Development Centred Technopreneurship; The Way To Go? Part 2

This article is a continuation of my previous one, in which I outlined how in a global village that we are in, limited funding (at least in the Zimbabwean context with the liquidity crisis) can and should never completely kill off business ideas.

Ever wondered why in the newspapers these days, more than half of the jobs are flighted by NGOs/development agencies more than any other sector? Well, this is simply because this is a key sector that has managed to keep the much needed foreign exchange into the country. As technology enthusiasts, we are so full of ideas and passion but we mostly end up discouraged because after 4 years of studying programming or some other aspect we come face to face with the grim reality of a dry job market. I’d say we are not to blame as has been suggested by some politicians who, after failing to create opportunities for us, turn the guns back at us as an excuse.

Back to the thrust of this discourse and like I said before, a great deal of funding is available without and within the country for ideas that seek to transform lives and communities, particularly of the disenfranchised, marginalized and vulnerable communities and groups.

Agencies such as the Misk Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation offer opportunities for transformative practical ideas.

The most difficult part for most people usually is coming up with the idea (which most importantly should be linked to an identified challenge). Just to give an idea, one day I was doing a research, like most of you would be when you are doing your final year thesis. While I was at it, I got stuck when I got to the most important point of the research; getting secondary data (sounds familiar huh?). To someone with an entrepreneurial mind that is a problem identified already i.e. unavailability of data for research in the country.

Come to think of it, in some well established countries you can have a website dedicated solely to national maize production patterns and on the web platform you can have annual production patterns as a time series, production patterns per region, maize varieties produced etc. All this information will be handy for a person in academia, research, government planning etc. But in Zimbabwe, such data repositories are scarce.

A technopreneur could, while working with agronomists for example, compile all this information onto a premium web platform to which access would require subscription. The same technopreneur could also develop a concept to which such a database could be used purely for development and planning where they set up a-not-for-profit-enterprise and secure funding for this work.

The above example is just to tickle our imagination and get us to thinking of some potentially great ideas. It’s bad enough that we have problems in Zimbabwe and yes, it’s no secret that most were caused by the socio-political systems that we find ourselves in. However, not all hope is lost because we do have technology skills that can address some of these challenges. Let’s think beyond Java and Python, let’s strive to see Java and Python in action, addressing climate change as well as changing the attitudes and perceptions that we have towards women.

Now that we have gotten some leads, you might be asking, I have got an idea but I am failing
to find how I can make a breakthrough, the following 3 steps are critical:

Get into a partnership

One thing that we as a country need to be schooled at is that getting into a business partnership does not take away your company from you; this aspect of greediness you need to do away with as you set out to get into your enterprise.

You are only a master of programming or of some other IT area; therefore, accept the fact that there are experts in areas which you want to venture into for example healthcare or mining. Getting an expert in the area (one you can trust and have confidence in) will give you an edge and strengthen your model but you should also learn fast so that sooner or later you will be exchanging ideas and even advising them in their area of expertise where necessary.

Kickstart your idea at a micro level

For you to get funding, donors need you to have started on something,you need to demonstrate that your idea works. This gives them confidence in you. Do you intend to build an advanced app? Start with a prototype that does not require intensive capital then build on this to match what you dream of later. When you approach a grant provider with a working prototype, it takes away the notion that you are a chancer who is only after their money and do not care on whether you achieve your intended impact or not.

Grow.

Eventually, once you have received your grant and are doing what you know best, do not get into the comfort zone. Continue looking out for opportunities to reach out to more people with your innovation, getting feedback from users on how to improve, and seeking multi-stakeholder partnerships.

World over, development continues to be strongly linked to commercial as well as profit generation processes, and as such, it’s important to partner with some business enterprise as a way of ensuring sustainability. NGOs working on promoting improved agricultural productivity by rural farmers for example, engage commodity buyers to ensure farmers continue to link with the buyers beyond the project lifespan.

In conclusion, the above process is not for the fainthearted but for those who dare to dream, those who will not let setbacks deter them. Lucky for us, we have people like Strive Masiyiwa as examples. Think of how having just 10 development technopreneurs creating empires equivalent to that of Strive will impact the economy in terms of jobs creation among other aspects.

Now that’s real value.

About Author: Nhamo Dapi is an actuarial analyst, researcher and writer with interests in I.T based software solutions, he can be contacted at nhamo.dapi@gmail.com.