Telecom
Beyond the vibe: Bridging Africa’s Build Divide with Intelligent Infrastructure
By Kehinde Ogundare, Country Head, Zoho Nigeria
Africa has always found its own way around barriers. When fixed-line banking proved too slow and too exclusionary, Kenya did not wait for the infrastructure to catch up. It built M-Pesa instead, a mobile payments platform that by 2022 had 50 million customers across seven African countries and processed nearly 20 billion individual transactions annually.
That story is now so well-worn that it risks becoming a cliché. But it contains a genuinely instructive logic: constrained circumstances, properly understood, can become a design brief.
Today, Africa faces a new set of constraints, around software development capacity, technical talent, and the cost of building digital tools, demands exactly the same creative leap. Meeting these challenges will require the same kind of practical innovation that previously reshaped financial inclusion across the continent.
The numbers make the challenge plain. Africa’s internet economy was projected to contribute $180 billion, or 5.2% of aggregate GDP, by 2025. Meanwhile, cloud adoption is expanding at 25 to 30% annually, outpacing Europe and North America, while thousands of African companies are already experimenting with AI-enabled operations.Yet, the human infrastructure required to sustain this momentum is not keeping pace.
Unless the continent finds smarter and more scalable ways to build digital systems, Africa risks becoming the world’s largest consumer of a digital future it did not help design.
The build gap is structural, not incidental
Africa’s AI challenge is not a lack of ambition or demand, but the widening gap between the pace of technological change and the availability of skills needed to support it. Across the continent, organisations are under growing pressure to build AI capability quickly, as shortages in specialised talent increasingly affect innovation, competitiveness, and the ability to fully participate in the global digital economy.
A 2024 ICT Skills Survey found that more than 28,000 high-end developer and cybersecurity roles in South Africa had to be outsourced because local talent was simply unavailable, with enterprises poaching the same scarce professionals from one another in a cycle that drives up costs and squeezes out the SMEs that form the backbone of most African economies. Nigeria and Kenya, despite recording developer population growth of 28% and 33% respectively between 2023 and 2024, still represent only a fraction of the global developer community.
The challenge is further intensified by the continued loss of skilled talent to more developed markets, limiting the continent’s ability to build and retain the expertise needed for long-term digital growth. However, this is not simply a pipeline issue that can be solved through education alone. It reflects deeper structural constraints, from uneven investment in technical infrastructure and digital training to the high cost of reliable connectivity and power instability. Across African markets, many businesses and communities are still forced to operate within systems that make full participation in the digital economy significantly harder. These are not isolated operational challenges. They are systemic barriers that risk slowing Africa’s ability to fully realise the opportunities of the AI era.
Intelligent tools as strategic infrastructure
This is precisely why the emergence of AI-assisted low-code and vibe coding approaches represents something more than a developer trend. It represents a potential structural response to a structural challenge.
Vibe coding, a term popularised by AI researcher Andrej Karpathy in 2025, refers to building functional applications through natural language descriptions rather than conventional code. You describe what you want; the system generates the structure, logic, and connections required to make it work.
For the continent’s millions of entrepreneurs operating without a developer on staff, this creates a genuine shortcut to working software, whether it is a South African small business looking to digitise operations, a Kenyan agritech startup building supply chain tools, or a Nigerian SME trying to automate customer approvals and customer service workflows.
Consider a small logistics company trying to manage deliveries across multiple regions without the resources to hire a full development team. AI-assisted low-code tools can help build routing dashboards, automate customer notifications, and digitise inventory tracking in days rather than months.
AI-assisted low-code development goes further still, bringing machine learning, predictive analytics, and self-learning algorithms into the development process, making it suitable not merely for quick prototypes but for the scalable, data-intensive applications that banking, healthcare, and logistics at continental scale genuinely require.
Recent research found that Kenya’s approach to digital adoption, characterised by grassroots digital literacy programmes and simplified onboarding, demonstrates that informality need not be a barrier to digital innovation. That finding points toward something important: the tools that matter most in Africa are not necessarily the most sophisticated ones. They are the ones that meet builders where they actually are. A fast-moving startup operating out of a co-working space in Lagos’s Yabacon Valley has different needs from an established financial services firm in Cape Town navigating compliance requirements, and both have different needs from the first-time builder in a smaller city with no developer network at all.
What connects all three contexts is the principle that lowering the cost and complexity of building software expands who gets to shape Africa’s digital future. Africa requires massive scaling of its digital workforce, with reports indicating that 650 million training opportunities will be needed to meet the demand for digital skills across the continent by 2030. Traditional pipelines cannot close that gap at the required speed. Tools that extend the productive capacity of existing builders and draw non-technical entrepreneurs into the act of building are critical.
Leapfrogging requires foundations, not just shortcuts
The risk, and it is a real one, is mistaking these tools for a substitute for the deeper investments Africa still needs to make. As analysts have argued, mobile money dramatically increased financial inclusion but did not replace the need for a stable, well-regulated banking sector, a tension that Nigeria’s rapidly maturing fintech ecosystem is navigating in real time as it moves beyond its breakout years.
The same logic applies here. Vibe coding and AI-assisted development cannot paper over the infrastructure deficits that still constrain the continent. Across many parts of Africa, inconsistent access to reliable electricity and high-quality connectivity continues to shape who can fully participate in the digital economy. While AI-powered tools may lower technical barriers to innovation, their impact will ultimately depend on broader progress in digital infrastructure, energy reliability, and equitable access to technology and stronger governance frameworks around cyber security and data sovereignty.
McKinsey has observed that Africa has a proven track record of leapfrogging traditional development pathways, from mobile payments to cloud adoption, often outpacing what established markets achieved through slower, incremental routes.
What Africa needs, then, is not a choice between vibe coding and AI-assisted development, nor between either of those and conventional software engineering. It needs an intelligent layering of all three: accessible, prompt-driven tools for the entrepreneurs and administrators who need working solutions now; robust AI-assisted platforms for the developers and institutions building systems that must scale across borders and regulatory environments; and sustained investment in producing and retaining the senior technical talent that no tool, however intelligent, can fully substitute.
Africa’s AI market will be worth $16.5 billion by 2030. Whether African organisations are building that future or merely consuming it will depend on whether the means to build it are genuinely within reach, across the continent’s established tech hubs and deep into the cities and towns that sit beyond them.
MENXTT TECH NG, a Lagos-based technology company, has launched an initiative to make quality Dell laptops more affordable for Nigerians through flexible payment plans and extended warranty support.
The company said the initiative was aimed at helping students, entrepreneurs, professionals and small businesses acquire reliable computing devices despite rising technology costs.
According to the company, customers can now purchase premium pre-owned Dell Latitude, Dell Precision and Dell Inspiron laptops at competitive prices, with selected models available under staggered payment arrangements.
The laptops, it said, are designed to meet the needs of users ranging from students and office workers to architects, engineers, software developers, graphic designers and video editors.
Speaking on the initiative, the Co-Founder of MENXTT TECH NG, Mr Anthony Emeka Nwosu, said access to quality technology should not be limited by financial constraints.
“A laptop is no longer a luxury; it is an essential tool for education, business and career development.
“Unfortunately, many people are forced to settle for unreliable devices because of the high cost of new laptops.
“At MENXTT TECH NG, we want to bridge that gap by providing durable Dell business laptops at affordable prices, backed by a full one-year warranty and flexible payment plans.
“We want every student, entrepreneur, freelancer and business owner to have access to technology that helps them succeed,” he said.
Nwosu explained that every laptop undergoes comprehensive testing before delivery and comes with a one-year warranty, an original charger, a complimentary laptop bag, Windows 11 operating system and Microsoft Office Suite pre-installed.
He added that the company, an authorised Bitdefender Antivirus reseller in Nigeria, also installs genuine Bitdefender security software on every system to protect customers against cyber threats.
According to him, customers requiring additional productivity tools can also have licensed Foxit PDF software installed on their devices.
Nwosu said the flexible payment option was introduced in response to prevailing economic realities, enabling customers to spread payments over an agreed period.
He noted that the arrangement would make it easier for students, startups and growing businesses to acquire quality computers without placing excessive pressure on their finances.
Beyond laptop sales, the company provides information technology consultancy, computer repairs, software licensing, cybersecurity solutions and digital transformation services to organisations across Nigeria.
He reaffirmed the company’s commitment to supporting Nigeria’s digital economy by making dependable computing devices and enterprise technology solutions more accessible to individuals and businesses.
According to him, the initiative reflects MENXTT TECH NG’s vision of combining affordability, quality products and professional after-sales support to help more Nigerians participate in the country’s expanding digital ecosystem. (NAN)
National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has called for stronger collaboration among government, industry, academia and technology professionals to accelerate digital innovation and drive inclusive economic growth in Nigeria.
Dr. Aristotle Onumo, Director, Stakeholder Management and Partnerships, representing the Director General of NITDA, delivers a goodwill message at the 20th International Conference on Technology and Computing (RISE 2026) in Jos, reaffirming the Agency’s commitment to fostering digital innovation, strategic collaboration, and a technology-driven future for Nigeria.
The agency made the call at the 20th Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) International Conference 2026, held in Jos, Plateau State, where stakeholders examined strategies for leveraging emerging technologies to strengthen national development.
Speaking on behalf of the Director-General of NITDA, Mr Kashifu Inuwa, the agency’s Director of Stakeholders Management and Partnerships, Dr Aristotle Onumo, said Nigeria’s digital transformation would depend on sustained investment in innovation, digital skills, research and strategic partnerships.
According to him, collaboration across the public and private sectors is essential to translate emerging technologies into practical solutions capable of improving governance, creating jobs and enhancing the country’s global competitiveness.
Onumo said NITDA remained committed to implementing its Strategic Roadmap and Action Plan through initiatives that promote digital literacy, research and development, innovation ecosystems, cyber sovereignty and emerging technologies.
He added that the agency was expanding opportunities for innovators, entrepreneurs and startups through platforms designed to encourage collaboration, investment and technology-driven enterprise.
“We are transforming Digital Nigeria into the nation’s foremost innovation platform where policymakers, investors, startups, researchers and technology companies can collaborate to accelerate economic growth and digital transformation,” he said.
He urged innovators, startup founders and technology professionals to participate actively in the forthcoming Builders Summit by showcasing indigenous solutions capable of addressing Nigeria’s development challenges.
Declaring the conference open, the Governor of Plateau State, Mr Caleb Mutfwang, described digital technology as a critical driver of governance and economic development.
Mutfwang said his administration had adopted digital solutions to improve public service delivery, modernise government operations and enhance internally generated revenue.
He also identified technology as a key enabler for agricultural transformation, increased productivity and improved food security, urging participants to ensure that deliberations at the conference translate into practical outcomes for national development.
Earlier, the President of the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS), Prof. Muhammad Sirajo, said the conference was organised to strengthen collaboration among policymakers, researchers, regulators, technology professionals and industry leaders.
Sirajo said the conference, with the theme “Harnessing Digital Innovation and Emerging Technologies for Inclusive Growth and Economic Renaissance (RISE 2026),” focused on exploring how innovation could accelerate Nigeria’s socio-economic development.
He identified artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, cybersecurity and robotics as among the technologies shaping the future of economies across the world.
According to him, Nigeria’s youthful population and expanding digital ecosystem provide a strong foundation for building a globally competitive economy through sustained investment in digital infrastructure, innovation and skills development.
The conference attracted government officials, regulators, academics, development partners, technology professionals and private-sector stakeholders to deliberate on policies and innovations aimed at accelerating Nigeria’s digital transformation and inclusive economic renaissance.
Telecom
Hon. Minister Dr. Kingsley T. Udeh and ASUS To Unveil First of a Kind Flagship Store in West Africa
In a landmark moment for Nigeria’s technology retail sector, the Honourable Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr Kingsley Tochukwu Udeh SAN, will on Monday, August 3rd, commission a landmark ASUS Flagship Store in partnership with Nigeria’s leading e-commerce group Konga. The state-of-the-art facility is widely regarded as the first initiative of its kind in West Africa.
The commissioning will witness the visit of senior executives from the world-renowned technology brand to Nigeria, including EMEA General Manager, Mr. Aaron Tsai, alongside other. One of the purposes of their visit is to reinforce the strategic partnership with Konga and solidify the collaboration between both organisations, further demonstrating ASUS’ commitment to the Nigerian market.
The event is expected to also bring together key stakeholders from government, the technology industry, business community, and the media for what promises to be a defining moment in the evolution of technology retail in the region.
The development comes as Konga continues to accelerate its strategic partnerships with some of the world’s leading technology brands.
For years, Nigerian consumers have demanded more than just access to genuine technology products. They have increasingly sought immersive experiences, expert guidance, after-sales support, and greater confidence when making technology investments. The next chapter in this journey appears to address many of these expectations in a bold and innovative way.
The forthcoming announcement is expected to bring together global innovation in a manner that reflects the changing realities of today’s technology consumer. It also reinforces the growing confidence that leading international technology companies continue to place in Nigeria as one of Africa’s most strategic digital markets.
Industry analysts note that partnerships of this nature are becoming increasingly important as consumers place greater emphasis on authenticity, hands-on product experiences, technical support, and trusted purchase channels. Beyond selling devices, the future of technology retail lies in building complete customer experiences.
As anticipation builds for Monday, one thing is certain: the ASUS-Konga partnership promises to set new standards for tech retail in West Africa, elevating customer experience and reinforcing Nigeria’s digital transformation narrative.
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