In Africa there is a problem, people still think Technology comes in a box like
a camcorder, computer, laptop, iPad and so on..Let's all visualize technology
as a process and something we are going to build ourselves here in Africa. I have
listed below a few of the agonies myself and most developers go through as
African Code Kings.
LOAD-SHEDDING.
Infamous
"load-shedding" -- a practice of cutting off electricity to whole
sections of the city in order to conserve power in Ghana. They never mind that
you need electricity to work and you need to work to eat. Nowadays things are
much better - they just cut off electricity without any warning whatsoever or
the power fluctuates crazily and the electricity corporation thinks that is
entirely normal. With this load-shedding factor you should be rest assured that
most developers cannot meet their deadlines.
High Internet Cost
Internet bandwidth has being my major problem since I decided probably six years ago to venture into software and web development. Internet bandwidth in Africa is sold exactly at the same rate as phone credit vouchers. It is so expensive. There is no special package for developers who consume huge amount of data. This telecommunication companies forget that the internet possess a huge amount of informative data that can be used as a powerful tool for boosting economic growth and poverty reduction.
Internet bandwidth has being my major problem since I decided probably six years ago to venture into software and web development. Internet bandwidth in Africa is sold exactly at the same rate as phone credit vouchers. It is so expensive. There is no special package for developers who consume huge amount of data. This telecommunication companies forget that the internet possess a huge amount of informative data that can be used as a powerful tool for boosting economic growth and poverty reduction.
Investment
Most
developers set up a tech start-up in search for investors to fund their
projects. In Africa, most people do not understand the Silicon Valley style of
Angel investment and funding, this so called investors perceive technology as
selling tomatoes in the market. When they fund a start-up they are looking for
the short term profit. For strong developers who do not need this kind of
funding they work their ass out trying to fund their personal projects. They
end up taking up so many odd web dev jobs that will in turn slow down their
personal projects / innovations.
The Salary factor
It takes a
lot of guts and zeal for a good African developer to turn down job offers and
internships to pursue his passion. Once the money sets in, the developer tends
to slow down in his innovations and instead works hard to better the firm or
company his working in and to gain more promotions. A web and software developer
in Africa earns from $10,000 to $20,000 dollars per annum whereas their
colleagues in Europe and the US earns at least $100,000 dollars per year. You
could be working hard to build great technologies that can help you rack in
tons of thousands dollars when you are a tech-preneur. Next time if you want to
be comfortable with such a job, think again?
I personally turned down a lot of internship and job offers when I came home for the long vacation and I have learnt so much and earned so much recognition for a small I.T start-up Oasis Websoft, I created exactly a year ago. I am currently changing from being just a developer into a great business man.
Every day I meet great techies who work for huge tech companies but they would have being better off as entrepreneurs building great technologies for Africa. You don’t have to blame them so much; this is Africa where women would hardly marry guys who do not have financial security.
I personally turned down a lot of internship and job offers when I came home for the long vacation and I have learnt so much and earned so much recognition for a small I.T start-up Oasis Websoft, I created exactly a year ago. I am currently changing from being just a developer into a great business man.
Every day I meet great techies who work for huge tech companies but they would have being better off as entrepreneurs building great technologies for Africa. You don’t have to blame them so much; this is Africa where women would hardly marry guys who do not have financial security.
Jack of all trades and master of
nothing.
It is
difficult to find a team who believes in the same vision for them join a
start-up in Africa. You will realize that there are so many developers and
startups building similar apps instead of coming together in the spirit of free
and open source development to build one great app.
An African developer tries to play all the roles in a company from being the CEO to the company’s publicist. Instead of focusing on one thing and mastering the art. He spends his time mastering all the aspects of a company. It is sometimes good but it comes with its own banes.
It is also great for a developer to understand all the roles but it will be best if he can focus on one lead role and be a master of it. So in one start up we could have a developer, user interface designer, two top coders and one marketing guy J
An African developer tries to play all the roles in a company from being the CEO to the company’s publicist. Instead of focusing on one thing and mastering the art. He spends his time mastering all the aspects of a company. It is sometimes good but it comes with its own banes.
It is also great for a developer to understand all the roles but it will be best if he can focus on one lead role and be a master of it. So in one start up we could have a developer, user interface designer, two top coders and one marketing guy J
School
Each month a
horde of new programmers, freshly trained out of Universities and professional
ICT institutions graduate with impressive looking syllabuses, certificates ,degrees
etc. claiming skills in Java, C++, C, Php, JavaScript, COM, Oracle, SQL, HTML and MS Office. The
problem is that, though the syllabus looks good and would be a good starting
point for being a software and web developer, these students do not spend time
working on their personal projects and instead code for a grade “A” in exams.
Bottom line: These guys are less than half-baked and cannot do productive work.
Those who get jobs afterwards land more technical jobs like computer administrators, hardware jobs and so on. Instead utilizing the methodologies they learnt in programming and so on. Companies who hire them for such job do not realize that these guys can actually build software to make their work a lot easy. It time for Africans to believe that software is actually something we can create for ourselves.
Bottom line: These guys are less than half-baked and cannot do productive work.
Those who get jobs afterwards land more technical jobs like computer administrators, hardware jobs and so on. Instead utilizing the methodologies they learnt in programming and so on. Companies who hire them for such job do not realize that these guys can actually build software to make their work a lot easy. It time for Africans to believe that software is actually something we can create for ourselves.
Awards and Competitions.
There's a
difference between winning technology awards & competitions verses winning
in the marketplace. The sooner African developers and start-ups recognize this,
the better.
It is great to participate in code competitions and hackerthons to test your coding skills but it is a different ball game if you want to build kick-ass technology to solve real life African problems and make money along the way.
It is also high time our environment start to stand firmly behind young African men and women developers who are always up at dawn working on something they believe in. It is not enough to congratulate them vocally of their achievements, it will be right if you can support them with your resources be it financially, intellectually, skills set and much more.
It is great to participate in code competitions and hackerthons to test your coding skills but it is a different ball game if you want to build kick-ass technology to solve real life African problems and make money along the way.
It is also high time our environment start to stand firmly behind young African men and women developers who are always up at dawn working on something they believe in. It is not enough to congratulate them vocally of their achievements, it will be right if you can support them with your resources be it financially, intellectually, skills set and much more.
The Moral Of The Story
System.out.println
(“ It's not easy being an African
software developer. Don't give up and always Ask God for directions. Use the
right technologies for the right tasks.
The future of the African software industry lies in enabling the
scattered bunches of individual hobbyist programmers. Those people who would be
coding even if it didn't pay because that is what they like doing. People like
that should be given a chance, should be given work to do, encouraged to stick
it out. When there are enough programmers around and working as a programmer is
a viable occupation that can buy a car and build a house, the industry will
have grown up.
Until then,
it is dog eat dog -- monkey go work, baboon go chop...
“);
Learn to
appreciate the rainbow after cursing the rain. It's just like loving again
after experiencing the pain!
</ Raindolf >
</ Raindolf >
References.
So you want to be a
Web African programmer? - Guido Sohne (2003)
The Agonies of an African Programmer – Gregg Pascal Zachary
The Agonies of an African Programmer – Gregg Pascal Zachary
