Ken Spann is MD/CEO, WaveTek Nigeria limited, a company that aims at leveraging on its enterprise solutions to add value to the many enterprises, public sector and educational institutions among others in Nigeria and West Africa.

Spann bring his wealth of experience to bear on WaveTek Nigeria having garnered 11 years experience at the Microsoft Corporation at Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, Washington, USA, with 3 out of those years spent in Nigeria as the Developer Platform Manager for West Africa.

Prior to his Microsoft years, Spann was a professor of Managerial Finance & Business Law & Ethics at the Keller Graduate School of Management in the United States.

He spoke to peter ugwu on issues around the establishment of WaveTek Nigeria.

Entrance into the Nigerian Market
It has been good. Everything is always about timing and to work in its season. I think this is the season for WaveTek to add value to Nigeria’s IT market.

 I believe there is an explosion in the Nigerian IT market and based on the need for exposure of the economy to IT excellence, WaveTek is well-suited to meet these needs in business environments, education and governance which are our primary focus.

Motivation behind WaveTek
I worked with Microsoft for 11 years, and three of those years where in Nigeria as Microsoft Development Platform Manager for West Africa.

 Coming to Nigeria in 2008, I saw there were a lot of needs for Microsoft applications and solutions to penetrate into the market at an appreciable rate; so I wanted to do more and cover more areas. Now we are focusing on applications and infrastructure.

We are also looking at educational solutions; trying to find ways to increase ICT capacity in educational sector such as ways to improve the scores in UTME and WAEC examinations.

 We are succeeding with the cloud coming in place.  Cloud and hosting computing is another area that WaveTek is largely focused on.

 The bandwidth capacity in Nigeria is very large. It could probably be 10 terabits.
 It is a lot of capacity. But we do not have the infrastructure to take it from the cable-end station to cities like Plateau, Kogi states, or simply the areas in Nigeria that are underserved. And if you look at the 20: 2020 plans, the Ministry of Communications ICT blue print, NITDA, NOTAP etc, they are concerned about the underserved areas hence WaveTek was founded with the vision to unleash the creative power of businesses and people to optimize their growth and development beyond space and time.

We promised Nigerians a new oscillation in the way ICT solutions are delivered to businesses in the areas of application integration and IT infrastructure; cloud and hosting services; education and bandwidth and last mile connectivity.

Our concern includes serving the underserved in terms of improved capacity.

When I say capacity can you watch YouTube with it buffing? If we can’t do that then something is not working at it perfect state.

So we want to work with partners, who agree with us that it is not how many megabytes without the infrastructure to make them useful to the users.

That is what Nigeria wants.
 Inspite the challenges, we are looking at how we can bring tools, obtainable in other countries and corporation, to Nigeria.

The solution our sister company SIDMACH Technology is working on educational content.

We want to develop that by working with those that will, not just deliver the content but build the bandwidth.

WaveTek’s Stake in Building Educational Solutions
First of all, we are looking building education administration tools.

Can one go to any school today and get your child’s scripts online?

Can you register your courses easily?

 So we are bringing what is called Education Information Management Systems (EDIMSs) to schools so that schools are managed in efficient and effective manner; track the students, track the grades, track the tests and the see the successes or order wise yourself.

 Secondly, what is the content? I don’t believe that contents from US or India or elsewhere is the best for us; we can develop contents to suit our environment and need. Also, we are looking at teachers’ training.

The emphasis has been, ‘a laptop for every child’, how about laptop per teacher? How about teacher training?

So we are want to make sure that teachers are involved, because sometimes, students tend to know more about the computer more than the teachers. Some teachers are threatened because of their lack of ICT prowess.

We are currently doing a pilot programme for teachers in Lagos State and they appreciate it, because it has really exposed them to the proficiency of the IT; even if they leave teaching today, they are empowered to do something else and can not be intimidated in the society.

By teachers’ training, we are putting resources in place to help them improve on the teaching and life after the classroom.

Thirdly, we asked ourselves in WaveTek, what we can do to improve on the scores in WAEC and UTME examinations. Even, President Goodluck Jonathan recently emphasised on building ICT capacity in the country.

In view of that, WaveTek is in a strategic partnership with Microsoft to deliver Microsoft IT Academy; a powerful Web-based resource for both students and instructors that complements and extends classroom instruction.

It is designed in such a way that students can extend classroom instruction with online courseware, reference materials, group collaboration and mentoring.

We believe that Nigeria should become a knowledge based economy and society. ICT capacity building is at the core of that new society.

So, we chose the Microsoft IT Academy as the hub of capacity building efforts. In addition, we will offer rich solutions in eLearning to help the millions of students taking their National Exams each year to score higher through unique e-Learning tools.

Currently, the message is spreading, for instance, Ondo State Government has deployed this solution in some schools.

 We are still discussing with Osun, Ekiti, Imo and other states to tap into the efficacies of this knowledge. Infact, they are passionate about education.

Enhancing  Customer Capacity and Price Regime
When you look at it, it is less expensive to send bandwidth to UK or US than from Lagos to Abuja or Port Harcourt, because the transport prices are very high.

In order words, there is fiber in the ground and the cost of stretching it from Lagos to other cities is capital intensive.

Apart from that, when fiber cut takes place, businesses suffer. So, WaveTek has signed agreement with two major companies to represent their products in Africa.

We believe we can build a Hybrid-network; from fiber to wireless. It goes to show we can grow the capacity without laying fibers.

It has the same high capacity as fiber; far less cost and time.

 We can link up one gigabyte up to six to seven kilometers, but to lay seven kilometer fiber will take you months; by the time you look out for the details, sorting out the ‘Right of Way’, the digging, among others.

The vision is not far from the quest of the Federal Government; however, what government needs to do is to create an enabling environment for broadband infrastructure and penetration.

 Broadband can help drive the country’s economic structure. Now that the power is getting better, if that should be maintained, have broadband and ICT experts in place investments will come.

During a recent summit in US which was well attended by the Nigerian Legislators, the US EXIM bank expressed their willingness to help sponsor companies that will acquire infrastructure.

So, when the infrastructures are there and the environment is conducive, definitely the cost of getting infrastructure like bandwidth to our homes and offices will be less. And it will also rob off on other areas like agriculture.

5 Million Phones for Women Farmers and Place of ICT in Agriculture
Phones these days are computers. So, if he will be giving out five million phones, is like giving out five million computers.

Smartphone today has more computing power.

 It not just about giving the women phones, there are other benefits accruable.

Now, Nigerian software developers can develop solutions for them. As the phones get into the hands of nursing mothers, we can use that to track them and get information on how to reduce child mortality rate.

As they are farming we can get information on crops.

We can send them information on whether and market conditions.
 So, I think that is a smart strategy, because that is power that will be put in their hands. In fact, there is no limitation to how technology can be utilised.

 Barely, 12 years ago, the global announcement was forget about Nigerians they don’t have money to buy Cell phones, neither can they afford the service, but that is not true.

Even in the village, old women now use phones, talking to their children in UK and other parts of the world. Therefore, phones are powerful devices for generating and disseminating information.

Assessment of Nigeria ICT Market
Yes, Nigeria’s ICT market is ready for competition. What we require now is to have a last mile connectivity and bandwidth.

 WaveTek believes that with the dawn of various submarine cable operators in Nigeria offering a total of 14Tbps of bandwidth, there exists a huge potential in getting this available bandwidth accessible across the enter nation.

Now, we intend to take high speed internet bandwidth into every location and home in Nigeria accessible from all variations of devices over which we intend to deliver entertainment and educational content.

The process is such that will benefit individuals desiring to stream media; companies or contractors planning to install intelligent video surveillance and traffic system; telecommunication companies with the need to monitor their remote equipment; internet service providers looking to improve rural broadband connectivity, or an arm of government needing to set up temporary communications for projects, WaveTek’s Long haul, Super WiFi and Virtual fiber solutions will serve that purpose.

Some customers we have talked to are excited about it, because the process does not require doing away with your already existing facilities, rather you just have to upgrade. For instance a client operating with 200megabytes can upgrade its facility to 1.2gigabytes without even changing the radius.

 That is going to be a key feature.
 The long haul radius is such that runs 60 miles delivering large bandwidth. It takes connectivity to bring contents and applications to happen; which is the reason we must work towards making available facilities that will drive such sector. 

We are coming with new ideas and techniques that existing technologies can ride on to achieve set objectives.

Nigerian Software Sector
I think once we start the ‘ICT explosion’, Nigerian software market will be better than what is happening in India.

Before now, the outside worlds were not aware of what is happening in the Nigerian entertainment industry; they never heard Psquare, Tuface, and others, but the local software developers have been able to bring this aspect of the country to the limelight.

 The truth is that when one succeeds on a particular thing, others tend to say, ‘I can do that too’ you see them join. So what happens when one Nigerian software developer succeeds; he becomes the next Bill Gate, Steve Jobs, other will also join the trend.

 The primary thing is for us to believe in them. Our young software developers have demonstrated this spirit in international competitions.

Leveraging on Microsoft Partnership
Microsoft is in my DNA, the company has added value to the Nigerian market and the ICT industry in particular.

We intend hype exchange and messaging platform with Microsoft’s plan that provides businesses with email, calendar, and contacts on the PC, phone & web, so employees can stay connected and in sync.

Microsoft’s SharePoint 2010 is also a solution that makes it easier for people and teams to work together, with significant costs savings on-premise and in the cloud and with the best productivity experience across PC, phone, and browser.

 They also have the Dynamics; Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is apt in managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients, and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes, principally sales activities, but also those for marketing, customer service, and technical support.

We are working assiduously to ensure Nigerians enjoy these services.