Though the journey of human evolution started with the discovery of fire for warmth, defense and other uses, over the years, humans have evolved drastically using technological solutions to shape their world. And in the 21st century, technology is often dressed in websites, android applications, social media solutions, etc. Around the world, consumers of Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) are in tens of millions given that ICT production knowledge is a goldmine. Ironically in Nigeria with the largest youth population in Africa the technological ecosystem is still brooding, with Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja taking centre stage. Bonny Island, which was taking a back seat in this new trend, has risen to the occasion starting from 2018, which signposted a turning point where everything changed.

The latter part of 2018 saw the birth of Technoville (then Vibranium Ville), with its maiden event tagged the “Innovate Bonny Conference”, a technology and knowledge sharing event that sought to create the awareness and hunger for technology in people, with the youth population as its main focus. The next industrial revolution is now and our youths must be major players.

The event pulled an attendance of over 50 young people from and around Bonny Island. It had a plethora of amazing speakers from Rivers State, which included Bruce Lucas, Founder of Olotu Square Hub, Lolo Hailsham, an SDG advocate and CEO, Care Management Consulting, Ben Apute, CEO of Ben Apute Ochuko Company, Taiwo Fadairo, the Business Manager, First Bank Plc, Bonny Island and many others. These speakers were carefully selected to deliver on the theme of the event for that year “Building a Sustainable Tech Ecosystem in Bonny”.

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The vision of Technoville is to build a tech friendly ecosystem in Bonny Island and the Niger Delta by leveraging on the human resources and talent of our people, therefore making them exportable to the rest of Nigeria, Africa and the world and making Bonny Island an exporter of tech talents by 2025. In 2019, the community had a very big year planned and executed great events as well as it increased its partnership base. A few of the events included Hack Day, an event to create awareness about Cyber Security, as well as guide interested audience into pursuing a career in Ethical Hacking. It was such a great event as it was our first partnered event since our induction.

Following that, we had the Evolve I.O. Meetup. The event was designed to help young people and interested folks in pursuing a career in technology seeing that a lot of them got hungry about tech, but don’t really know how to go about it, the Evolve program structure was such that IT experts were consulted to talk about their field and give reasons why they should pursue a career in their field. The event had speakers from around the world such as an Intel software innovator, Oluwatobi Oyinlola, a cryptocurrency and blockchain expert, Samuel Joseph, a Visual Designer, Daniel Edeke, a mobile app developer, Telema Halliday, and lots more.

We also partnered with international organizations to host most of their events here on the island,   one of which was the Hacktoberfest, a global event that encouraged people to contribute to Open Source Software supported by Digital Oceans and Dev.

A major break was partnering with Major League Hacks, an international organization that organizes Hackathons (coding marathon) on the island, with the focus on marine transport. Sea transportation poses as a threat on the inhabitants of the island as it has become unsafe to travel to and from Bonny to Port Harcourt through the waterways without being attacked by pirates or stuck on the sea for hours due to bad engines. These and more were the focus of Hackfest Bonny Island. The event had over 30 developers and designers from Bonny competing to develop the idea and build for the Community. These we do to build the ecosystem and make Bonny Island a tech driven community.

As noble, ambitious and advantageous as the programs and projections of Technoville given our belief in the power of the people when they are exposed and informed. Through its events, programs and partnerships, Technoville is brooding a new generation of Nigerian tech giants. Nevertheless, with every great opportunity comes responsibility and challenges, some of which the Ville has been combating with.

Some of these include challenges with marketing, lack of relevant networks and social connections, insufficient support services, volunteer scarcity, market immaturity, and financial constraints, among others. The imperfection and inefficiencies associated with the market obviously deny interested parties the resources to organize new ventures. So does the limited scope of marketing opportunities due to poor communication channels and technical knowledge to leverage on opportunity. Then there are insufficient support services as very few support institutions exist and the existing ones come with inefficiencies. The private sector has been reluctant to partner with the Ville to achieve CSR projects.

Also, there is volunteer scarcity. The Ville projects requires sufficient human resource in the conceptualization, planning, and execution of major programs. The lack of financial incentives due to financial constraints in Technoville programs has decreased volunteer percentage drastically. Add these to the fact that ICT products and services market is still experiencing immaturity. 

The call goes out to all and sundry to appreciate the fact that building takes time and requires lots of resources to come to completion. So, we ask that you join us in building a collaborative Technology ecosystem here in Bonny Island. And there are several ways one can be involved in what we do but basically what is paramount is the passion to make impact and drive revolutionary change that impacts positively on society.