Many new ideas are coming in every week via the VC4Africa website. On a regular basis the VC4Africa team places a new venture in the spotlights. Let’s meet Frenck Gyamfi, co-founder of Information Africa.
What is happening in the Ghanaian IT-sector at the moment?
“There are various exciting things happening in Ghana. Such as the landing of submarine fiber cable MainOne, a national fiber backbone, the eGovernment project by Nita, and in our direct line of business setting up data centers and data storage infrastructures in Ghana.
The specialized skill sets needed for this are currently coming from the big international technology vendors, which in my opinion makes the customer dependent on their foreign expertise. Our goal is deliver this datacenter enterprise expertise from local talents here in Ghana.”
Can you please describe your venture ‘Information Africa’?
“Information Africa/CSS & Partners is a datacenter infrastructure integration and management company. We have worked on datacenter projects for some of the major companies in the Netherlands: ABN Amro, Nuon, Getronics, KPN, Ziggo, Sara Vancis and currently GFF Suez from Belgium, the Ghana Ministry of Finance, The Ghana Statistical Services, GCB and MTN Ericsson.
In Ghana we target the major enterprises, telco’s, financials and the government institutions such as MTN, Vodafone, Minister of Finance and Economical Planning, Ecobank and the Ghana Commercial Bank.
We deliver highly specialized data storage and data protection services. Also datacenter support, maintenance and services to our customers. We help them store and protect their valuable data assets, improve their infrastructure management and reduce their total cost of ownership.
We aim to create 50 high level jobs in Ghana within 4 years. We want to reduce dependency on foreign ICT consultants by providing a local alternative for expensive foreign consultants who are mostly providing an ad hoc service. Local consultants are about five times cheaper and are able to provide local after sales support.
We will assist new ICT specialists to develop to be able to deliver highly complex services which enable them to service multinationals and provide Ghanaian companies with the service level they need. This will generate income for local employees and local tax paid instead of money and knowledge flying out to western countries.”
What will be the effect for the ordinary Ghanaian internet user if there are more data-centres in Ghana?
“Currently information exchange or data transportation is quite expensive in the region. By building more data-centers this will help to reduce the internet rate for the ordinary Ghanaian. More data centers will contribute and improve business performance. It will also help the digitalization of enormous amounts of raw data in the government and private sector in Ghana that need to be digitized and stored. This will protect information assets across enterprises and SME’s to ensure proper measures are taken in event of a disaster.”
What are you looking for to expand your business?
“We are always looking forward to helping our customers and improve our services. We are also looking to collaborate and partnering with local companies with large customer-bases who share a common vision and who are working to satisfy their customers needs.”
Do you see Ghana as an entrepreneurial hotbed for the region?
“In my opinion the coming ten years are going be very exciting and interesting at the same time. Many people in the Diaspora are planning to return home with extensive knowledge and experience. Also, foreign companies are interested in these talents to represent them in Ghana. In collaboration with local talent this will improve the quality and the performance of business activities and transform the mindset and the way we do business in Ghana.
The digitalization transformation will enable SME’s and startups to professionalize. As cloud solutions become more affordable and common, every day activities are enabled. In turn, SME’s become more visible and serve to position Ghana as a very attractive place to do business.”
How can members of VC4A contact you?
“You can reach me via my VC4Africa profile and via e-mail: fgyamfi [at] gmail.com.”