The European-African Business Summit in Hamburg. Round about 150 delegates – a much lower digit than expected. But I have the pleasure to present Open-Source-Africa. And there are lot of very good talks and contacts, too.
Experience has shown a weakening U.S. economy would be good for open source, as a shortage of cash is usually a major catalyst for innovation, particularly around open-source applications, Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of Ubuntu Linux, said at the annual Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco.
The presentation below summarizes the findings of the 2008 Future of Open Source survey led by North Bridge Venture Partners in partnership with Acquia, Ingres, SugarCRM, Sun and Ubuntu. The results were presented at the 2008 Infoworld Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco as part of a panel discussion led by Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners.
The modern IT industry in Africa driven by the lack of foreign customers. Big international IT companies are trying to open African markets for their mainly proprietary software and/or their own business agendas. The governments of the African countries have neither the time nor the money to focus on SMEs in the IT field. Similarly, as the regional and national governments in the European countries, they have to concentrate on existing IT cores, such as the state owned telephone companies, subsidiaries of international companies and companies, focused on the e-governmental needs of the states itself. (mehr …)
At Novatech ITC Africa in Addis Abeba I held a presentation about ‚how to make business with IT companies in Europe‘ – and, of course, about ‚Open Source Africa‘.
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Presentation Joachim Graf Novatech ITC Africa: How to make business with IT companies in Europe and about Open Source Africa
Speech Outline
Title:
Generating New Business with Europes SMEs in the IT-field
Speaker: Joachim Graf,
Publicist and Editor iBusiness Germany
Founder and Managing Director of HighText Verlag, Munich Germany
Generating New Business with Europes SMEs in the IT-field.
The presentation outlines how African IT companies can set up a business relationship with European IT and media companies.
About 90 percent of German IT companies in the SME sector have fewer than 10 employees. The decision makers in these small companies neither have the time nor the expertise needed to conduct systematic partner research for their growing outsourcing needs. In order to be visible to German companies seeking outsourcing partners and to have access to them, African IT companies have to be virtually or physically present with their profile and company information. This information is targeted to show them as trustworthy and technically competent partners. An appropriate, up-to-date and sufficient online networking platform would be a huge opportunity for African companies to get in touch with Germanys IT sector. More important than low prices are visible technical and project skills and a powerful networking strategy. Additionally, the presentation will describe the planned online networking platform and how it brings African and European SME companies into partnership.
At Novatech ICT Africa in Addis Abeba I have the pleasure to discuss with Hon. Nabilah Sempala Naggayi, Woman Member of Parliament for Kampala District in the Parliament of Uganda, the role of IT development in Eastern Africa, the situation of the educational sector – and the lack of marketing, German companies do (or better: didn’t do) on African markets.
Additional, Hon. Nabilah Sempala, who speaks fluently German, pointed out, how high the benefits are, Ugandas IT industry can receive out of the Open Source Africa project. Something – of course – I was very happy to hear.
“Open Source Africa” aims to set up a multinational online platform which will allow small IT companies in Europe to enter into a business relationship with small African IT companies. It is intended to be an „Open“ platform, in order to make “Source Africa” accessible for IT services and outsourcing of European industry. To develop knowledge and acceptance of open source software in Africa, the development and later operation will also use free and open source software (FOSS). The first (European) target group of people inviting project tenders should therefore also be IT companies which use Open Source. The target group of small IT companies is crucial to guarantee the project’s sustainability. The portal must be able to organise not only the awarding of complete projects, but also sub-projects “micro-projects”). That increases the acceptance of the European target group by building confidence.
HighText Verlag, founded in 1991 by Joachim Graf und Daniel Treplin has a in longtime experience in developing and operation business to business platforms: IBusiness.de is a trendscouting and knowledge portal for media convergence with 150.000 registered German speaking users. Press1.de offers a platform for distribution, consulting and production of press material including text, images and video per e-mail, RSS, satellite and fax; furthermore press1 provides online press compartments for tradefairs, events and congresses, congress IPTV and media surveillance
On Tuesday I had the great pleasure of meeting the Minister in the Presidents Office in charge of Science, Technology, Scientific Research, Information and Communication, Excellency Prof. Romain Murenzi. I told him about the project ‘Open Source Africa’ and we discussed the influence the project could have on the IT business in Rwanda. Prof. Murenzi told me about the more than 120 IT projects the Government of Rwanda is about to start and indicates, how central the information and technology sector is for Rwanda and the ‘Vision 2020’ of the country.
Prof. Murenzi offered support for my project and will me provide me with additional information about the IT companies in Rwanda.
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