 Welcome back from that feature talking about Nigerian United States bilateral ties. Moving on now, the mobile app industry in Nigeria, like I said before, has seen tremendous growth over the last decade. With increasing smartphone and internet penetration, apps have become an integral part of daily life for many Nigerians. The potential for innovation and revenue in the Nigerian app economy makes it an attractive prospect for developers, entrepreneurs and investors alike. My guest is the CEO of Mabilla Media and the convener of Tech Switch, the next best thing to happen in the tech world, if I must say. Let's make welcome in hands, Isa. Many thanks for joining us on Business Insights. Thank you so much, Justin. It's a pleasure to be here. Let's talk about technology and its usefulness. It cannot be overemphasized. Lately, it has become an integral part of our everyday lives. For most businesses, who I get to actually harness all that technology takes, what would you say is happening to them? First of all, when we go deep into technology, let me just look at the perspective of technology. You dive back to the first industrial revolution, second industrial revolution. That's where the word, the acronym came from, Westernization. I'll look about the third industrial revolution, which is the digital age, the computer age. Where does it erupt from? We're looking at Asia. Where was India? Where was China? These are people who have focus. There's a trend. It's like a paradigm shift and the continents are really planning for the next future of what they're going to do. But when you come back to Africa, you ask yourself, what are we doing in terms of technology? In technology, we are at the bronze level. If you want to rate Africa, we are at the bronze level. We have not even gotten to the slaver, the gold or the platinum levels. And we are still consumers. That's more painful thing. Then you look inward again. Africa itself has the manpower. Africa has the brain power. Africa has the resources. Africa is the biggest global market in terms of technology. We are doing nothing. So what is actually stopping us from actually getting to our full potential? Yes. I will not really look at the government because we have a challenge with the government, making environment policies that would drive the growth of technology in this country. But inwardly, we want to look at or we want to tell you that the future is for the scaleful. Technology is all about being so scaleful, translating your knowledge into a finished product. So when you look back to Africa, we are consumers, like I said. We believe in the westernization. We're not able to look inward to develop. The daily challenges are part of technologies. There are not those challenges that have become a setback for you to just fold your hands and wait for someone. There are opportunities for us to grow. So when we build these challenges to become solutions, you see that we are ahead of the tax. So African business, for me, they have not really gone far. Okay. But to some people, when you talk about challenges, what they see are actually opportunities and even solutions to those challenges. It depends on how you see it. If a glass is half empty or half full. But the thing is that's fine. There are challenges and of course we have, like you said, the manpower, the brain power and of course all the world without you meets these challenges with tailor-made solutions. Because if you ask me, the fintech industry is actually moving spirally very fast in Nigeria. I would have thought that with the rate of internet penetration that would have moved from the, like you said, the bronze now to the platinum level. Is it a thing of government policies or the thing of we are not really taking internet to the level that it should be? Or what exactly are the core challenges? Yeah. The core challenges in Nigeria, like I said, one is policy and two, it's your drive. What's that the future? What do you have? What did you plan for as an enterprise or as a company? You have your focus. You have your goals and your mind stones where you want to reach. But the policies here, it's not that are contributive because the policies are supposed to be made open. Like when you look at solar apps, you see that the content we view here on the social media differs from the one you see in China, in America and stuff. The African system is just opened. We don't have policy that guides and checkmate productives. So there's no kind of education where we will see and it will be challenged to move. So when you come to the second aspect of it, it's self-driven. We should be self-driven. We should be self-innovative on what we want to do. You see Africa, we don't have anything. Like you just said, yes, there's no doubt when you come to the rating inwardly, we will see the financial, the fintech industry and the e-commerce. They are doing pretty much what happens to the others. In the global rating, where are we? In Africa, when it comes to the context of Africa and Nigeria, we are the largest continent. We have a lot of resources and the manpower and the market base in Africa. But when it comes to internet use in Africa, you see Egypt is rated high. Where is the position of Nigeria? We're not taking our place. We're supposed to be the giant of Africa? Yes, we're supposed to be the giant of Africa. But the other way around, we are not really maximizing the potential of social media. We're not maximizing the potential of technology. We are not innovating to dominate. We are only innovating inwardly. And worstly, we are not even promoting Made in Nigeria. So let's take it one step further. In my intro, I talked about how the apps industry is actually moving at very momentous speed. And Nigerians do actually appreciate the fact that you can actually go to your phone template store or your iOS device and you can actually download any of these apps, different kinds of apps. Aside from the ones we use for social media, for e-commerce, people even use it for other purposes, even to transact for banking activities, for technology, for different stuff really. So tell me really how well we are doing as a continent. In my head, I feel that there are several apps, even locally made apps here in Nigeria that people are even yet to identify with. Yeah, that is the challenge. Local for apps that people are yet to identify or people to put into use. At least there are several challenges that really the developers are facing. There are creative people in Nigeria that are doing pretty well. I've seen a lot of them, but I don't want to mention them. That is the primary reason why Tech Switch has been better. In the event of Tech Switch, you get to see them. Financial challenge, which we call the seed capital to drive. To value an investment platform. How do you want to see that? When you go to the Apple Play Store, you only see the FinTech industries, their apps. That's what you can do. I know I'll be able to look for apps. For instance, sometimes when I get to work from home and I need to do, for instance, scroll message on this, and I'm actually typing on small cases. As an app, I can just change from small lower case to upper case. It's as ritual as that. Almost practically anything you can do with different kinds of apps. Yeah, it's very, very difficult for you to see all that apps, the version and the Play Store. Because they have not made the criteria on the Play Store. If they made the criteria on the Play Store, it's not just you developing an app. There are processes. You have to redefine the process because technology is a change. It's the ever-changing thing. It depends on the solution you really want to provide. Getting onto the Play Store and the iOS Store and everything, does it really take so much? For instance, I know that what people use lately are all sort of known apps. If they are like so, so, so, so much, why does it really take... Why is it really hard for all those app developers to bring on their own? Taylor made them apps for Nigerians to also enjoy. I don't know, is it like the criteria just to cumbersome? Or is it like they need to use so much money before they can get on the app stores? One thing I would say as a developer, we experience in so much care because when they look at the social app, the social tartan app, they don't see the reason why they are able to replicate a prototype that will match up with Facebook, Instagram and others. They only see the business aspect of the fintech app and e-commerce app so that they will be able to connect with other products within the society. But we are breaking that norm now. That is why we went into five years' research, looking at the trend of technologies and things that we needed to do. We need to compete with the global stage. Alright, it's the business insight on Plus TV Africa. I still have one in answer. Issa was me here in the studio. I'll take a very short break. We'll come back and talk about Tech Switch. It's like an innovation that's happened to the world of technology like a hope for app developers, entrepreneurs and exhibitors. It's really happening. I think it's big. It's something we need to talk about in a moment after we return. Stay with us. Alright, welcome back. It's still business insight on Plus TV Africa. Inans is the convener of Tech Switch. Let's talk about Tech Switch right now. It's a very wonderful thing that is really happening in the app space. What exactly does it really entail? Tech Switch is also an acronym for Switch to Africa. We want to promote Made in Africa. We want to put Africa on the global map when it comes to technology. Tech Switch itself is a converging center for industrial professionals, experts, software developers, decision makers, forward thinkers and enterprising entrepreneurs providing global solutions for tomorrow's Africa. So if you are a tech innovator or inventor and you're a software developer you're welcome to that community for us to chart the future forward. And in Tech Switch we focus on four basic things. One, training. We want to impact Nigerians and Africans. It's not just only Nigerian thing. It's across Africa. We have a forum where tech and software developers across Africa we converge and we discuss the future of Africa. Two, we also look at seed capital, funding and investment for upcoming app developers and techies even in the country. So for instance, if I was a developer and I wanted to embrace all the opportunities that I would be given seed capital? Yes, of course. When you come, first of all, we'll look at your project. We'll redefine your project. We'll help you to focus. We're not taking charge of it. We're becoming a partner so that we want your business, you want your product to grow. We want it to become a product, not just an idea. But people have a beautiful idea but it has not been translated into a product or into a brand for now. So we'll help you to do that. Then we'll look at it within ourselves and look at a seed capital. Seed capital can be what we take you to the play store. Seed capital can be some of those resourceful items you need to put those up into a good shape to become a solution and people will be able to assess it. Seed capital can become maybe you need a visibility research. You want to print off layers. You want to go to various locations to test that app to see if it fits in or what could be the problem. Does the database have a problem? Is it robust or how many people it can take? What about the traffic aspects? So those are things we'll look at and give you. Then the third one, we'll look at setting up a small scale manufacturing app development center and also the hardware, hardware manufacturing center because we have a few persons in Ghana working right now who is doing the hardware in the motherboard. The third one is the market space. That's actually the fourth one. Yes, the fourth one. The fourth one, sorry, is the market space. We bring all these apps together. We launch it in the form of events like what we're doing now in tech switch. Okay, I don't want to go into all of that so we don't even start marketing you guys on that. But then again, as we round off the show, now let's talk about the opportunities or just the prospects rather. Just how far do you see the app industry in Nigeria in the next five years? Very quickly as you are. Yes, in the last five years. If we have focus, if we have focus, we will do pretty well because in Nigeria here, it's very easy for us to adapt to systems. So you don't need to tell anybody when a new technology comes, one or two persons we are used, it's easy to go. So in the next five years, if we have focus, driven focus of what we want to do, we will dominate. All right, thank you so much. You couldn't have said it better. That's the size of the show. But then again, it's always fun to talk about technology and of course how it can actually impact on businesses and of course economic growth. We do appreciate your time on the show. Thank you so much. All right, time is never your friend when you are having fun when you're talking about techie and business related stuff. But we just have to go business inside to return to your screen same time tomorrow. My name is Justin Akadonya. Many thanks for being a part of the show. Bye for now.