How to sustain Tech Hubs in Southern Nigeria

tech hubs in southern Nigeria
Photo source: Premium Times

Tech hubs, startups, meetups, etc. are our concern in TechForest. To do this, we must raise, support and help humans to grow technologically.  That is why in the academy section of this website we attempt to take youngsters who visit this app on a journey into tech as pure beginners.

With the depletion of technical schools among states in southern Nigeria, tech hubs offer an alternative avenue for basic skills acquisition.

Delta State Innovation Hub. Photo: Techpoint

What are Tech Hubs?

A place where meetups can happen. Where startups are incubated. A tech hub is where great learnings about tech and innovations take place.

Startups are young business that are incubated.  To really understand what happens in a tech hub, let me take you through a table of content of the major terms used in the tech ecosystem in southern Nigeria.

  1. What are meetups
  2. What are startups
  3. Tech community vs Tech Hubs
  4. What is an ecosystem

If you are already familiar with these terms, skip to

What are meetups?

Most first engagements in the life of a techie is at the meetups. Meetup is nothing but ordinary events where young people and interested investors are engaged.

Meetups offer great opportunities in the ecosystem. There are events like meet and greet. This is where pure novices are made to come in contact with tech professionals who will guide them in the journey of becoming successful designers, developers, ‘techpreneurs’ and investors, etc.

Meetups is coming together. Just like your regular church, mosque, shrine, etc.  It can happen in tech hubs, event centers or any location as directed by the vision. 

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As the need for great tech talent increases, hot tech hubs are popping up around African countries as excellent places to join together, create communities and foster growth. Photo: WAAW Foundation

What are startups in a tech hub?

After meetups the journey into your tech life has begun.  When a developer, designer or a marketer finds solution to a problem in the ecosystem, a company in formed in most cases.

At a point where the company is formed, the business is known as a startup.  Startups needs incubation else it dies off. Therefore, the best place to incubate a startup is within the tech hubs.

We will dwell more in this in the coming articles.

Tech community vs Tech Hubs

The general believe is that startups succeed faster when there is a collaboration.  To break this down.

If you are a designer, you may need a developer to bring out the ideas in your design to the proper understanding and usage by the end user.

Same goes for a developer and a marketer.  So as the collaboration continues to foster, a community is formed.

So a community could be defined as the bringing together of individuals who are working together on an idea or co-existing within the ecosystem. Tech hubs could be part of the community.

At least this is how we see it within the tech ecosystem in Nigeria South.  There are various communities powered by large corporations and entities. Within a community, several ideas are developed to startups, properly incubated and sustained as successful entities.

Tech Hubs
Start Innovation Hub has made an indelible mark in the Akwa Ibom tech ecosystem

What is an ecosystem

If you noticed my brief explanation of a community, I omitted the mention of tech hubs. This is because most communities do not need to exist within a single tech hub. 

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Communities are fairly to very large entities.  Now let’s consider an ecosystem.  Cast your mind back to your biology classes.  An ecosystem. It is the collection of entities who co-exist within an environment.

The tech ecosystem is rated as the highest coming together in a particular location.  It could be a hub-to-hub collaboration, a government to hub existence, individuals existing within the environment and all.

The ecosystem encompasses all professionals, learners, novices, etc.  it ranges from individuals to communities.  It is the collection of all.

So now you see that a startup, tech hubs and communities exist within the tech ecosystem. Let’s quickly see how we can sustain tech hubs in southern Nigeria.

To see clearly the solutions to sustaining tech hubs in Nigeria South, I will enjoin you to check out our next article on the problems facing Tech Hubs in Southern Nigeria.

The bottlenecks are numerous but I will endeavour to dwell on the ones I know we can solve together.  Tech hubs has contributed immensely to the quick development and evolvement of an ecosystem.

Infact, as techies strife to drum the need to invest in tech, hubs are seen as a major partner to the salvaging of the situation while government in the region continues looking away.

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Tech Hubs
With Roothub Tech 101 more youths in Africa stand a chance of becoming a techie in the generation. Photo: theroothub

In a quick overview however,

  • Enlightenment of guardians about tech and its evolution in Africa can go a long way to help.  That is the solution we attempt to proffer in techforest.
  • Engagement of our youths within the region in activities that promotes tech and giving them necessary supports to boost their productivity.
  • Proper inclusion of the girl child in the tech industry
  • Application of ‘catch them young’ technique to reach out to youngsters and engage them properly
  • Investing in technical education
  • Investing and promoting startups that are incubated within the tech hubs.
  • Investment and promotion of meetups within the ecosystem.
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There are a lot more things we could add here. But the core issue is beyond the several problems facing these hubs, how do we sustain them and even aid in establishing new one since they add so much value to the development of tech in our ecosystem.

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Ubong Nsekpong

Ubong Nsekpong is a graduate of Communication Engineering from FUTO. Founder, TechForest SoftTechnologies Ltd. A web developer, digital marketer, writer and a passionate promoter of the tech ecosystem in Nigeria South.

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