By Mimi Ucheagwu

I was not surprised, when Co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak who MTN Nigeria last week brought to Nigeria, advised Nigerian leaders to develop economy with technology. There couldn’t have been a better advice considering how technology has turned many economies around.

Wozniak who was a guest at this year’s MTN Leadership series, spoke at a media session in Lagos, to kick start the Leadership lecture. He noted that computer has made it easy for people to do most things that were not possible twenty years ago.

According to him, the only challenge is how to think deeper and use the offerings of the personal computer to improve life and businesses. The future Wozniak sees is the future of machines where machines would try to mimick the human behavior and probably be able to serve the humans or solve problems for them.

He contended that any country that takes advantage of the new future as it unfolds would have mileage than others that didn’t take the opportunity. Much as this concerns economies, it concerns the youths more. The interpretation of Wozniack’s advice is that not only economies but even the youths should dare. Daring is innovation in itself.

The success of Apple’s epoch-defining products speaks volumes of his ingenuity. Though no longer actively involved with the day-to-day running of Apple, the company is ranked as the sixth biggest technology company in the world today.?

Born Stephen Gary Wozniak on August 11, 1950, in Sunnyvale, California, Steve from a tender age showed signs of his future greatness. He displayed deep interest in gadgets and electronics and spent most of his free time as a child fiddling with computers and eventually developing them. His father, who was an engineer for Lockheed played a huge role in his life, encouraging his curiosity in learning about electrical circuits and assisting Steve in his science-fair projects.

Building and developing gadgets became a past-time and together with his friends, they had fun playing pranks and also building wired intercoms from house to house, and a sound-maker with parts bought from the local electronics store.

Because of his genuine love for engineering, it was no surprise then that in 1971, Steve gained admission to the University of Berkeley, California, to study engineering where he met and became friends with Steve Jobs who later became his business partner. In a dramatic twist, Wozniak left the University one year after his admission.

An inventor, a programmer, an electrical engineer and a lover of gadgets and computers, Steve spent all of his spare time inventing electronic devices, computers and computer games, and his apartment was always filled with computer monitors and all sorts of devices he had invented.

A genius and prankster, Steve, popularly known as Woz, together with his partner and namesake, Steve Jobs, invented the first digital blue box, a device which allowed two friends and their mates to make toll free and prank calls, which was a violation of the law.

It was even said that Steve almost woke the Pope up when he called the Vatican on his blue box as part of one of his pranks. With his friend Steve, they orchestrated a variety of pranks and according to Woz, they were both placed on probation for ‘computer abuse’.

After his short stint at the university, Woz began working on a computer prototype but took up a summer job with Hewlett-Packard in 1973, working on a mainframe computer. He eventually designed the Hewlett-Packard calculator. During that period, Woz and his partner Jobs were working to impress a group of electronics hobbyists interested in computing known as the Homebrew Computer Club.

Unlike other Homebrew designs, the Apple had an easy-to-achieve video capability that drew a crowd when it was unveiled and this gave Jobs an idea to sell the Apple 1 as a fully assembled printed circuit board. Though skeptical, Woz later agreed to Jobs’ idea and they pooled their resources, worked from Jobs’ bedroom and later moved to his parent’s garage. It’s from this garage, a new era was born.

On April 1, 1976, Woz and Jobs, at 26 and 21 years old, respectively, formed Apple Computer, the company. Apple 1 was a resounding success.

After the success of Apple I, Woz designed Apple II and it became the first personal computer that could display colour graphics with basic programming language built in. Apple II was sold as a complete, ready to use personal computer which also had a cassette recorder for data storage. It was the first home personal computer. This feat brought the tech-savvy friends closer to Wozniak’s vision of one day making everybody own a personal computer. He wanted to change the world in a positive way.

As an attestation to his ingenuity, Steve Wozniak has acquired a large number of awards and accolades, including the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his Apple II, among others.

For his contributions to technology, Woz similarly received over 10 honorary Doctorate degrees, including Doctor of Engineering degree from the University of Colorado. His inventions were numerous and he patented a few. It was not all smooth sailing though for the man behind Apple.

In February 1983, Woz crashed the single engine Beechcraft Bonanza A36T plane he was piloting almost immediately after takeoff in California and promptly lost his memory. Though he could not recall the accident neither could he remember day-to-day events, he however credits the power of using logical thought processes in healing and recuperating his memory functions.

This was when he left Apple and went back to school to conclude his university degree.   He however enrolled under a different name of Rocky Clark.

A man of many parts, Steve Wozniak is also a philanthropist and has made donations both in cash and in technical support for technology programmes in his local school district. He also founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization that defends free speech, privacy, innovation and consumer rights.

The brainchild of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and now known as Apple Inc., Apple has created a niche in the gadget market with devices such as the iPod, Mac computers, iPhones and iPads. The company recently announced that it sold 31.2 million iPhones in the third quarter of the year ended June 2013.