if not well managed, as Elon Musk and others have predicted.

Indeed, it will not be very far when man will re-program the interactions at human cell-level and then leave them to organically and biologically adapt as necessary to sustain life. As they make smartphone glasses that can self-heal, the possibility that retina implants that can self-heal to correct vision will be ready within a decade.

If you are excited about neuromorphics and want same in your school, please contact the Tekedia team. Next year, we will be running some AI workshops with neuromorphic chips in selected African universities. This is the second phase of our electronics workshop where we continue to deepen electronics capabilities in the continent. My company Fasmicro Group runs the workshops through my non-profit (a U.S. 501(c)3 category) as a way of giving back. We have been to excess of 100 universities. The new workshops will be drastically re-engineered with more AI systems with applications in new exciting areas like agriculture, energy, healthcare, and more.

This is a Short Note.

Two companies: Groupon (a pioneer ecommerce marketplace connecting subscribers with local merchants by offering discounts on activities, travel, goods and services)  and  Blue Apron (an ingredient-and-recipe meal kit service) share one thing in common. Both are business model innovators. They rose not necessarily because of new fundamental technology underpinning their businesses, but rather, a new business model, supported by technology.

There are challenges to such business processes. The first is that they can be easily copied by better executors. Also, incumbents with more capital can radically challenge them. Most times, those businesses struggle, especially if they do not have the capital and the operational capacity to become category-kings, as quickly as possible. So, they can pioneer a new area, but they can easily fade, due to lack of resources or operational capacities.

With no easy way to quickly dominate and scale through network effect, they become regional players with no apparent capacity to transfer abilities to other regions without massive new investments in the new locations.

So, if New York-based Blue Apron wants to come to Lagos, it has to essentially invest and setup a new system that replicates that business model in Lagos. It cannot serve Nigeria without necessarily having physical operations in Nigeria. The same applies to the old Groupon when it was a pure price discounter. It required the foot soldiers who visited shops, restaurants and other places to negotiate the discounts.

Contrast them with Google and Microsoft. Google has a core technology through its search technology. Microsoft invented the world of personal computing through Windows. Google Search and Microsoft Windows are core technologies that no one can challenge in a battle without real preparations. They can scale and serve the world without necessarily being around the world. Anyone can use Google Search from any part of the world. Windows is used globally even though Microsoft does not have to be everywhere.

The African Case

In Africa, we tend to be business model innovators. One of the reasons is our lack of technical capabilities. So without the technical depth, the only way we can be in business is to innovate at the level of business model. There is nothing wrong with that. However, the problem is that such businesses always struggle to defend their domains.

When Groupon was in its peak, Lagos had more than ten clones starting from Deal Dey. But when the fad passed, many of the companies went with it.

Most investors are always skeptical of such businesses because there is no fundamental thing that can protect them from competitions. Network effect has to be won on geography thereby making it harder to dominate easily. You cannot just unleash a code and see the impact around the world.

Yes, I do note that starting a business built this way is easier. However, the day you start it is the very day people can easily copy you. The key competitive weapon becomes capital which will be needed to accelerate growth. It is like ecommerce: The ability to raise capital and also execute operationally are the key drivers of the strategy. In Africa, you have to win city by city as you have to build logistics one city at a time. That has a huge impact on value derivable from assets, turning a largely asset-light business in most parts of the world into an asset-heavy business.

Planning Your Startup

One of the easiest ways to do well in raising money is to do something not many people can do. If you can have a fundamental technology, you will be in a good trajectory to entice investors. Look at Paystacks, a Lagos fintech, it has something it has built. Where possible, a technology innovation-anchored startup should be what you should aspire to create.

Come up with a technical solution to a problem. That solution, anchored on technology, becomes the defining capabilities of your firm in the market. That can take you to great places than just copying a business model which others can quickly rip and replicate, pushing you out of the business easily. That you have pioneered a business model does not really give you an edge if you do not have capital to accelerate growth.

But where you have innovated on core technology, you have a better chance to success: you can hold your turf. This does not mean that business model startups are not good. My point is that focusing on startups anchored on core technology should be your preference, where possible. When you do that, the chances of raising money from investors are always higher.

It is very simple: many venture capitalists do not count non-technical founders when they analyze startups. You may think you have three founders with only one technical founder when the investors see only one person as founding the company. They have discounted the non-techies. You must have a product before you can think on how to sell the product. That explains why team formation is the first test for any new startup.

Aham lives in Atu, a village in Osimiri in Nigeria. Atu is peaceful with energy of a typical African tropical climate. Boys and girls enjoy life in this agrarian society. Bird hunting was part of fun.

But one day, Aham and his friend, Uche, had gone for bird hunting in a forest few miles away from the village square. While in the forest, Uche was bitten by a very poisonous snake, avuala, and in the mayhem that followed, Aham ran away. While running, he fell down and broke his arms.

Luckily, Nkwo, the palm wine tapper was on duty that moment. Right on his tree, he saw what happened and quickly made it straight to where the boys were crying in pains and agonies. Within few minutes, the boys had been taken to the local herbal doctors: one to the local ‘orthopedic surgeon’, the other to a master specialist on snake poison. Both survived. That was eighty years ago.

A Changed Continent

Today, western education has brought many promises. It has opened opportunities for boys and girls to dream big. And become great not just in villages but anywhere.

Parents send their kids to schools because schools make them great. However, western education has facilitated a broken succession across villages in Africa. A generation of indigenous knowledge acquired, refined and transferred for more than ten generations are endangered.

That creates a problem in some villages because the rate at which development from western education is coming is slower than the rate the indigenous people are losing grasp of their own technology.

When one orthopedic hospital serves a region comprising of many states with underpaid doctors and experts, few get quality solutions. The other alternative which their parents had depended upon had been destroyed because the skilled people have died or dying.

The children of the ‘experts’ have migrated to the urban areas and no one knows the herbs or the processes which can help people in need overcome their challenges.

It is a double tragedy! You have lost what you have in the promise of new things which have refused to materialize. That is the challenge, not just in Africa, but in many developing countries where modern technology has not diffused to fill the vacuum created by a broken indigenous technology succession.

The Roadmap

The question that must be asked is this: Why can’t the government identify these people and develop a process to document what they do in order to preserve knowledge?

Better, can the government support them to transition to the new level and use the new (educated) generation to innovate on those trades? We want all children to go to school, but we also want a process that understands that in many rural Africa, we have got technology that must be preserved.

A process that does this is very important in Africa. Film them, send them government paid interns, pay them to talk and find ways to conserve that knowledge.

Anyhow, we need to preserve what has evolved over generations of Africans. Now is the time to harvest them and put some intellectual property rights which can help them become great.

Yes, Africa can be made big from within and our indigenous technology must be strengthened. This calls for African Union/NEPAD to identify this trend as a problem and vigorously tackle it. It must develop a process to curtail the loss of these essential technologies while strengthening a system that will modernize them.

We missed our IBM and Google, but the future is always pregnant. Nothing stops us creating better Googles and IBMs if we begin to discover the African Mind.