African Founders Chief Executive Christian Keller has a history of building companies from early stage to international level. His organisation is a private business incubator, which has experience in carving out strategies for complex businesses in product development, private equity financing and regulatory affairs. He tells DANIEL ESSIET that technology will remain the soul of economic growth.
What key technology trends are changing the economy landscape?
The internet has truly changed Nigeria. About one third of Nigerians now have access to smartphones devices and data are getting cheaper daily. Many of us have been chatting with our friends and shopping for electronics on our phone. Now you can even consult a doctor or hire a trusted handyman from the convenience of your home.
The internet alone will contribute as much as $300 billion to Africa´s gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025, according to a report. This means, technology will reach beyond its limits and transform industries. For example, the way health care is delivered in Nigeria could change a lot in the future. Teleconsultation would soon become mainstream. Patients will have their medical records accessible from their phone and can share specific records with doctors, laboratories or global specialists as needed. This will go hand-in-hand with an array of reinvented medical devices.
Potable devices for ultrasound scans or tests for infectious diseases, such as malaria or HIV, would soon be smaller and more affordable. This means that access to quality diagnosis and treatment in rural areas will improve greatly. In addition, there will be new patient devices that can improve adherence to medicine and monitoring of health status. This include wearables, such as watches, which detect common heart conditions or 24/7 blood sugar measurement devices, which automatically report data and computer-aided interpretation to your electronic health record. We will also see community and education apps for pregnant women or young mothers.
Sensitive data could be stored, using block chain technology, which has the potential to secure our data beyond what we know.
What trends and challenges do you see in the industry?
One key trend I see is much deeper collaboration among different stakeholders. In health care for instance, hospitals, pharmacies, internet platforms and technology companies need to work hand in hand with government agencies to take advantage of the technology that is emerging in that space. This would not always be easy as different industries have different perspectives on things. Yet, collaboration is the only way forward, as the world gets more and more connected.
The beautiful thing is that it could lead to a new paradigm of health care, one which is more value-based than cost-based; more patient-centric than treatment-centric and more preventive than curative.
This will also give rise to new business models. Already, Uber functions as the largest taxi company in the world, yet they don´t own a single car. Likewise, AirBnB does not own a single apartment, yet they could be described as the world´s largest hotel company. Thus, innovative platforms are emerging at the centre of industries connecting their participants and enabling them to better work together.
The industry’s potential is restricted by the lack of digital talent. How do we this?
Countries, such as India or China, have done a great job in providing high-quality engineering schools and are guiding young talent towards it. Nigeria has a large pool of young and hungry high school graduates – it needs to learn and make use of its talent.
Education also needs to be more practical. The best developers you can find in Nigeria are self-taught – they might have a computer science education, but they learned their most relevant skills by implementing projects at the side of or after their education. Great schools should encourage and mentor their students on such side jobs, internships or even provide work for them.
Lastly, we need more trust in local development and find ways of adopting global development standards to Nigerian culture and way of doing things. The naira devaluation has made it favourable to rely on local development and service providers, even for larger projects – we now need to start making it happen.
Both the government and the private sector have continued to concentrate on startups. Are they so important?
Startups are very relevant to the digital economy. Many of the most significant innovations in recent history came from companies, which started as startups. They don´t have heritage obligations; they have the freedom as much as the need to think outside the box. Their whole leadership culture is built around creating disruption, which established players can´t often provide.
Yet, they will only thrive in an environment that nurtures them. The government needs to ensure that policies are not hindering, but actually allow startups to unfold their potential.
What do we need to build a successful digital economy?
We can learn from those who have built successful digital economies. The world´s most modern digital economy can be found in Estonia. Over a long period of time, they have systematically invested in talent, supported local IT companies and put forward a digital training agenda for schools, companies and government. They have created a digital passport for all their citizens, a central electronic health record and management system and a central data architecture based on distributed storage.
As a consequence, it became the first country in the world that allowed voters to participate in parliament election over the internet. They conducted the world’s first e-census and now it offers foreigners to obtain digital citizenship, just like almost any government activity can be done online. Innovations like the communication software Skype and many more were born in Estonia. Since then, it has become one of the fastest growing economies in Europe and is widely known for its tech talent and expertise.
So, a key formula for a digital agenda is strong support and guidance by government combined with the freedom and empowerment of business initiative to find effective ways of implementation. Entrepreneurs need to be encouraged and enabled to contribute.
However, a digital agenda also needs a deep understanding of technology and the openness for innovation. A lot of money has been wasted by Western countries trying to bring traditional structures to the internet rather than innovating their business models with it. This requires digitally savvy leaders. Part of the success story of Estonia was that they had a president who had a deep understanding and passion for technology.
Also, the average age of politicians in the Estonian parliament was 35 at that time, so much lower than in most countries. A new generation of leaders, who deeply understands the potential that lies in the smart use of technology needs to arise. With this, many sectors of the economy can be transformed so that citizens can be enabled to do their work in a much better and more productive way.
The government has challenged businesses to embrace technology. How can the government create the right environment for investment?
First, businesses need a stable and encouraging legal framework to operate. Companies often prefer to delay the adoption of new technologies until it is clear what is legal and what is not, especially in sensitive areas like healthcare or financial services.
Then, the government should support the setup of education and co-creation centers for local entrepreneurs of all types. If well done, such centers can give access to capital as much as knowledge and contacts all across the country.
Innovative governments then work on digital agendas for mobile payment, unique identity, central electronic health record, or credit scoring and sometimes, even a technical support architecture for it and more.
