iDEA Hub’s Chief Executive Officer, Helen Anatogu, speaks to OZIOMA UBABUKOH about the significance of Demo Africa to young people and their businesses What is the significance of Demo Africa to iDEA? An event such as Demo turns the spotlight on Africa and Nigeria specifically. Nigerian start-ups have an unprecedented opportunity to interact with individuals whom they would otherwise not have had easy access to and those who can help their businesses grow. What are your expectations from Demo Africa 2015? I expect to have a great event – a lot of learning for this ecosystem. This is our chance to generate interest within Nigeria for technology, show the world what we have, source the necessary investment in our technology start-ups and show them what is possible. What are your roles in the development of our economy? I do not think one can talk about iDEA’s role in isolation; rather we talk about the role of technology. I think that with where we are as a country, nobody is in any doubt about the need to grow the competitiveness of all sectors of the Nigerian economy. The most successful economies invest in developing appropriate technological solutions and applications. They have also taken it as a priority to strengthen domestic capabilities in software development in order to increase the capacity of firms to achieve higher levels of productivity and revenue with a corresponding increase in employment. Software is a critical part of modern industrial infrastructure as well as an important industry. It is also the vehicle for implementing the other key elements of a knowledge economy: responsive and transparent government; a supportive business environment with low transaction costs; enhanced learning environments and effective social programmes. Sadly, Nigeria has not been able to effectively harness the power of technology and it has had less impact on Nigeria than on other emerging economies. This needs to change and urgently. There is a clear benefit to the economy in developing locally relevant solutions suited to the peculiar needs and problems of the Nigerian society. iDEA identified a need for a formal programme to develop the capabilities of Nigerian software developers with the ultimate objective of not only creating jobs directly but also the technology to enable and grow other sectors of the economy. The local private sector, in the software industry as well as in many other industries, faces some basic constraints: under-developed infrastructure, poor investment climate, and uncertain or restrictive regulations as well as other factors like a lack of knowledge and skills, high cost of Internet, computers and other tools. iDEA tries to cushion the impact of these constraints through the iDEA centres. The centres provide a safe, stable and secure environment to start and grow companies and focus on the development of Information and Communications Technology ventures that use software development platforms to grow content, services and applications, which are locally relevant, but at the same time exportable. iDEA’s mission is to support entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses, which create products, revenue, jobs and societal impact. How many of your start-ups are participating at Demo Africa 2015? We have one start-up, Talking Bookz, participating in Demo. What is the statistics of start-ups that are in the hub now? iDEA has 34 start-ups currently within the programme. What are the challenges you have in the actualisation of your objectives? As I mentioned earlier, as a country we still do not fully appreciate the importance of technology and encouraging the emergence of a technology industry and therefore, funding for the incubation programme as well as seed funding for technology start-ups remain a challenge. Incubation programmes such as iDEA provide business support and training that enable the successful development of start-ups. In other countries, incubators are typically funded out of one or a combination of subsidies/grants, rental income and third party investment. Given the income levels of those that iDEA caters to and the general socio-economic situation, in order to ensure that our programme is not too expensive for those we provide our services to, our funding comes mainly from grants which are few and far between. In addition, we often make unfair comparisons between Silicon Valley and other ecosystems, including Nigeria, without fully understanding the context of Silicon Valley’s success. Silicon Valley succeeds because of the close cooperation between academia and industry, a rich venture capital ecosystem, a corporate culture that is particularly receptive to innovation and risk taking, high institutional tolerance of failure, not to mention a highly skilled workforce. We do not have any of these elements here, which means what iDEA and others similar to us are trying is difficult but not impossible to achieve. How do you hope such challenges can be tackled? We need to see more consistency in government’s support for and improved access to finance for technology start-ups. We also need to improve the technical and entrepreneurial capabilities of our software developers through a change in the curriculum at Nigerian universities and/or support for organisations such as iDEA. What are the programmes you run at the hub? iDEA runs an incubation programme and an acceleration programme. iDEA offers business incubation for early founders or growth stage start-ups. We are looking for innovative businesses (whether run by individuals or teams) with innovative solutions in finance, enterprise (especially for Small and Medium Enterprises), E&M Commerce and Healthcare that can be commercialised within two years, with the potential to have a high impact on the marketplace or community. We assess innovation through technological innovation. That is, innovation through technology resulting in a new product or service or localisation of an existing product or service; commercial potential, strong market for products or services with the potential for successful commercial exploitation of new products or processes. The incubation programme provides knowledge, tools and contacts for start-ups to grow and become successful. iDEA does this by aggregating professional guidance and mentoring, business resources and access to finance to enable ICT entrepreneurs to build enduring businesses, while creating an environment that is conducive for them to broaden their ICT skills. In incubating start-ups, iDEA facilitates their progress by steering people towards defined target points in their evolution. To achieve this, iDEA meets regularly with teams to review their position, to track performance and to define next steps. The iDEA acceleration programme is a 16-week sprint consisting of three modules (design, build, pitch) to get iDEA start-ups to launch, to grow market share, and to raise funding. The programme culminates in a Demo Day, where iDEA start-ups pitch for funding to assembled Venture Capital firms. The programme is focused on mobile, financial services, health care, enterprise (SME) and e-commerce. iDEA admits two cohorts per year in February and August and provides knowledge, organisational, operational, and strategic support needed to rapidly grow your business and attract investment. Selected companies receive seed investment, access to investors, office space, and a range of other benefits, such as hosting, marketing, legal, and financial services. The accelerator provides c-level mentor led training to assist the entrepreneurs in creating scalable business models, go-to-market strategies and financials culminating in “demo days” where the companies make pitches to an audience of qualified investors. The core founders for each team are required to attend all of the trainings and mentoring sessions; iDEA is a full-time commitment. Founders will spend 50+ hours a week working hard to meet the requirements and prepare to scale their businesses. iDEA uses KPIs to track business performance and bring the missing business management skill set to the engineers and programmers who make up the core of most start-up teams. We help members find the best route to market utilising Go-To-Market Strategy, existing business networks, influence and experience. We expose members to targeted pitching opportunities with appropriate VCs and partners. How are you funded? iDEA got its initial funding from the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency in 2013. Since then, we have tried to work with private sector partners who provide us with some funding as well as services and products. However, funding for the programme remains a huge challenge, as Nigeria has yet to fully understand the importance of technology to our economy. We hope to see more support from NITDA. What are the processes of admitting start-ups to the hub? iDEA admits start-ups to the incubation programme quarterly and the accelerator programme twice a year. Start-ups make their applications through the iDEA website and qualified start-ups are then invited for an assessment with the iDEA team.
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