@Okaychukwu wrote:
I was discussing with @efemoney late last year when he came around at the University College Hospital Ibadan, on the possibilities of creating a globally game-changing technology product or service that will not only be very locally relevant, but also attract the there-is-no-other-choice patronage of the target users on a global scale. This discussion arose due to the fact that most, if not all, Nigerian tech startups are building stuffs that have hundreds, if not thousands, of already existing alternatives in different parts of the world; and this means that sooner or later the market, which they are targeting, will become saturated and the marginal profit will become near zero. Don't get me wrong there's absolutely nothing wrong with cloning these already existing products or services; but what are some of the things that need to be in place for probably 0.000001% of entrepreneurs in the tech startup space to build what Peter Thiel calls a zero-to-one tech company?
For me, I think it all starts with research collaboration with educational institutions. Do we have science, technology and medical graduate and postgrad students and faculties in our institutions who are even conceiving ideas on how to create something unique from scratch . Example for instance is building a device that scans your environment for possible insects and analyses at once, in a non invasive manner, the disease-causing microorganisms they are carrying; this device would be so small that it can fit into a mobile phone's USB port for analysis of its scan on a mobile app. Or an algorithm that can analyse conversations across the internet and extrapolate socio-dynamic models that reflect--real-time economic status, expectations and demands; political views and inclination; and religious affiliation--of an entire population, leading to a powerful socio-economic dynamics predicting platform. The application of such an algorithm, powered by AI, will be far-reaching
But these two examples will require inter-disciplinary collaborations among software engineers, radiation and imaging scientists, medical doctors, microbiologists, sociologists, psychologists, ethics experts, linguists studying and well versed in the ever-evolving social medial language (I'm yet to learn of anybody in the language departments of our universities doing a project on social media language) and other relevant experts all working with the founding entrepreneur to build them. At least, Google search engine emerged from the post-grad research work of the founders at Stanford
What other requirements are needed to do this, and is it possible to start a conversation, involving physical meetups between entrepreneurs and faculties in selected Universities and the government? On the very long term, such products and services are what will really grow the Naira in decades and centuries to come.
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