Cloud brings knowledge to the fingertips of ambitious techies

Many a Chinese company has found the going tough when doing business in Africa, so local entrepreneurs are grabbing the initiative by forming partnerships that will benefit both parties.

Tekeste Sebhat Negga, chief executive officer of Vingu Co Ltd, which deals in cloud technology, is one of them.

Africa often leapfrogs outdated technologies to catch up. It has done that with mobile phones. Cloud computing may be next in line.

“We believe that this is the right time for Africa to move to the future of computing,” says Negga, an Ethiopian who is studying electrical engineering and automation at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

“These advances are key for Africa in not only leveling the playing field but also in staying ahead of the curve. Although there are challenges … we are very optimistic and are working passionately to achieve our vision of ‘Computing for All’.”

His partner is VCN Corp of Beijing, which specializes in PC computing technology.

Negga says access to computing will drive the development of Africa. Computing and the Internet are now the foundation of the global knowledge economy but, unfortunately, most Africans do not have any access to the Internet or to computing.

“We started this company because we believed increasing access to computing and the Internet is something that is vital for the development of Africa. We believe that getting affordable and efficient computing in the hands of schools and enterprises in Africa will unlock a new dimension of application — of human potential, creativity, productivity and change.”

A promising method is utility computing, he says, whereby computing resources are delivered as a metered service.

“This could be achievable in the future. Today we see cloud computing and virtualization technology as stepping-stones to utility computing. To deliver the future today, we have developed small islands of utility computing devices that will increase access while delivering affordable computing to users in schools, small enterprises and governments.”

The word Vingu in the company’s name is a hybrid of the English word virtual and the Swahili word wingu, meaning cloud.

The company’s services are perfect for universities, Negga says, because they can ensure that all students have access to powerful computing very cheaply. That means they can easily connect to the school network and access files from anywhere on campus at home.

Zhou Tao, chief executive officer of VCN Corp, says the two companies had a common vision before forging their partnership.

“Negga brought some Ethiopian officials to my company for a visit and they became very interested in the desktop cloud technology, which may greatly strengthen the government’s information security and centralized management capability,” Zhou says.

“Then his team found this technology could be applied to nearly all business sectors, including finance, education, telecommunications, energy and manufacturing.”

Given the huge potential of the African market and the relatively low connectivity in the region, Negga and Zhou agreed to share this technology and bring it to Africa.

“The vision is to set up at least one cloud access point in every African village to help them improve their education and information channel at a very low cost,” Zhou says.

VCN, as the core technology and products provider, would work with Vingu to sell their technologies and products in Africa.

“I regard Africa as a significant market and my personal interest in and ties with Africa add a lot of non-commercial affection to my business in Africa,” Zhou says.

“I believe if the virtual PC or cloud PC technology could be properly promoted, Africa could leapfrog directly to the cloud computing era. The technology VCN is developing is world-class and is as good as, if not better, than anything that is made in the US.”

Negga says African technology companies have a lot to learn from their Chinese counterparts — for instance how to strike a balance between advanced technologies and a price point that is manageable for most people.

“Ultimately, we should not forget that technology is not an end in itself but a means to an end. Therefore, to achieve the desired and necessary impact, developing products in a way that is accessible to as many people as possible is crucial.”

Chinese companies have managed to satisfy consumer demand in their own country and many may shift their focus to Africa, Zhou says.

VCN says it had had approaches from African companies on possible alliances but had never taken up the idea because it was focused on its home market, and it sees partnership with Vingu as something of a test run.