Executives of Nigeria’s largest telecom company, MTN, just completed a tour of leading tech hubs in the country. Led by CEO, Mr. Ferdi Moolman, the executives visited CcHub, SeedSpace, and MEST Africa.
These three tech hubs are the most popular hubs in the country as over the last few years, they have been instrumental to the phenomenal growth and development of Nigerian startups. From fundraising, networking, mentorship, and support, these tech hubs have done so much.
MTN’s executives led by the CEO, Mr Ferdi Moolman visited 3 Lagos leading innovation hubs @Cc_HUB, @SeedspaceNG, @MESTAfrica in demonstration of its commitment to support and partner with the Nigerian local technology ecosystem. pic.twitter.com/adtW8deF94
— MTN Nigeria (@MTNNG) June 25, 2018
MTN, on its part, recognizes these efforts. On its official Twitter handle, the company stated that the visits are a demonstration of its commitment to support and partner with the Nigerian local technology ecosystem.
The visits are part of its BRIGHT strategy to help further company’s market base, while also pushing a very strong brand.
The BRIGHT strategy came to light last year, after MTN discovered it was losing its customers while still making profits. The strategy pays keen attention to the ongoing Internet data boom as the company has reorganised its thinking to take advantage of this.
BRIGHT revolves around six pillars. These pillars include best customer experience, with a focus on reducing churn and gaining market share; return on capital and improved efficiency; and growing Internet data and digital services, where the future of the mobile network operators lies.
MTN to Grant Developers Access to its APIs
As part of its commitment to boosting Nigeria’s tech development, MTN dropped a major bombshell: It will open up its APIs to accelerate local innovation.
MTN will provide sandbox and APIs to accelerate local innovation as part of its BRIGHT strategy to grow digital platforms that can transform the lives of Nigerians. pic.twitter.com/c6vzIPHLDK
— MTN Nigeria (@MTNNG) June 25, 2018
APIs, also called Application Programming Interface, are a set of methods that allow external services to interact with technologies that power up a service. So in this case, it means MTN will make available a set of methods for Nigerian developers to interact with the teleco’s services infrastructure.
This is a very big deal as Nigerian companies are not famous for interoperability. They rarely share code base, technological idea, or even grant access to the most mundane services. Everything kept hidden from any external service or developer. Now, the telecom giant is balking that trend. It will give developers access to its underlying services.
However, it is not certain how much access developers would be allowed. On its Twitter handle, the company said developers would gain access to a sandbox environment. Meaning that there would be a limited access to the company’s infrastructure.
Nevertheless, the company’s willingness to open up its infrastructure, by any length, is a good one. It allows more innovative minds to access new information and build robust systems. After all, startups are popular not just for being disruptive, but for being flexible.
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