Yaba Joins Race to Become Africa’s Silicon Valley

Yaba Joins Race to Become Africa’s Silicon Valley

Millions of dollars have, over the past two decades, been ploughed into replicating America’s ‘Silicon Valley’ technology hub concept in Africa, with little or no success.

Yaba, a suburb of Lagos, Yoruba’s commercial nerve centre, is, however, showing signs of promise. An explosive mix of the creative, the academia, start-ups and incubation centres clustering around the once-blighted district is an indication of its potential to become a technology hub, according to industry insiders. Yaba, a district on the mainland across the lagoon from the Lagos Island centre, looks set to spark up heated rivalry amongst countries across the continent as they jostle to replicate America’s ‘Silicon Valley’ in Africa.

Kenya is seeking to raise $9.4 billion to build Konza Techno City, dubbed ‘Africa’s Silicon Savannah’ in expectation that young professionals will move away from Nairobi city. Ghana is looking to raise $10 billion to build Hope City, a tech hub that would house 25,000 people, in addition to shopping malls, inside four skyscrapers.

BusinessDay investigations, however, show that there are a number of initiatives that support the claim of an emerging technology hub in Yaba. It was gathered that the Lagos State government recently lifted Yaba’s height restrictions to allow taller office towers, a move United States-based technology companies, Google Incorporated and Microsoft Corporation, swiftly took advantage of. Both firms set up a seven-storey building they rent to host neighbourhood tech start-up.

CCHUB, Yoruba’s first open living lab and pre-incubation space designed to catalyse creative social tech ventures, has implemented its iHQ initiative. One of the facets of that initiative involves the deployment of high-speed internet fibre along Herbert Macaulay Way, Yaba. With the assistance of MainOne, a local technology firm, as technical partner, and the cooperation of the Lagos State government, which waived Right of Way (RoW) charges, the single largest cost impediment to fibre rollout, industry insiders say this area is on the verge of becoming an information superhighway.

Bankole Oluwafemi, a tech blogger, believes that there are broader socio-economic consequences of CCHUB’s Broadband HQ project. With this initiative, there would be a greater influx of tech start-ups considering that it is in close proximity with higher institutions of learning, broadband is fast, and the rents are quite affordable, according to industry insiders.

“Not only is Yaba a central location in Lagos, it is silently becoming a hotbed of start-ups, modern business of technology concerns. There’s Paga, Private Property, Bloovue, Wakanow, etc. There are at least two notable higher institutions – the University of Lagos and the Yaba College of Technology,” explained Oluwafemi.

He further added that there were scads of tech-complementary businesses like cafes, malls, and laundries scattered around the vicinity. “Just throw some free Wi-Fi into each of those places, and watch the nerds troop in,” he said in a blog post.

Olabinjo Adeniran, a tech enthusiast, however, thinks differently. “Silicon Valley isn’t even about interest in tech or ‘lots of nerds, lots of investors, and then figure out how to get them to live in a place that is conducive to start-up activity’, it’s about the attitude of the first set of Americans that moved there,” he said, adding that the need to solve problems and make money off those problems was the motivation.

“It’s not about just putting people up in Yaba and Surulere and saying ‘Hey! 500 developers, 50 venture capitalists! That’ll do.’ It is about innovation, creativity and attitudes of all the people around the hub,” he said.

This year witnessed the birth of another technology incubation centre in Yaba – Information Technology Developers Entrepreneur Accelerator (iDEA) Hub. iDEA is a non-profit organisation established to support the development of indigenous skills and capabilities in software development. Industry insiders say the proliferation of higher institutions of learning in Yaba readily provides the skills base and manpower to feed the growing number of tech start-up firms.

#BuildingNigeriaInternetEconomy