Category: Tech

Hard work pays off for founder of ‘Nollywood Netflix’

At only 33, Jason Njoku is already considered one of Africa’s most promising entrepreneurs thanks to an online film distribution service that has tapped high demand for Nigerian movies.

But the British-born Nigerian entrepreneur, whose firm iROKO has been compared to the US Internet movie and TV streaming giant Netflix, is cautious about reading too much into the accolade.

“On paper, I’m a millionaire, absolutely,” he told AFP at his office in Nigeria’s financial capital, Lagos.

“But it’s on paper. It’s not cash in the bank. I think we are not successful, we are not profitable, we have a long way to go.”

Njoku’s caution is understandable given his background.

Soon after he was born, his father left, leaving his mother struggling to make ends meet while Njoku grew up in southeast London. Yet he managed to become the first from his family to go to university.

With a chemistry degree from the University of Manchester under his belt, Njoku decided to set up his own business. But it was not all plain sailing.

“I graduated in 2005 and spent a good five-and-a-half years just failing in everything I tried,” he admitted.

Though Njoku was broke, unable to open a bank account and slept on friends’ sofas, his best friend and university flatmate Bastian Gotter was still persuaded to invest in his latest venture.

Cinema is big business
That enterprise – iROKO Partners – was his 11th attempt at starting a company and born of the fact that cinema is increasingly big business in Nigeria.

Video editors David Adeoti (L) and Jolaosho Oladimeji preview a work at the headquarters of iROKOtv in Lagos. (Pic: AFP)

Some 1 500 to 2 000 Nollywood films are made every year and many are wildly popular both at home and abroad.

Most films, including poor quality pirated copies, are sold for a dollar or two on DVD in markets or by hawkers at traffic junctions, making them difficult to come by for the legions of fans overseas.

Njoku bought a ticket for Nigeria, where he had previously only been on a few childhood visits, and set out to meet film producers in the hope of creating a slick, modern distribution network.

“Our idea was really simple: we just wanted to take Nollywood movies and put them online. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

With producers on board, the first step in 2010 was the creation of “Nollywoodlove”, a dedicated channel on the video-sharing site YouTube, followed a year later by the iROKOtv platform.

Gotter sank money he had made as a trader for British oil giant BP into the venture and a US-based investment fund also provided financial backing, Njoku said.

Today, iROKOtv gets nearly a million hits a month and almost 90% of the content – more than 5 000 films – is free, with revenue generated in part by online advertising.

There is also a subscription service, where users can download the latest releases for $7.99 (5.7 euros) a month.

Notwithstanding comparisons with Netflix and the company’s expansion beyond Lagos to Johannesburg, London and New York, Njoku believes they still have a way to go.

Profitability, he said, will only start to come in two or three years.

“I’m actually always wary not to celebrate success before you know what it actually is. And at the moment, we’re still growing, we’re still scrappy, we’re still scared,” he explained.

“And in as much as money is important, it’s not the yardstick that we should use to determine your life and your values and how you try to build a company…

“We’re basically still growing and investing for growth.”

Up to now, most users of the site have been in the diaspora – first and second-generation African families who want to stay in touch with their roots.

African online market
But Njoku is eyeing the vast potential of the African online market for expansion and has tasked engineers to figure out the best way to compress films so quality is not lost on poor Internet lines.

Njoku and Gotter have also set up the music download site iroking.com, dubbed the “African Deezer”, featuring 35 000 tracks from Nigeria and other countries on the continent in MP3 format.

Another venture, “Sparks,” supports and finances young Nigerian start-ups.

What’s clear is that Njoku is not short of ideas or energy.

The self-confessed workaholic reckons he spends more than 100 hours a week in his office and is eager to share his experiences with young Nigerians, mindful that they will determine his future success.

“I think tenacity is one of the most important things because things are never going to go in the right way,” he said.

“So, if you can get knocked down five years in a row and still be excited, still be enthusiastic and still be in the fight… I think I’m fortunate to have been able to continue somehow.”

Cecile de Comarmond for AFP

11 years ago

Text messages aim to save lives in flood-prone African areas

Text messaging may be dying out as a means of communication in many parts of the advanced world, but it may yet prove to be a vital life-saver in flood-prone African villages.

An early-warning system that aims to capitalise on the explosive growth of mobile phone penetration in Africa could soon be in place to broadcast alerts to all users at risk from natural disasters such as flooding or hurricanes.

Millions of people in Africa have only limited access to television, radio or internet but mobile phone ownership has grown exponentially, even in poor remote villages at risk from floods.

Now Spain’s Nvia, a mobile phone company, has developed the Gooard project, a technology based on geo-targeted alerts that sends text messages to a specific geographical area.

A network of satellites and weather stations will detect the threat and send a text to villagers within 15 minutes, hopefully allowing time for evacuation.

Flooded houses on March 12 2014 in Laphalale, South Africa. Hundreds of residents were left stranded after the Mogol River overspilled due to heavy rains. (Pic: Gallo)

“The technology is able to identify all the active cellphones in a certain area, such as a shopping mall, a village, or a park, and send messages straight to the terminal without any previous subscription,” Alberto Perez, Nvia’s Africa manager, told AFP.

“With the same system, we can also send vital information to people about natural disasters that can save their lives and minimise damages”.

The technology is already in use in other parts of the world for promotional purposes — bombarding consumers in a specific shopping mall with a special offer for example.

Everyone has a mobile
And even in remote Africa, mobile phone communications can reach the parts other systems can’t reach.

The International Communications Union (ITU) estimates that mobile phone penetration has risen to around 63% on the continent – and much higher in South Africa.

“In Africa, especially in poor settlements, the population has limited access to internet, radio or television, but everybody has a mobile phone. That’s why the platform can be so useful in the continent,” said Perez.

After years of research, the scheme is already fully operational in Europe and is expected to be rolled out in Kenya by the end of the year.

It is expected to work in partnership with local mobile networks such as Airtel, Vodafone, Orange, MTN and Cell-C.

Speaking to AFP from his Johannesburg office, Perez pledged that the service would be free for the population but declined to comment on how much it could cost for governments or how it would be sponsored.

“It is an expensive service, but governments know that it can be vital for its population, and it can also save a lot of money in emergency relief,” he said.

The South Africa’s environmental affairs department and the national secret services agency have shown interest in the project, and Nvia is preparing to formally showcase it to government, added Perez.

Heavy rains killed 32 people in South Africa in the first two weeks of March, in record downpours that weather experts say were the worst in more than a decade.

Natural disasters in Africa accounted for just less than a third of worldwide victims, with around 38-million people affected in 2012, according to the Catholic University of Louvain’s last Annual Disaster Statistical Review.

Natural disasters in Africa caused some $803-million in damage, the Belgian university estimated.

11 years ago

Hydrogen phone chargers are coming to Africa

African smartphone users will soon have an alternative means to get round the power shortages afflicting much of the world’s poorest continent – a portable charger that relies on hydrogen fuel cells.

British company Intelligent Energy plans to roll out 1-million of the new chargers in mid-December, mainly in Nigeria and South Africa, after successfully testing them in Nigeria over the last five months, its consumer electronics managing director, Amar Samra, said.

“In emerging markets where the grids are not reliable and people are using [mobile phones] as a primary device, it is mission critical; if you’re out, you’re out,” Samra said on the sidelines of a telecoms conference in Cape Town.

The chargers are designed to back up the spread of smartphones and tablets across countries where cellphones have already helped to transform lives and businesses.

(Pic: Reuters)

Industry body GSMA, which represents about 800 of the world’s mobile operators, said in its latest report that smartphones were key to boosting mobile Internet access in sub-Saharan Africa where current penetration of 4% of the population lags the global average of 17%.

Ericsson predicts that smartphone traffic in Africa will increase tenfold between 2013 and 2019, when around 476-million devices will be in use.

“Alternative sources of power are very important, because smartphones and other devices need lots of power and you need to charge up every four hours, so for a businessman it is crucial,” said Melvin Angula, an engineer attending the conference.

The hydrogen chargers, which fit easily into a handbag, consist of a fuel cell and a non-disposable cartridge that can be detached when exhausted.

Samra said consumers could expect to pay less than $5 dollars to “refuel” a cartridge of the charger.

This would translate to a cost of less than $1 to charge a phone, he said, adding that final costs would ultimately depend on how telecoms companies marketed and sold the product.

Samra said that if bought over the counter, the entire device will cost under $200, although options being considered include $10 a month for a two-year contract or getting it for free.

“We always have problems with cell batteries, so everybody will be keen for portable energy. But, it has to be the right price for it to fly in our markets,” said businessperson Thabo Magagula, who also attended the conference.

Besides Intelligent Energy, Japan’s Aquafairy has also been developing fuel cell chargers, Samra said.

Other companies, such as Dubai-based developer Solarway, have launched solar powered kiosks designed for communities that are not linked to a power grid, each capable of charging up to 40 cellphones a day.

Wendell Roelf for Reuters

11 years ago

Techies ride Zimbabwe’s internet wave

On the benches outside the pub overlooking the cricket greens at Harare Sports Club, they hunch over laptops, selling ideas as diverse as how to sell cattle and how to help urban dwellers cook traditional meals.

It is a long way from Silicon Valley in California, but, amid a boom in social media use, Zimbabwe is seeing the emergence of a fast-growing start-up scene.

A few years ago Limbikani Makani was a bored IT manager at a nongovernmental organisation. He quit his job and set up TechZim, a tech news website that is hosting a “start-up challenge”, attended by dozens of tech developers.

The interest has grown since the first event, which was held two years ago, reflecting the growing number of developers in Zimbabwe.

“We have created a launch pad for these entrepreneurs, enabling them to accelerate their start-ups to a level where they can make revenue,” Makani says.

Teledensity, the ratio of telephones to the population, stood at 91% in February, a big jump from 14% in 2008. Over the same period, mobile access has risen from about 11% to nearly 100%.

Access to the internet
In 2000, only 0.4% of Zimbabweans had access to the internet. Now the figure has risen to 40%, according to official data.

Usage is also rising as access grows. Opera, one of the world’s largest mobile browsers, says Zimbabwe is one of its fastest growing markets, and had the highest numbers of “page views” in Africa in 2011.

Zimbabwe has been named as one of the most dynamic countries in the world, with above-average growth in information technology over the past year. (Shepherd Tozvireva)

And last week, the International Telecommunications Union named Zimbabwe among 12 “most dynamic countries” in the world that have recorded above-average growth in information and communications technology over the past year.

In the boom, developers are stirring; the numbers are growing, and so is the range of their ideas.

Last year Allister Banks set up RLMS, or the Remote Livestock Marketing System, a start-up that allows trade of livestock online.

“We have traded close to $4-million so far,” Banks says.

Paying lobola via RLMS
On his website Banks invites users abroad to pay their lobola cattle via RLMS. He has a selection of cattle on display on the site, from which, he says, a prospective groom can choose.

“If there is no space in the in-laws’ residence for the cattle, don’t worry. Each animal you choose and buy can be ear tagged, branded, entered into a national database, kept at one of our partner farms, looked after.”

And then there is ZimboKitchen, a service that delivers tutorials such as “how to make plain sadza”, and gives recipes for other popular Zimbabwean dishes such as beef trotters, or muboora, pumpkin leaves stewed in peanut butter.

There is also TestLabs, a service that provides local high school students and teachers with relevant exam revision tools.

Some of the websites and apps are already popular, but the challenge is to help developers make money.

Investors are conservative and hesitate to gamble on start-ups, most of which are run by “green, fresh-out-of-college dreamers”, as one bank chief executive described them.

Free downloads
For now, most of the apps are free to download. Developers themselves have little knowledge about how to turn their ideas into dollars, a gap the likes of Makani are trying to bridge.

“The two sides don’t speak the same language,” he says.

The techies also struggle to be taken seriously.

“Our society demands that you have an actual job,” developer Pardon Muza says, making finger quotes to show his annoyance.

Muza is one of many developers building an online payments site.

“You have to put up with being asked when you’ll get a proper job, wear a tie and work normal hours and stuff.”

But Makani says developers are now increasingly focusing on building services that don’t just sound cool, but bring solutions that can earn them money.

“Initially, we focused on pure innovation in terms of technology and utility, but this has evolved into a more practical approach where strong market potential overrides technology that is used just for the sake of using cool technology,” Makani says.

Jason Moyo for the Mail & Guardian, where this post was first published.

11 years ago

African languages coming to Google Translate

Google is planning to add Somali, Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba and Zulu to its list of language options on Google Translate, the search engine giant’s free automatic translation service.

A post published yesterday on the Google Africa page on Google+ called on users to evaluate the translation quality of the five languages. After assessing passages that are translated into English and vice versa, users can rate them as Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor.

Google Translate already supports 71 languages but the possible inclusion of Somali, Zulu and other African ones has been met with wide approval and excitement. However, users have already pointed out that there are some tweaks needed. Here’s the system’s take on Igbo to English translation.

If you’d like to rate the translations, visit the Google Africa page.