VENTURES AFRICA – Africa is a continent of contrasts. It is home to 54 countries in various stages of development and economies that operate at various levels of prosperity. It is a continent where it is common to find poverty existing alongside urban, westernised business districts serving cosmopolitan business communities.

Most often the thing differentiating the two communities, and defining the lack of opportunities available to the poor, is simply a lack of infrastructure that has been exacerbated by an inability to deliver electricity to sites where it is most needed.

The shortage of power, besides defining the geographical boundaries between urban and rural areas and separating the ‘haves from the ‘have-nots’, has a direct impact across a broad spectrum of life and service delivery in communities, particularly those situated far from roads and access to transportation routes.

The most important spheres of activity impacted on include:

• Medicine and health services. No electricity means an inability to use diagnostic and other equipment as well as restricting the use of essential basics such as refrigeration that are required in clinics.
• Access to telecommunications, the Internet, telephones and media.
• Education, which is stifled through the existence of the digital divide and the lack of teaching aids, textbooks and infrastructure that enables children to be taught, or to study alone at their own pace.
• Agriculture, which is impacted on by a lack of water pumps, boreholes, irrigation equipment and electrically-driven equipment required for intensive farming practices, whether it be the delivery of crops at a commercial level or construction of facilities such as ‘hot houses’, chicken breeding, silos and even abattoirs.
• Access to government services in rural areas. The lack of facilities here can extend from clinics through to provision of services ranging from social payments and population registration services.
• Most importantly, the commonly accepted amenities of life such as household appliances cannot exist.

Bringing quality of life to far-flung communities therefore requires that a cost effective, sustainable source of power is established close to communities. Delivering the solution, however, also requires power sources that can be easily transported along existing routes, no matter what their state of repair or disrepair to final destinations.

Solar power is the obvious solution to the dilemma, and has long been proposed as a solution to compensate for the lack of a formal electricity grid. In addition to the immediate improvements to quality of life offered by these facilities, is the fact that other benefits can be accrued.

These, if correctly used and implemented can result in solar power solutions also offering communities a facility which offers a return on investment over a short period of between two and three years, requires little maintenance. Best of all, it can cap its initial investment costs by offering communities a means of generating income.

Purpose- built installations that can be housed in traditional shipping containers present just such an opportunity. Delivered via rail or road, they just need to be treated to ensure that they can survive the vagaries of African weather conditions, and require nothing more than a flat solid, site for their placement.

The potential for these mobile installations lies in their ability to be tailored to meet specific requirements. Use as clinics, community centres or for education is all within their capabilities.

An example of what can be achieved through these containers is illustrated by the fact that a single unit could power four TV’s for five hours a day and simultaneously run four fridges for 24 hours a day, 16 neon or LED lights consuming 16w each for five hours a day, and four plug points delivering a maximum of 100w each for 24 hours. The advantages for a small rural village are obvious.

Power for the units would usually emanate from an array of panels deployed on the roof of the container and connected to a junction box so that the power can be distributed.

To ensure that a value is attached to the provision of electricity to the community, it can be arranged that pre-paid meters are installed and that a fee, no matter how small, is levied for the power. Funds generated can be allocated towards payment of the installation, a fund for battery replacement (generally required after about seven years) or paid to a municipality.

Reality at this stage dictates that many installations of this type will remain within the ambit of corporate social investment projects. Government and parastatals are required to concentrate on meeting the electricity demands of expanding economies. They therefore need, through necessity, to concentrate their primary efforts on the erection of new power stations and the appropriate delivery infrastructure.

When taken in context, what can be achieved through CSI programmes, however, is not insignificant. Recently Samsung Electronics delivered one container, the first of what could be a number of Solar Powered Internet Schools based in containers in Angola, in association with the Angolan government and other partners. The support for the project was in line with the company’s positioning as a leader in the business of creating solutions using solar energy.

The Solar Powered Internet School, which is geared to provide access to the Internet and electronic textbooks will operate on a shift basis and meet the needs of 200 children a day.

This school, housed in a ‘40-foot’ shipping container was delivered by truck to its site. It represents a breakthrough in the delivery of education by helping to break down the technological barriers facing education in Angola.

Used on a rotational basis by children during the day, the school will operate between 08h00 and 17h00 every day. It also has the capacity to operate effectively for up to 36 hours without any sunlight at all.

Built to withstand harsh African conditions the solar panels powering the school are made from rubber instead of glass, to ensure that they are hardy and durable enough to survive long journeys across the continent.

The power generated by the panels each day also means that the school can be used beyond the traditional learning day. After-hours it can operate as an adult education centre or a community centre over weekends.

It may be a small beginning, but for the 200 children who will benefit, the school opens the door to huge opportunities. Finding the funding to create hundreds of similar facilities across Africa could, within a comparatively short period, transform education, quality of life and service delivery across Africa.

The post Using Solar Energy To Drive Education In Africa: Samsung appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

Imagine cup competition allows student innovators all over the world compete to produce various ground-breaking app ideas, create products, set clear business plans and take such products to the marketplace.

While previous editions have been hosted in Spain, Brazil, Japan, India, Korea, France, Egypt, Poland, USA and Australia, this year’s edition will take place in St. Petersburg, Russia from July 8 to 11, 2013.

In Nigeria over 80 students were in attendance for the National finals of the competition held in Lagos last Tuesday, with participants competing for a place in the worldwide finals.

Main One served as the sole bandwidth provider, providing 20 megabytes broadband capacity to the event for live streaming thus emphasizing.

Head of Marketing, Main One Cable, Jumoke Akande, said: “New technologies are rapidly changing businesses, socio-political landscapes and the lives of consumers in Nigeria, Africa as a whole, and other parts of the world, and the speed of adoption is inspiring.”

In total, 12 teams from Nigeria competed during a challenging day of presentations, which brought together students from universities across the country.

Team Life Saver emerged as the winner. Members of the team were from two of Nigeria’s foremost tertiary institutions – Obafemi Awolowo University and Ladoke Akintola University of Technology. They competed in the category of World Citizenship.

Their solution, titled “CardioLife” is designed to tackle heart attack by monitoring heart reading on the fly via the Microsoft Windows Phone. The solution also provides a rehabilitation programme for stroke patients using Kinect sensor.

The team will go on to represent Nigeria at the global finals where the winner stands the chance to win a whopping prize of $300,000.

Team Gravity were winners of the 2012 Microsoft Nigeria Imagine Cup. They created SwiftEr; a software that can improve response time for medical, security, fire and other services during emergency situations.

Developer and Platform Evangelism Lead, Microsoft Nigeria, Shina Oyetosho, stated that: “All Imagine Cup Worldwide Finalist teams are eligible to apply for Imagine Cup Grants, a three year $3million investment by Microsoft to help students turn their ideas into reality. Microsoft BizSpark, another YouthSpark initiative, enables Imagine Cup participants to launch startup businesses in their communities and across the web.”

Meanwhile, National Technology Officer, Microsoft Anglophone West Africa, Yinka Oni, explained that “each participating team that competed in the regional finals is deserving of the highest recognition for the creativity and imagination applied to some of the world’s biggest challenges.”

Since the Imagine cup competition was launched a decade ago, over 1.65 million students across the globe have participated and many of them have gone to create thriving startups companies in their various countries.

The post Main One Cable Partners Microsoft On Imagine Cup 2013 appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

VENTURES AFRICA – How fitting for a German-born innovator and inventor to prove Albert Einstein’s opinion, true.

Nothing, as a source of energy matches the sun. It out-powers anything that human ability, through technology could ever invent. Only a minuscule fraction of the sun’s power output reaches earth, but that which does, provides 10,000 times as much as all the commercial energy that humans use on the planet. Solar energy from the sun, accounts for more than the entire annual global supply of fossil produced energy.

History of Solar Energy

With the discovery of new theory, the development of prototype technologies come the opportunity to further enhance their capabilities.

Considering the above we introduce Ridha Azaiz, an aspiring German engineer, who from the tender kindergarten age years, had nothing but a sheer inquisitive and fascination for electronics. Ridha says, “In 1998, when I was 13, I first thought about the design of the robot. People used to think I was on the wrong track by building this robot, as the market volume was very limited back then”.

So the first impression is that Ridha Azaiz must have had a sterling academic track record? Not really. He says, “My grades in academics remained average though. In fact, Maths wasn’t one of my stronger subjects.” Not quite the “fit” for a 13 year old innovator.

After receiving numerous awards, Solarbrush has now caught the market attention of the Sunbelt countries. In 1998, driven by a belief that clean solar panels would improve efficiency, he made his way to the Youth Research Foundation and onto television with his cleaning robot. Hereafter, SolarBrush made its way to Berlin in 2009, then onto California and now into the booming Middle East countries, such as Abu Dhabi.

Needing to reach market phase, Ridha now heads up SolarBrush, a company that has built a robot that cleans the solar panels. These early envision, culminated in a robot that cleans solar panels to ensure their efficiency – especially in dusty Sunbelt regions. It’s at an earlier age that he already grasped the understanding of the limitations of solar energy technology, these being;

- Photovoltaic cells have low conversion efficiency (typically up to 20 percent)

- Any accumulation of sand or dust reduces efficiency and energy transfer rates dues to the current technology. The predictions and research data range from 3 percent to 10 percent in Europe and up to 35 percent in the Middle East of efficiency to be raised.

- Photovoltaic must be kept clean, which is a challenge in dusty environments

- Support for technology improvements have yet to improve outer surface area that captures solar energy (Siemens has designed and tested a new surface technology)

- Current solar cell requirement high purity making them expensive

- Changing the technology for the surface area to capture as much energy while limiting the distance and direction through which charges must travel is a possibility but have yet to be developed

- Incremental advances in solar technology will not solves the current challenges

- New conceptual break-throughs are needed

And so, given all of these short-comings, SolarBrush is the only solution to increase the efficiency of current solar technology where solar panels must remain clean.

SolarBrush is attracting significant interest from globally, especially Sunbelt regions. The reality is that SolarBrush is the only cost efficient solution for current solar panels cleaning from both a cost and efficiency perspective.

We also took some time to ask Ridha a few questions.

VA: Tell us you’re a bit about your background and how you got involved with innovation/inventions?

RA: I’ve always been attached to technology, in Kindergarten I tinkered with LED’s and batteries. In 1998, when I was 13, I first thought about the design of the robot. People used to think I was on the wrong track by building this robot, as the market volume was very limited back then. Later, I heard about nuclear disasters which made me look into renewable energy, particularly solar cells, as I was amazed how they could turn sunlight into electricity.

Anyway, I continued working on the robot and developed many mechanisms. This process was interrupted when the hype about nano coatings in the early 2000′s began. I have since found out that the nano coatings are not practical outdoors and both sand and dust still remain on the solar panels. Then, in 2007, I stopped again when the marketing chief of a German solar cell producer told me that it wasn’t necessary to clean solar panels as the rain washes them clean on a regular basis. I found out later that the solar industry did not like what I was doing solely for marketing reasons as they claimed their modules were free of maintenance. However, through my website I kept getting requests for a solution, and a study from the Middle East was sent to me stating that solar panels lost about 80 percent of their efficiency after a sandstorm and there was rarely any rain, so this led to me persisting with my invention, Solarbrush.

VA: Tell us about the evidence that supports SolarBrush in the emerging markets?

RA: SolarBrush raises the efficiency of solar power on the whole. With this particular cleaning process the panels produce more energy and the return on investment is faster. Because a higher output of solar energy can be estimated, the use of SolarBrush is essential for keeping panels clean.

SolarBrush also lowers the costs of the cleaning process. Firstly, less labour is necessary as only one person is needed to deploy up to six robots on different rows of panels. Secondly, it eases the conditions of the workforce e.g. in the UAE people are not allowed to clean between 11am and 3pm because of the excess heat during these times. Thirdly, SolarBrush alleviates the repetitive work of cleaning each panel e.g. telescopes are needed to reach the top of the row of panels. Lastly, for physical reasons, some solar modules (thin film), are only to be cleaned at night time which requires additional equipment, whereas SolarBrush is an ‘all in one’ product and can work ‘around the clock’.

VA: Is SolarBrush an efficiency technology or a job creation prospect?

RA: SolarBrush has a very lean drive, which results in a light weight robot that is easy to deploy. SolarBrush makes the cleaning process more profitable and therefore creates new jobs on solar power plants that otherwise may not be that well maintained. The higher efficiency of SolarBrush will drive more installations and therefore is a prospective multiplier when it comes to jobs in the Sunbelt countries.

VA: What type of investments have you made into the development of SolarBrush?

RA: I have placed everything that I’ve worked on during many summers into SolarBrush. Even though competitors have received government funding for the idea I created, I have not been eligible for research grants because of my student status. This has led to many discussions with the Ministry of Economics. Everything I earned during a student job was used to make a living and develop my robot. When things tightened up, family and friends helped me out. I am a hardware start-up which can be considered more expensive in some respects. The industry has helped me with samples for components. In addition, within internships I was able to make different parts in the companies workshops.

Alongside technology is the business development side of things. Filing a patent and a trade mark are quite expensive. Therefore, I kept my structures as lean as I could during my University studies. I finished my Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering last month and now want to scale my business after further trials in the UAE.

VA: The concept is ready for the market, what are the investment requirements?

RA: Long term tests are required before a product can be sold. I have many potential customers that are asking for the product. To finance a prospective team I need an investment of about 300.000€. The large amount is for the production of a small series, personnel and legal costs, such as internationalisation of intellectual property.

VA: What does SolarBrush do?

RA: SolarBrush makes the robots and sells them, business to business. This means the operator of the generator or service company can purchase the robot directly. SolarBrush does not want to offer a cleaning service itself, it would not match the lean business structure.

VA: Where could SolarBrush best be used, geographically?

RA: SolarBrush targets all of the so called “sunbelt countries”. This includes the Middle East, Africa, Australia, parts of the US and Chile (Atacama Desert). Basically everywhere that has little rainfall and where there is sand and dust. Usually, these are the remote sites where there is enough space for utility scale solar power. In Saudi Arabia and India solar panels are cleaned every day, while in Kenya some panels have a stronger tilt, in the hope that the dust will fall off.

VA: What is the estimated cost of setting up a manufacturing facility and where is this proposed, given that emerging markets can benefit from it?

RA: As mentioned previously, I’m working closely with the suppliers of the components. The parts for the robot are pre-manufactured and then assembled by SolarBrush. For large orders, the production process would be outsourced to a production partner in Stuttgart. The manufacturing in emerging markets is to be evaluated by SolarBrush.

VA: How much of the technology you have invented or developed exists elsewhere in the world and if it does, what separates yours/makes it superior, operationally.

RA: SolarBrush consists of mechanics, electronics, pneumatics and software. All of these components need to work together effectively to ensure the robot’s operational success. Throughout the years I have gained skills and experienced some setbacks. I collaborate closely with the suppliers of the components and listen carefully to what the operators of utility solar panel generators have to say. Software isn’t one of my strengths so I am in-sourcing a software developer.

The post How To Make Solar Technology More Efficient appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

Co-created by the USAID and the Centre for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Services (CERSGIS) of the University of Ghana, the website is seen as Ghana’s first ever interactive online platform providing open access to all agricultural spatial data and information.

“This platform gives you access to cross-sectional data and GIS data collected by projects,” according to information on the website.

Launching the website, Mr Foster Mensah of the CERSGIS, a non-profit self supporting organization, said the website was a good source of reference for commercial and smallholder farmers as well as development partners in the agric sector, reports the Ghana News Agency.

The website enables the user to explore data on crop farms, production volumes, agric commerce, agricultural facilities, soil characteristics, topography, climatic conditions, and cover/land use, crop/land suitability, socio-economic indicators etc.

The USAID’s ADVANCE, ADRA Ghana, the Ministry of Food & Agriculture (MoFA) and the CERSGIS are partners of the project.

The post Ghana Opens Online Data On Agric Sector appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

At the 2013 Sam­sung Africa Forum in Cape Town, South Africa,where the eco-friendly product was unveiled, Ntutule Tshenye, Head of Business to Government (B2G) and Corporate Citizen­ship for Samsung Electronics Africa, said: “The Samsung Solar Power Gen­erator forms one important component in Samsung’s broader business enabler solution offering, which is naturally a plausible option for outlying areas, where power supply is absent.”

Tshenye said the Samsung solar power generator capitalises on the one resource that Africa has an abundance of – sunlight.

The product is therefore perfectly positioned for any facility where alternative energy sources are required, especially remote areas of Africa.

“So for example, we can now power Samsung products in rural areas. A smart school for example or perhaps a community centre with LED lighting and technology or even a remote border post, given their online access requirements.

“And if that wasn’t enough, it is built in such a way that it has the capability to allow someone to dial in over the Internet remotely to analyse the generator and troubleshoot any problems before sending out a technician if need be.

“By harnessing the sun’s energy, we are able to provide the African continent with an extremely affordable power source, characterised by an environmentally-friendly footprint.”

According to Tshenye: “The generator is safe to use, easily deployable to site and has very low maintenance requirements making it an ideal business and infrastructure enabler.”

He added that “the product provides a reli­able, efficient and cost-effective way of powering rural facilities and by combining two or more generators, the energy require­ments of larger installations can also be accommodated to meet any African requirement.”

Africa’s lack of adequate power generation and supply has attributed to the rising cost of doing business on the continent therefore raising market entry cost extremely high for its aspiring entrepreneurs, and contributing to inflation.

Apart from the benefits provided by green energy product, the generator can provide power for up to eight years without any additional maintenance and it is credited to be a reliable power solution with a lifespan of up to 25 years.

The post Samsung Develops 15 KVA Solar Power Generator For Africa appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

The programme that will birth the ZEE vehicles into the South African automobile market will be officially launched on Feb 26 by South Africa Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa.

According to a statement released by the department, the soon-to-be released environmental friendly automobile “seeks to ensure that South Africa practically contributes to the reduction of environmentally harmful gases by promoting the use of cleaner sources of fuel by the automotive industry.”

It says the Zero Emission Electric Vehicle (Ev) Programme is economically meant to ensure that South Africa keeps the pace of the technological developments in automotive manufacturing against her international counterparts.”

“This initiative will simultaneously address other global concerns such as energy security as oil wells are expected to dry up in the next 50 years.”

The DEA ZEEV, also known as DEA Green cars, is one of the practical outcomes of the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) hosted by South Africa recently.

One of its unique feature is that they are fully powered by solar energy, from a high-tech assembly of solar tracking panels, housed at the department’s head office, rather than power from the national grid.

The high-tech solar panels powering the vehicles generate enough electricity to power the fleet and feed back into the national grid, further incentivizing the move for other government departments and ordinary citizens to consider travelling green.

The DEA believes that a transition to electric vehicles in South Africa is one of the best solutions to cut down on CO2 emissions, in line with the aims of the National Climate Change Response policy and ensure implementation of the resolutions of many Climate Change conferences.

South Africa seeks to provide an environment that encourages the domestic automotive industry to prepare for transition into alternative propulsions systems operation and production.

DEA assured that government will roll out an effective consumer education and awareness campaign to popularise the uptake of the emission vehicles.

The post South Africa Set To Launch Zero Emission Electric Vehicles appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

“We have waste to energy where we commission electricity from our wastes at one of our markets, Ikosi market,” Mr Ola Oresanya, the Managing Director of Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), disclosed on Monday, according to a BusinessDay report.

This is coming on the heels of news of the state’s plan to generate 3000 megawatts (MW) of electricity in the next two years, given the importance of sufficient power generation to economic growth.

Lagos, with an estimated 18 million populace and 12,000MW electricity demand, receives less than 1,000MW from the national grid.

The state government in the last couple of years has partnered with the private sector on power generation and successfully executed two independent power projects (IPP) to increase power to the state.

Oresanya has said that the waste to energy project would be expanded to cover more markets in the coming year, adding that the state has initiated recycling projects.

“We have recycling plants all over that we’ve established. Right now, for plastic recycling centres, we have four centres up and running. The tyre shredding plant is also going on to manufacture rubbers from (used) tyres… ’’

“We’ve been able to evolve new strategies to make people recycle in Lagos; to change the perception of people and not to see wastes as waste, so that they will see it as resource and that (buying-back), we’ve been able to do through the introduction of recycling banks all over the city. We have the buying-back programme where people bring wastes and we pay them for bringing the wastes,” he said.

The post Lagos Uses Waste To Generate Electricity appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

Australia has been crowing about becoming the global leader after a promise was made to disburse $1.2 billion on the Western Downs facility but the deal did not come through after Queensland withdrew the money promised by the state government under the administration of Labor Queensland leader Anna Bligh. However, with Bligh electoral defeat, the Newman government took over and backed out of the deal.

Inspite of this, the Solar Dawn Consortium insisted it is committed to the country’s large-scale concentrated solar power industry.

According to International Business Times, the project was supposed to build a 250-megawatt solar thermal power plant near Chinchilla in the southwest part of the state. It was calendared to begin construction in 2013.

“The process of developing major power projects remains complex and time-consuming, particularly given we are competing in a dynamic energy market,” a Queensland spokesman explained.

Meanwhile, a Spanish multinational corporation, Abengoa started the construction of two solar thermal projects (the 50-megawatt Khi Solar One and the 100-megawatt KaXu Solar One CSP) in South Africa last week. The two projects combine the use of a solar tower and parabolic trough technologies.

The two project has attracted power purchase agreements from South Africa government-owned power utility company, ESKOM while finance for the venture would come from South African and international financial institutions.

South Africa is succeeding in spite of Australia’s predicament by using stand alone systems while introducing a market-focused system that has caught the interest of the world’s biggest solar and other alternative energy developers using an auction-based system. That system has so far attracted over $5 billion worth of solar energy projects during its first two auctions.

Last week, global engineering solutions provider, Kentz Corporation Limited, announced that it has secured a $45 million Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for the 75MWp Kalkbult Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Project in the Northern Cape area of South Africa. The project,scheduled to be completed by January 2014, is a key component of Phase 1 of the South African Department of Energy’s 3,725MW Renewable Energy IPP Procurement Program.

The post South Africa Becomes Global Leader In Solar Power Generation appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

The building which was awarded the winner of the category Highest Scoring Green Star Project 2008-2012 is situated at the Vodacom’s head office in Midrand. It had also won the Mail and Guardian’s prestigious Greening the Future Awards for Innovations early this year.

According to CEO of the Green Building Council, Brian Wilkinson, “In our quest to ‘change the way the world is built’ we rely on true leaders to set the bar and the Vodafone project has done just that. The project addresses sustainability in all respects which seeks to truly minimise the impact of the building on the environment. Vodafone and their project team deserve this accolade as no other South African project has ever reached this level.”

It has been awarded six stars by the GBCSA in October 2011 making it the greenest building in Africa and the first 6 Star Green Star SA accredited building in South Africa, the equivalent of a LEED Platinum status. The six star accolade is also referred to as ‘World Class’ by the GBCSA.

Expressing delight on the achievement, Chief Officer corporate affairs at Vodacom, Maya Makanjee, said, “We are very proud of this award because it is a testimony of our commitment to growing our business in a sustainable way. We all have a responsibility towards ensuring the sustainability of our communities, country and planet. The Innovation Centre, and what it aims to achieve, is a critical component of that philosophy.”

“The innovation centre is one example of our commitment to sustainability. The scale of challenges on our environment demands ambitious action and we are responding with a continued focus on innovation to cut our carbon emissions across our business” says Makanjee.

Apart from the Vodafone SSIC, other innovations implemented by Vodafone include the ‘power cube’ (a more efficient hybrid generator) and the use of slim-line solar ‘film’ as an alternative to solar panels for base stations in urban areas with limited space. The mobile company also created a portable base station that was powered entirely by renewable energy for the COP17 climate change conference in Durban last year.

The post Vodafone SSIC Center Gets Greenest Building In Africa Award appeared first on Ventures Africa | .

Nigeria’s budding ICT innovators and entrepreneurs have welcomed the development with much cheer, stating that it is a step in the right direction.

Financially challenged entrepreneurs are however fortunate as selection for the funding would be made without collateral requirement considering financial prospects only. “We will use those Venice capital fund to fund them because there is no collateral we are taking a risk,” the minister said.

The fund, which would be used to finance commercially viable indigenous ideas, initiatives and projects in ICT, would be privately managed in collaboration with technocrats as decision makers of the beneficiaries of the fund.

“The fund will be managed by independent fund managers who would, working with the ICT incubation team will identify projects or initiative that we believe are great ideas that will be commercially successful,” Mrs Johnson said at the announcement.

The minister also disclosed the state’s capital development fund would manage the execution and development of the selected ideas to a commercially viable stage, after which investors can earn from the incubated projects by issuing an Initial Public Offer (IPO) of the resultant companies.

The minister stated in summary that if the $15 million venture capital proves successful the capital base would be raised to increase financing for more initiatives.

The Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has been identified as the first investor of the fund with a proposed $3.6 million investment while the $11.4 million balance would be made up investments from local and international investors.

The post Nigeria Launches $15m Venture Capital Fund To Assist ICT Entrepreneurs appeared first on Ventures Africa | .