Yaba is a typical Lagos town; noisy, busy, over-populated and a complete paradox – with neatly set modern buildings standing next to old rundown ones, neck to neck. But Yaba is distinctively different from other Lagos towns.

It is home to a growing number of technology companies and startups that are attracting millions of dollars from local and foreign investors. This tech companies and startups, drawn to the Yaba environs for several reasons, are coming together to form a cluster of sorts and, basically, creating a community for geeks.

Like Silicon Valley, birthplace and home of several world renowned tech companies, Yaba is home to several prominent Nigerian startups and tech companies including BudgIT, Paga, Co-Creation Hub, Init, Andela, Konga, OLX and more.

But while Silicon Valley is uniquely American, Yaba technology cluster, like many other sectors of the Nigerian economy, is a brilliant fusion of Nigerian essence and borrowed cultures – much like how the Nigerian music industry combines western beats and indigenous instrumentals to create unique sounds.

Its development into a tech cluster was mostly organic and was stimulated by individual activities rather than government, investor or large corporation. In less than six years, Yaba has become a community for tech enthusiasts who before now had worked individually.

“Ultimately, innovation has a net positive effect if they are together,” says Bankole Oluwafemi, the co-founder of Big Cabal and Editor-in-Chief of TechCabal.

What makes Yaba ideal for a business cluster

It has a very strategic location. It sits in between Lagos mainland and the Island, thus making it easily accessible to the different parts of Lagos – an overflowing conurbation with a rapidly growing population.

Spread across Yaba are different educational institutions, most of which are ranked as one of the best and oldest in Nigeria. The University of Lagos (UNILAG), Lagos State University (LASU), Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH), Federal Science and Technical College (FSTC), Queens College, and several other higher, secondary and primary schools have some presence in the area.

The educational institutions in Yaba (particularly the universities and polytechnics) are expected to produce a pool of talents for the tech cluster and also serve as centers of research, exchange of ideas, innovation, knowledge and training. Much like the role played by Stanford University in the growth of Silicon Valley.

Perhaps the most important element in the transformation of Yaba into a tech cluster is citizen activities led largely by the Co-Creation Hub (Cc-Hub) and several other persons and private companies.

The CC-Hub factor

“The tech cluster started, probably, with the Co-Creation Hub when they decided to setup their incubator in Yaba,” Bankole notes.

Founded in 2012 as an incubator and an innovation center, Cc-Hub played a critical role in spawning the Yaba tech cluster. Through series of activities, training programs, co-working space, outreach, Cc-Hub opened up the Yaba areas to more tech startups, drove competition into the area and attracted other tech enthusiast, developers and entrepreneurs into the area.

Tunji Eleso, the Managing Partner, Growth Capital by CcHUB, points out that efforts to make Yaba the innovation of Lagos “started out with a project called lagosinnovation.com.”

“We defined clusters as a one kilometer radius where there is similar business benefiting from complementarity of services.”

The Lagos state government, at the time, had expressed that it wanted the state to be the center of innovation for Africa. This, Tunji notes, required a lot of empirical data and innovation to back that kind of pronouncement.

Essentially, the Lagos innovation project involved the mapping out the clusters of innovation within Lagos. This was exhaustive as it involving mapping out other booming clusters in Lagos. It was during this time that it was discovered that there was a semblance of tech cluster in Yaba.

“As at 2012, there were, probably, about 6 tech company in this whole area,” Tunji says.

With this discovery, i-HQ was born.

i-HQ is an ambitious project that was aimed at putting the right infrastructures, needed for tech business to thrive, in Yaba and grow it into a hotspot for technology and innovation. The plan for the project was presented to the Lagos state government then headed by Babatunde Fashola.

The plan for i-HQ is tripartite.

“So how do we activate and make Yaba a cluster of innovation?” Tunji asked rhetorically. “One, have a center of excellence model. The center of excellence model was simply how to have a complementarity of tech businesses in this building. How can we aggregate it so that everybody benefits from infrastructure that already exist and, kind of, bounce off each other?”

The second part in the i-HQ project was to have broadband in the area. Basically, enhancing internet connectivity within the Yaba area and among members of the cluster. Through coordinated efforts of Cc-Hub, Lagos state government, MainOne Cable, TechnoVision, the process of ensuring that Yaba had quality internet service was begun.

MainOne laid a 27 km fibre optic cable around Yaba in 2013.

Lastly, was to ensure that the Yaba area became a traffic free area by conducting in-depth analysis into the causes of traffic within that area.

“With approximately 60 start-ups located in Yaba, it is certainly one of the largest. Organizations that have been at the forefront of driving the idea of Yaba as a tech cluster like the Co-Creation hub are best suited to account for what helped drive this, but from the outside looking in it has been a mix of courage and vision of individuals like Bosun Tijani, private partnerships from companies like Main One and Google and funders like Omidyar Network and Indigo Trust, and public partnerships with the Government of Lagos,” says Ory Okolloh, Director of Investments at Omidyar Network.

Nigeria’s tech market

The Nigerian tech market is growing rapidly. In June this year, billionaire founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife invested $24 million in Andela, a tech company in Yaba that trains developers across Africa.

In 2015, Interswitch invested $1 million in e-commerce solutions provider, Slimtrader. While Hotels.ng successfully raised $1.2 million from the Omidyar Network.

Paga raised $13 million from Acumen Fund, Adlevo, Capricorn Investment Group, Omidyar Network and Goodwell West Africa.

Recently, the Co-creation Hub (CcHub) launched its ₦1 billion Growth Capital Fund.

“My impression is that the tech industry is maturing. There’s growing drive towards local solutions for very local problems for instance Wecyclers, Kongapay and Lifebank and also start-ups that reflect growing interests of Nigeria whether it’s fashion, fitness (Truppr) or humour (Zikoko),” Ms. Okolloh said.

The name situation

There is an ongoing agitation about what name to christen the Yaba tech cluster. Many names have been touted, including Yabacon Valley (combination of Yaba and Silicon Valley), Yaba Right, Yaba iHQ, Silicon Lagoon, amongst several other unimaginative portmanteau of America’s Silicon Valley.

Many tech clusters around the one are often a clear imitation of the most popular and successful tech cluster in the world, Silicon Valley. The tech cluster in New York is popularly called Silicon Alley; while there is Silicon Roundabout in East London; Silicon Forest in Portland, Oregon; Silicon Wadi in Israel; Silicon Mountain in Cameroon; and Silicon Cape in South Africa.

I asked Bankole about the name situation.

“Look man,” Bankole said, refusing to be drawn into the name controversy, “it is an evolving thing and that question will answer itself in the next few years.”

He, however, added that: “It is a question for the ecosystem. The ecosystem will settle on something that works and describes what the Yaba tech cluster is.”

Question is: Why can’t Yaba just be Yaba? Is a new name really necessary?

Ancillary services

EzWashnDry is to Yaba tech community what O’Jez was to Surulere’s acting community, but for clothes.

It is there that I met with Bankole to discuss Yaba.

“EzWashnDry is the type of business that geeks like. Because it has this other amenities that appeal to that kind of crowd.”

EzWashnDry is a dry cleaning business located at the E-center in Yaba. Perhaps the most attracting thing about the place is the presence of a free WiFi service for customers and a waiting space. What more can a tech enthusiast ask for?

For Yaba to grow further such services that are attractive to the tech community is needed. Coffee shops, restaurants, parks, co-working space with fast and reliable internet services will go a long way towards attracting more people, not just persons within the tech community.

 A change of economics

But as Yaba moves to become the epicenter of technology and innovation in Africa, the face of its economics is rapidly changing. The area is witnessing an expansion of its middle class, while members of the lower class, who previously lived in Yaba, are gradually being pushed out.

The cost of properties in the area have increased significantly with the growth of the middle class. Real estate developers are buying up properties, renovating older buildings or erecting new ones. These they resell at a price higher than what it was before.

“The Yaba technology cluster is certainly an inspiration to others in the region,” Okolloh said. “And I suspect things are only getting started.”

 

Photo credit: Hycinth Iyereosa