IBM Chooses Kenya over Nigeria for its Africa ICT Lab - "Lobatan"

The choice of Kenya as the location for International Business Machines (IBMs) first research laboratory in Africa is raising fears that Nigeria is being left behind with regard to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) development.

When IBM, the $230 billion American Information Technology (IT) and Software Company sought a spot in Africa to build its new research centre, it didn’t pick Nigeria with its 168 million people and $270 billion economy.

It chose Kenya instead, a country whose economy at $34 billion, is about the size of Lagos (Nigeria’s commercial capital), and has a population seven times smaller than Nigeria’s.

IBM, with an annual research budget of $6.5 billion, runs similar research facilities in 11 other countries, but this is the first in Africa.

The new research centre project announced last week, is a joint venture between the Kenyan government’s ICT Board and IBM, with each contributing $10 million of funding over the next five years.

For stakeholders, this highlights the risk that Nigeria may be falling behind peer countries such as South Africa, Kenya and Egypt in IT, software development and skilled ICT manpower development.

Nigeria, which however had high hopes of becoming a hub for ICT in Africa, seems to be under performing, and not leveraging on its seeming advantages.

The Abuja Technology Village which was conceptualised in 2004 and expected to cost $400 million to create “Africa’s preferred technology research, incubation, development, and outsourcing destination,” is only 55 percent complete some eight years later.

“The poor ranking of Nigeria in the Global competitive index underscores the magnitude of the task…The challenge for the nation is to improve significantly her ratings in all spheres of knowledge- based economies,” Johnson said at an ICT conference in Georgia, USA, earlier in March.

Are we ever going to be able to lead in anything as the "Giant of Africa"? oh sorry i forgot that we are asleep

BusinessDay

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