The Institute of Software Practitioners (ISPON) recently organised its 2012 annual President Dinner in Lagos, where it unveiled its roadmap for software development. The body, which sees software development as national backbone for economic advancement, challenged government on the need to establish incubation centres that will drive software development in the country, reports Emma Okonji
Gathering of the Titans
It was supposed to be an evening of relaxation under the serenity and comfort zone of the Federal Palace Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos, just like every other dinner organised by corporate organisations, but the President Dinner organised by the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON) at the weekend in Lagos, took a different dimension from the usual unwinding, drinking, eating and social interaction, to a serious business discussion that was focused on national software strategy as an economic knowledge model for Nigeria.
It all started at about 7.30 pm on Friday evening, when the General Secretary of ISPON, Mr. Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu, took the centre stage as the compere for the late evening programme, and introduced the guest present.
Prominent among them were the immediate past Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe, President of the Information Technology Industry Association of Nigeria (ITAN), Mrs. Florence Seriki, President of ISPON, Chris Uwaje, his Vice, John Obaro, Corporate and Commercial Law practitioner, Mrs. Udochi Iheanacho, President of Nigeria Computer Society, Dr. Demola Aladekomo, representative of the Director General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), First Vice President, Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Adewale Jones, among several Presidents and Vice Presidents of various groups in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry.
The Real Issue Began
Dressed in a milk colour suit with a black bow tie to match, President of ISPON, Chris Uwaje took serious and calculated steps to the podium, immediately he was introduced, and without much of his usual rhetorical statements, he went straight to the business of the day, ‘Software Intellectual Capital-An Economic Model for National Survivability.’
According to him, the business of the day was amplified by the concept of ‘Latecomer Strategies’ for technology upgrading and catching up with global innovation and competitiveness. It intends to examine how countries and especially enterprises ‘catch up’ with the technological leaders and how they learn the embedded process in innovation, and what Nigeria can learn from the historical lessons of experience of countries, sectors and enterprises that have managed to catch up.
“Many decades ago, the concept of intellectual capital was applied for the first time to explain and illustrate the importance of information, knowledge and experience, all of which combined to build the critical mass of modern, high technology and competitive economy.
“Today intellectual capital is considered as one of the most valuable factors for the creation of wealth, because it is directly involved at all levels and times of production, and has indeed displaced industrial machinery and natural resources. The production, organisation and management of intellectual assets have become the most important task for nation building and global competitiveness,” Uwaje said in his welcome address at the ISPON President Dinner.
Software as Driver of Economic Wealth
Uwaje explained that Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and related inputs, contribute meaningfully to knowledge management, allowing seamless communication of information and intelligence for real time production around the world. ICT therefore contributes enormous millage to innovation, creation of new forms of business, facilitates the rapid growth of emerging markets, and the promotion of sustainable development for social and political processes through the new media.
At the centre of the converged wealth spin is software, but the paradigm shift, coupled with the management of digital information and knowledge, as well as the protection of intellectual property rights on the internet, present very fundamental challenges to developing nations, Uwaje said, adding that by extension, the shift has presented us with new and critical burdens on governance, education, business, security, legal and societal issues.
According to him, resolving those challenges had multiplied the existing spectrum of legislations and regulations, and has brought about rapid changes at the global level. As late comers to the intellectual capital domain therefore, we as a country must evolve commensurate strategies for catching up with the global knowledge economy development.
For these and other reasons, he said, ISPON solicit for the constructive engagement, intervention, and support to ensure that the survivability of Nigeria is not jeopardised in the ICT arena. This, he said, was informed by the fact that technology and business application knowledge typically sit within the various development and business process unit, while knowledge of the actual Intellectual Property (IP) holdings typically sits within a corporate IP group. We must therefore become a nation of IP creators and owners to progress, Uwaje stressed, adding that for the survival of the future, Nigeria must come up with national IP and innovative knowledge strategy and policies and programmes to promote national knowledge development as a matter of top priority.
Bridging Digital Divide
According to Uwaje, catching up with the rest of the world means finding a niche in the global division labour and using that initial niche to move from the lower ladder of less knowledge-intensive activities to higher value-added and more knowledge-intensive activities, adding that Science, Technology, Research and Development are strategic imperatives to bridge the existing digital divide with software applications.
He called on all Nigerians, especially ISPON members to champion the Nigeria knowledge engagement in the software domain, so that the nation will have technology leaders that will shift the present focus from a consumer nation to a technology product producing nation.
Protecting Intellectual Property Rights
Others that spoke at the ISPON President Dinner were more concerned with the protection of Intellectual Property (IP) rights of people, with special emphasis on software applications.
Founding partner of Udochi Iheanacho Corporate and Commercial Law firm, Mrs. Udochi Iheanacho said piracy would continue to thrive in Nigeria, except IP rights were protected.
She challenged government to revisit the country’s Copy Right Law of 1988, which was promulgated under the regime of President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, and has not been amended since then.
According to her, the law was established before the advent of modern day technology, and ought to have been amended before now to meet up with the realities of today’s rapid technology development.
Narrating her ordeal as a lawyer in prosecuting cases of IP theft in court, Iheanacho said she came to realise that perpetrators of IP theft were not ignorant of the law, but took advantage of the weakness of the law, which stipulates that offender of plagiarism, which amounts to copying or reprinting of another person’s work without approval and without acknowledging the originator of the work, is liable to N100 fine or two years imprisonment or both, and that offender of software piracy is liable to a fine of N1,000 or five years imprisonment or both. “The weak penalties as stipulated by the law will encourage people into committing such crime and pay the fine with ease, after defrauding a person of his or her IP, running into millions of naira,” she said, adding that Nigerian must put in place, relevant laws that will protect software developers in the country.
Chief Executive of Open Media Consulting and the immediate past Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Dr. Ernest Ndukwe who called for the establishment of technology incubation centres that will address software development in the country, said “Software development is the driver of economies worldwide and will certainly enhance employment generation, aside its potential of generating huge revenue for the country.” Everything we do in all sectors of the economy is centred on software application, which he said remained critical to nation development.
Software as National Imperative
Addressing the importance of software as national imperative, ISPON General Secretary, Mr. Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu said Information and Communications Technology (ICT) was now being recognised as the preferred and fastest growing industry in the world, with the power to invigorate and actualise national visions as well as transform and enrich economies. Reliable study, he said, puts the global value of ICT opportunities to be over $200 trillion and that in 2011, ICT spent was projected to exceed $1.6 trillion.
Software, he said, had become not only the critical the critical vehicle to further advance a nation, but has also become the centre of gravity of humanity’s quest to unravel the complex equation presented by the new economy.
Challenges of Software Industry
Speaking on the challenges of local software industry, Uwaje said the industry remained fraught with challenges that must be tackled immediately in order for Nigeria to make meaningful progress in technology development.
He listed some of the challenges to include lack of skills, lack of infrastructure, lack of effective local demand, lack of industry data and strength of competition among others.
In the area of skills shortage, Uwaje said though software exports were low skilled, they will require at least a university graduate with in-depth technical experience. For the lack of infrastructure, he said software export trade demands a sizable installed computers, reliable telecommunications links, both domestic and international, which he said was lacking for software developers. For effective local demand for software products, Uwaje called for increased completion among software developers that will meet local demand.
What Government Must Do
Sounding the importance of software development and the need for a strategic framework for software as a national imperative for the 21st Century Nigeria, Uwaje called on government to enhance software readiness status for Nigeria, which he said required a conscious political will; establish a national software innovation fund and encourage software competition at all levels of education and entrepreneurship; increase ICT investment and funding; encourage policy makers to view national software and related services issues as the key and strategic local content component for actualising economic policy and national development; ensure consistent energy supply and broadband-centric ICT infrastructure; adopt multi-stakeholders Public Private Partnership (PPP) approach to ICT policy re-engineering ; involve in the sponsorship of an executive bill on National Information Technology framework that is capable of promoting Indigenous Software Act, IT Law and Cybercrime Act, including e-Education.
ISPON Intervention in Capacity Building
According to Uwaje, ISPON has been involved in national software development curriculum in education, and has conducted international software engineering development training for its members, and has equally established software industry academia programmes for university lecturers and students. It was involved in special IT leadership workshop for policy makers, and has generated a position paper ob National Software Policy Direction/Critical Issues, which was submitted to the Board of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), as well being involved with the generation of Government White Paper on National Software Policy, and the establishment of Software Knowledge Parks, among other interventions.