Creative industry takes center stage at 17th NES

By Bankole Orimisan

Director General of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG), Mr. Frank Nweke Jr., has announced the addition of a creative industry forum to the agenda for the 17^th Nigerian Economic Summit beginning on November 10 at the Transcorp Hilton Abuja.

   Disclosing this yesterday in Lagos, Nweke said the novel addition was another effort by the NESG to put issues affecting the development of the creative industry in Nigeria at the front burner of national discourse and accelerate growth in the sector.

    The Creative Industry Forum, which will take centerstage on November 12, at the Congress Hall of Transcorp Hilton, will feature panel discussion and interactive session between investors, global chief executives, industry professionals and government policy formulators.

    Already, the director General of Nigerian Copyright Commission, Afam Ezekude, former legal director of music publishing company Warner Chappell and major record company BMG UK Ms, Oyin Onile-ere; famed television and film producer Amaka Igwe; UK-based mobile media consultant Matt Dawes; English Premier League licenced agent and Media Entrepreneur Ayo Alli and Country Manager, Nigeria for Google Juliet Ehimuan, have confirmed participation at the forum.

     Nweke, said that Chief Executive Officer of Spinlet, a digital content company and founder Verod Capital, Eric Idiahi, will deliver a background presentation at the forum.

    According to Nweke, focus of the Creative Industries Forum which is “Optimizing Economic Opportunities in the Creative Industries through Global Partnership” is in keeping with the Summit theme on attracting foreign direct investment.

     The novel addition to the Summit programme demonstrates Nweke’s abiding interest in the evolution and development of Nigeria’s creative sector as was apparently demonstrated during in his tenure as Minister of Information.

    “It is clear that our content is world class and travels well, what is not so clear is how best we can create the enabling environment to accelerate the growth of our creative industries,” Nweke said, adding that “it was for this reason that we engaged Amaka Igwe and Obi Asika, CEO Storm 360 and several other bright minds in this field, to put together a strong team of creative industry practitioners, regulators, and entrepreneurs to drive this conversation and to begin the NESG's engagement with the creative industries.”

     Nweke, explained that the “Forum will mark the beginning of formal engagement of the creative industries on the part of the NESG and we look forward to being part of the success story of this sector.”

    He, noted that learning from and partnering with organizations around the world will be an important factor in the ability of the Nigerian creative industries to realize their full potential for growth, job creation and self-employment.

   Commenting, CEO of Storm 360, Asika lauded the NESG boss saying "I would like to thank Mr. Nweke for recognizing the enormous potential of the creative industries. With this new engagement, the NESG promises to push our collective agenda and I am urging all leaders and players in the creative industries to participate in this important event.”

Mobile “key enabler” for broadband growth, says ITU chief:

By Bankole Orimisan

The Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union, Hamadoun Toure , has said that mobile communications will be the “key enabler” in meeting targets for increased broadband penetration, stating that “everyone is talking about how do we bring the mobile miracle, and turn it into the broadband miracle.”

   Speaking to the Guardian yesterday, on the internet conversation, Toure, said: “we are really proud that today the world has over 5.6 billion users of mobile communications, and we hope that those mobile devices will become broadband devices.”

   Noting the strong growth in mobile penetration since its introduction, compared with the take-up of fixed line services, Toure, said that the industry “has done their part” in driving growth. In order to ensure that this continues, governments have a key role to play in enabling continued expansion.

    “We want to see governments using their position to put a broadband vision in place, putting the right legal and regulatory framework in place, to back that up, so the private sector comes in and plays its rightful role in competing, investing, creating jobs, giving new services and applications,” he said.

    With mobile and broadband penetration already at high levels in developed markets, countries on the other side of the “digital divide” may seem less appealing candidates for investments, due to dispersed populations, low ARPU potential – or both. With this in mind, finding appropriate economic models is crucial.

   He said: “We have seen different case studies, of different scenarios in different countries. We talked about here the Australian model, where the government has invested in the basic infrastructure and is selling it back to the operators, and giving them a price cap countrywide. That is a very good model that is working in Australia,”.

   According to him: “We have some models where they have as a condition of the license that operators move into rural areas, with penalties if they do not meet those goals. We have some other scenarios where countries collect universal service funds, and reuse these to give to operators or by launching tenders,” he continued.

   “There is no universal solution, there is no universal model. We are just ensuring that there are some universal principles of transparency, of reaching out to operators, of informing about the rules of law, and that you don’t change the rules and laws during the game,” he said.

    Echoing earlier comments from Wang Jianzhou, chairman of China Mobile, Toure noted that taxation is also an important issue to drive growth.

“We are asking governments, in my role as the Secretary General of the ITU, to ensure they take the necessary actions to reduce taxes, if not eliminate them. To eliminate taxes not only on services, but on infrastructure. Because that way, you do not penalize the tool that is helping other sectors develop,” Toure said.

  “I guarantee any minister of finance that I meet, that they will meet their revenue targets while doing so. Because usage will double, the number of customers will double, and the opportunities for other sectors will also double. We have seen that wherever we have made that bet, we have won, and that is very important for us,” he argues.

  The issue of spectrum allocation was also discussed, especially with regard to the allocation of the “digital dividend” frequencies, with Toure asserting that “this is an issue that will continue to be debated, but we are very comfortable in ensuring that the operators will have the right capacity and the right spectrum that they need for growth.”

  “The challenge is how we reallocate this spectrum. How do we make sure that this is reallocated without excessive costs to operators? That is important, because when we debated that here this week at ITU Telecom World, we tried to explain to governments that ultimately it is the consumer who will pay for this,” he said.

Benin Varsity, Phase3 Telecom partner on Google Applications Scheme

By Bankole Orimisan

THE University of Benin has started the Google on Applications Support programme, a special scheme designed to catalyse Internet usage in universities through the provision of affordable laptops, wireless access and bandwidth.

  In a formal ceremony held recently at the main auditorium of the institution, the Director of Information and Communications Technology, University of Benin, Prof. Mrs. Stella. Chiemeke, said the institution was pleased to be among initial beneficiaries in the scheme, noting that it will help improve the learning process on campus.

   Under the scheme, Phase3 Telecom, Nigeria’s only aerial optic fibre provider, designed a special last mile connection that spans the entire university campus and connects the institution to the Lagos Internet exchange point (IXP).

  Chiemeke said the decision to build an optic fibre-based local loop was a mandatory pre-requisite in order to benefit from the Google programme. 

  According to her, this made the university to seek for a highly trusted and reliable vendor and expressed joy at the work done by Phase3 Telecom.

  The Vice-Chancellor of University of Benin, Prof. .O.G. Oshodin, in his key role address,  thanked Google for the gesture of bringing the scheme to the institution, adding that Uniben is now rich in bandwidth for communication.

  “We want to thank Google Africa for the opportunity given to our university to participate and benefit from her university assistance programme, the deployment of 25mbps full duplex free bandwidth and Phase3 Telecom Limited Abuja for partnering on last mile connection at a subsidized rate and other supports from the company. We sincerely hope that this is the beginning of a good relationship between both companies and our university”.

   He also pleaded with the providers, Google Africa and Phase3 Telecom to continuously put wonderful smiles on their faces anytime, as they connect to the global village by making sure that they experience no disruption or denials of service at any time throughout the lifespan of this relationship.

   Project Engineer, Phase3 Telecom, Mr. Franklyn Nsukwa, while addressing a cross-section of Google representative team and Uniben ICT staff, thanked them for  choosing the company to provide the last mile service. He assured them that it is a decision they will not live to regret, saying that Phase3 Telecom will continue to provide reliable transmission services based on its aerial optic fibre technology.

  According to him, Phase3 Telecom is a company with an excellent and stable network.  He further assured them that Phase3 Telecom has secured their link via its fibre on PHCN high voltage power line and there is no need for fear of fibre cut or vandalism.

At Google’s fair, govt pledges IT support for SMEs

By Marcel Mbamalu and Bankole Orimisan

THE Federal Government has said it would deliver on its promise of encouraging the development of a robust Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure, to bolster interpreneurship in the country.

  Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, who re-echoed this pledge in Lagos on Monday, at the opening session of the ongoing five-day Google small business web fair, said Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) need the Internet to increase profitability and add to economic growth.

  The web fair, a programme within the Google’s Get Nigerian Businesses Online (GNBO) initiative, seeks to help, at least, 5,000 SMEs register online.

  Stakeholders at the fair variously reasoned that there is also increasing empirical evidence that suggests that simply putting a website on the Internet “increases the revenue and productivity of SMEs many fold with commensurate contributions to job and wealth creation and of course contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP). 

  “This is why the Google Getting Nigeria Businesses Online initiative is so important and why the Ministry of Communication Technology is supporting this initiative,” the Minister said.

  Google Nigeria Country Manager, Juliet Ehimuan, explained the small business web fair “is an opportunity for thousands of small businesses to create a free website and learn the basics of building an online business.

  “We have seen that going online can have a tremendously positive impact on the growth and profitability of small businesses in Nigeria,” she observed.

  Ehimuan explained that the GNBO, which was launched in September, aims at helping to build the online ecosystem and to grow the economy. This, she said, is facilitated through the provision of free business website backed with a host of free training.  Already, more than 4000 businesses have gotten online through the project. “We are putting a lot of investment in this”, she said.

  According to Ehimuan, Google has a strong partnership structure with MTN, Ecobank, Ministry of Communication Technology and Lagos State and other vendors that is very representative of the ecosystem.

  Johnson however, noted that SMEs, in developing countries, have been very slow in adopting ICT, a situation she described as unfortunate given their potential role as development agents.

  SME’s, the Minister said, have been widely acknowledged as being the most viable vehicle for sustaining industrial development because they possess the capacity to promote an indigenous enterprise culture. 

  According to her, in most developing economies, SMEs are being used as a strategy for employment generation, food security, poverty alleviation, rapid industrialisation and reversing rural urban migration as well as a tool for economic restructuring for development and growth.

  Reeling out statistics, the Minister said SMEs provide 50 per cent of global employment and that 90 per cent of registered businesses are SMEs. “In Malaysia, in 2006, SMEs, which were 99.2 per cent of all businesses, contributed 47.3 per cent of GDP and 65.3 per cent of employment.”

  She said, in Nigeria, the statistics are similar but with some important differences. 70 per cent of our employment is provided by SMEs but SMEs deliver only 10 per cent of economic value added (a proxy for GDP contribution), compared to an average of 55 per cent and 25 per cent in other developing economies and 60 per cent and 50 per cent respectively in developed economies. These statistics show that Nigerian SMEs are not as productive as they can, should or need to be.”  She attributed poor performance of small businesses to poor infrastructure, poor skill base, as well as low rate of adoption of ICT and the resultant lack of access to wider market.

  Johnson explained that access to the Internet would let “those who don’t naturally see your business see it online,” even as she stressed that the role of the Ministry is to facilitate access to the Internet.

  “A website on the Internet increases the chances of creating more revenue, which, in turn, increases the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP),” she explained, assuring of the Ministry’s readiness to go all the way with Google in its GNBO initiative, in line with the Ministry’s focus of getting businesses online.

  She said the ICT has been globally credited with “changing the course of history and adding value to human lives” in many ways.

  “In practically every sphere of life today, ICT is redefining how people live, how they work and how the go about the ways of life,” she noted.

  The minister said, that the GNBO initiative, through the Internet, would enable local companies select and partner with companies in the international business community, going beyond the borders of their natural territories to interact, collaborate and do business with their counterparts across the globe. 

  Johnson said e-commerce, which is, in itself, enabled by ICT and the Internet, has enabled the provision of high value-added services at relatively low cost.

  “The list of the transforming effect of ICT and the Internet in business is seemingly endless. Unfortunately, all over the developing world, SMEs have been slower to adopt ICT and embrace the advantages that ICT offers than large corporations.  I say unfortunate because of the role that SMEs play in the economic and social development of a nation.”

  “The Ministry is extremely pleased to note that the Nigeria Internet Registration Association NIRA is promoting a Switch to .nag campaign, ensuring that Nigerian businesses are hosted on local infrastructure with adequate security and support.  Google has already registered its presence on the .ng domain name and is by this initiative populating the .ng domain for the benefit of Nigeria. 

  “Given the statistics that I have mentioned above and Google’s offer to get more Nigerian businesses online, I would strongly encourage SMEs to wholeheartedly embrace the internet and take that small first step of having a website on the .ng domain.  Today Nigeria has an estimated 33 million Internet users and we have targets to double this number in the next three to four years. Getting your business online immediately gives you access to this market, not to talk of the hundreds of millions of other Internet users out there – a very strong value proposition in our opinion.”