By Emeka Aginam

As the second Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE) in Sub-Saharan Africa, achieved almost a decade ago, former Consulting Manager with Schlumberger Omnes overseeing Consulting Practice in Nigeria Geomarket, Network Consultant with Citigroup and Barclays Capital both in UK carrying out network consulting works in Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for years, Ademola Adesakin Osindero, cut his networking teeth sharper than most of his contemporaries.

Osindero: locally developed software is key

With a degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo university and a masters from the Kings College London, Ademola has done so much and very knowledgable in providing wholistic IT solution to Africans.

In this chat he gave his counsel to Nigerian business application developers on the best way forward and equally gave reasons why they introduced one of their netbooks brand into the market.

Please introduce yourself.

I started my IT career in 1992 as a freelance software developer while at the University of Lagos, and had a lot of exposure on computing before, transferring to Obafemi Awolowo University (formerly University of Ife) to study Electronic and Electrical Engineering. After graduation, I took a long break from software development and veered fully into systems and networking.

 Specialised in netwoking

I first took Microsoft certifications while working as System Administrator and later on delved fully into Networking carrying out intensive self-studies coupled with delivering trainings on Networking.

In 2001, I joined Schlumberger Omnes where I worked on a lot of projects as we deployed and managed networks for most of the fifty banks in Nigeria. Aside delivering IT solutions to the Oil and Gas clients, Schlumberger Omnes provided VSAT and data communications for several other clients.

Within the public sector, we worked with the Nigerian Government to deliver the All African Games in 2003 and I worked as the Network Architect. That project involved me traveling and working with other teams in US, Spain and South Africa.

 Back in Nigeria

In 2006, I came back to Nigeria and started operating Lopworks Limited as a company squarely focused on Network Consulting. At the onset, I tried creating a team of Network Consultants by grooming fresh graduates from the universities to become experts and then start off a resource pool.

Within the first 18 months of starting the programme, we churned about four CCIEs. I personally mentored them. So far, we have had over 6 CCIEs that came out of Lopworks Limited.

Since the beginning of our operations, we have delivered bespoke networks for many organisations. We worked with the Network team of First Inland Bank, now FinBank, and rebuilt the entire network of over 200 branches.

An extensive design was made in a network break-out session we delivered in London before cutting over the bank within two days. Ever since then, Finbank has had a very stable network and probably the best in Nigeria.

We also worked with Union bank, Spring bank now Keystone bank, Wema Bank and many others. Lopworks is a Cisco partner in Nigeria and do push a lot of network solutions.

What is your position on the importation of foreign business applications into Nigeria?

 Business apps for Nigeria

What we see currently in Nigeria are pockets of developers and individual developers working singly. They can hardly develop a good application. We are looking at a situation where we will replicate a model in Nigeria, where we will develop business applications that will have the personality of our system.

For instance you cannot bring an American to be the governor of CBN or Delta State, it has to be an indigene that thinks like the people in that environment. Until we get that right, foreign business application can never be like a Nigeria developed application.

At Lopworks, we work hard to develop products with good user interface. It gives the product good acceptance and to the user value for their money.

 Application challenge for Nigerian banks

From on-the-job experience, the applications that the banks deploy are often the problem. Few banks test their applications before deploying them.

This problem stems from the software or development model being embraced by the banks and most of them don’t test their applications fully before going into production environment.

There is nothing wrong in migrating to a newer application but it is best deployed first in a test environment, made to be foolproof, pick and select features and run it for a while before going into production environment.

In Nigeria, they go out, buy an application from foreign developers, without full testing or proper architecture. Yet, the Israelis, Indians, Britons will not do that in their own environment.

I suggest that our banks should start embracing full enterprise architecture locally and also to think of putting our local content into a more organized software application development.

What sets your Platos netbooks, laptops apart in the market?

Most products would claim to be tropicalised but we localized our brands for Nigerian users. For instance, in our new designs, we are changing the keyboards to include the Naira symbol.

More so PLATOS netbooks have double cell batteries offering a battery life span of four hours as against the two hours seen in equivalent netbooks in the market. One more differentiating factor is the processor speed.

Very soon, we are bringing laptop battery chargers to allow you charge while on the move. We are engineers, we think technology and innovation in all we do. Our vision is to surpass successful global brands like Microsoft, Dell, Apple, Oracle and HP.