Yesterday, the ICT ministry’s magic Silicon Valley school bus made a pit stop at the studios of Bloomberg West. There, technology news anchor Emily Chang asked Omobola Johnson about the purpose of her Bay Area expedition and the Nigerian ICT ministry’s vision for Nigeria’s technology sector.
image via @NGRCommtech
“We’re not trying to create another Silicon Valley, we just want understand what it is they’ve done and try to contextualise some of that knowledge in Nigeria to build a sustainable IT industry”, the minister said.
Well, I for one have argued elsewhere that Silicon Valley-like innovation clusters are beginning to take root, and could possibly thrive given the right conditions.
Omobola Johnson looked keen to talk about the potential for Nigerian tech companies. But the anchor, it seemed, was more interested in mobile penetration in Nigeria and Africa’s lack of internet access. And especially how Zuckerberg and Facebook might swoop in to save the day. There were enough interruptions to frazzle Miss Frizzle, but I think the minister’s conviction about Nigeria’s technology opportunity came through at the end.
Watch the four minute interview.
