For the second interview of this series, I had a chat with Mambe Nanje Churchill, the young CEO of the AfroVisioN group here in Buea. In the short time AfroVisioN has been in business, they’ve put together an impressive portfolio that includes an outsourced project for a Swiss company.
Besides his strong grasp of current and emerging web technologies, one of the things that impressed me most about Churchill is his dedication to introducing young Cameroonians to computer programming. His offices double as a training facility by day where he starts his protégés off with PHP fundamentals. Later in the afternoon, he switches gears into a production software shop where he leads development work on any number of client projects. Churchill preaches like an evangelist when the conversation turns to ICT and the potential it has for creating jobs, providing access to information and ultimately alleviating poverty both in Cameroon and across Africa.
Most recently, AfroVisioN created quite a stir by undercutting the local market with an unheard-of 50,000 cfa (about $100) flat fee for custom website design, domain registration, one year of hosting and 24/7 tech support.
This dialogue is only a glimpse of Churchill’s vision. I encourage readers to take a stroll around his blog or follow his Twitter feed to get a sense of what he’s up to. Here’s our conversation:
Tell me a little about yourself.
“I am Mambe Churchill Nanje the President, CEO of AfroVisioN Group Cameroon, an IT firm I founded in 2006 and serving technology to Cameroonians and Africans.”

How did AfroVision get its start? Where do you hope see it in 5 years?
“AfroVisioN Group was conceived while I was teaching at Trustech Institute of Technology in 2005 just after taking my Macromedia Professional Certification, I realized there was more to computers than just checking of mails and chatting like we use it here in Cameroon. So I started researching on ways this technology can be used to improve and change things here in Cameroon, I started the project AfroVisioN. First I had to look for guys who will understand what I want to do, so I can work with them and make a great impact, since then we have been working and doing alot of things to change the way people look at Internet here in Cameroon. I see AfroVisioN Group as a leader in web and enterprise solutions in the West African marketplace in the next couple of years.”
What services do you offer now? Which technologies would you like to capitalize on in the future?
“We offer the following services:
- graphics and multimedia design (Flash, Photoshop, Fireworks)
- web design (Dreamweaver, HTML, javascript)
- Web development (php, asp.net, codeigniter, java)
- software developement(java, C#)
- online marketing of websites.
We capitalize on open source technologies like Apache, Mysql, Java, J2EE, C# (mono) PHP. So that we can cut down cost of our solutions to suit our African market.”
Give me a picture of AfroVisioN’s primary clients. Where are they located, etc.?
“Our primary clients are small and medium size enterprises, NGO’s, CIGs and mostly startup firms who need web presence and small software solutions to manage their operations. Most of them are located in the South West and Littoral Province and right now we are working on serving all the other 9 provinces because there are groups and business’ there that need our services to grow bigger.”
What are the challenges of operating a small IT enterprise in Africa?
“Bill there are a lot of challenges and I will make them in point form and also point to an article. I wrote about this on my blog.
First the fact that our business in young and we are Africans, most people think we are not qualified to deliver the technology solutions they can rely on.
Some people think since we are made up of young guys though professionals, we can not tax them at a high cost so they all try to minimize us and want to pay us little or nothing for our work.”
More of the problems can be found on my blog post here:
http://mambenanje.blogspot.com/2008/06/problems-faced-by-young-african.html
Do you see Cameroonian software developers as having a competitive advantage in the African/global marketplace? If so, why?
“Yeah I see a lot of advantages we have in the African and global marketplace in terms of our culture, the languages we speak and the cost of living and operating a business here in Cameroon and Buea especially.
Cameroonians are the most bilingual people on earth and we have the culture of most African countries: be it French countries or English countries. For instance I can sell a product or offer a service to a Nigerian and a Senegalese, a Frenchman and an American without a language barrier and I won’t need anybody to translate, because I grew up with both French- and English-speaking Africans. So I am a hybrid and this also means I can understand how the French Africans will use a system and how English Africans will use it and I can then make it better for them. And since Africa is mostly French and English speaking, then Cameroonians like me have a great advantage to cover African and global markets.
Since our cost of living in Buea and Cameroon is somewhat low, we can do a great deal of offshoring and compete with the Indians with lower cost and better output. I am saying this because I see a lot of Cameroonians understand how important it is to be educated and whenever they are into learning they go for it 100%. So Cameroonians with the zeal they have to study can follow the latest tech trends, understand and implement it at a very fast pace while living at the lowest cost possible. This is what I did for the first two years of running AfroVisioN Group.”
What role do you see the Internet playing in Africa’s future?
The internet comes along with a lot of things that will help Africa come out of poverty and make life better and living standards get higher in the African continent. With the internet a young African who just left university can setup a blog, a website, or get outsourcing projects from elance.com and make a whole lot of money while staying in his or her room. This means we can stay in Cameroon and make money from America or Europe. We get paid and live here in Cameroon with better and higher standards.
Normally when students graduate here in Africa, all they do is either job hunting (which are not available), or they go abroad for greener pastures. They never think of maybe starting up a business because they believe its a waste of time and there are no investment opportunities. But with the internet, with little or no investment from say your family or pocket allowance you can start an internet business, make money and get investors from and out of Africa and you grow really big. I think this alone answers what the internet has done for us.”
Other thoughts?
“Well there are a lot of things I am thinking with regards to information technology and poverty alleviation in Africa. But I really like to capitalise on Information Technology Awareness which will lead Africa into a whole lot of new opportunities and help us reduce the ills of our African society like corruption, lower living standards, low life expectancy, just by using the internet properly.
Learning and copying what is happening abroad and implement the best in our locality is the way forward for the African society.”
