Tech4Dev co-founder Oladiwura Oladepo has said that Nigerian tech professionals have success with software rather than hardware because software development requires little infrastructure.
She notes that while there are many talented Nigerians who can build phones or laptops, Nigeria lacks the infrastructure to do so.
According to her, Nigerians can provide themselves with everything needed to make software, while hardware production cannot. She says this explains why every tech-savvy person in Nigeria is going to use software, which is the easy option in light of the infrastructure challenge in the country.
What the Tech4Dev Co-Founder Says
In an exclusive interview with Nairametrics, Oladepo said, “To create software, all you need is a laptop and an internet connection. These are matters that you can easily arrange yourself. It’s not that hard to make hardware because anyone can sit in their room and make something.”
“But it’s very different for hardware. Think of hardware and think of the country’s manufacturing industry. It takes a lot of effort to come up with hardware components because to make a laptop there are many things that go into it; there are chips, and there are other different components. So if you are going to build a laptop in Nigeria, it means that you are going to buy a lot of components that are not available in Nigeria. In other advanced countries, we have different organizations that make different components, such as Intel that makes the chips, and other companies that produce other components, which you can easily buy and assemble from them,” she added. “The manufacturing industry is very capital intensive, and apart from that you need a huge power supply to start producing hardware. share power. It takes a lot more to make hardware devices than to make software. And that is why Nigerians are going for the easier option and they are doing well,” she said.
As to what the Nigerian government can do to encourage hardware manufacturing in Nigeria, Oladepo government should first solve the power problem as manufacturing requires constant power supply.
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“The government must have a technical program that ensures knowledge transfer from the international OEMs that are in the country. There should also be some kind of tax exemption or tax exemption for people who want to enter that area. The government can also provide access to capital through the Bank of Industry. All of this will encourage people who think about it to get involved. Many people have this idea, but when they think about these challenges, they drop it. So if the government supports them with all these incentives, they have no reason not to,” she said.
Tech4Dev is a not-for-profit social enterprise that creates access to decent work, entrepreneurship opportunities and platforms for Africans through digital skills. The organization prepares people for the future of work through technology-based training, including coding skills, deep technical skills, employability skills and basic digital skills.
