When we set out to organize a conference, we had already organized eight meetups over the last three years. Our participants had told us about how great the events had been and how much they had learnt each time they came out for one of the events.

The conference ran for three days starting from Thursday, April 4th until Saturday, April 6th.

The first two days were dedicated to technical workshops on topics that had routinely been requested from our feedback surveys: Developing IoT Mesh Networks, Urethane Casting, Managing a Makerspace and Building off-grid solar power. We wanted these workshops to be intense learning environments and limited the participation to only 20 people per workshop.

The workshops were given by technical experts from outfits like Lumkani, the South African company producing alarm systems, and SunHive, the Nigerian solar energy engineering provider.

On Saturday, the focus was different. Business development but for hardware businesses was the theme of the sessions. While many technology events focus on the technology, as they rightly should, going to market with a hardware product takes more of an investment and it’s only right that talking about the business aspects is more important.

Here, we listened to a range of speakers. Starting with Sesinam Dagadu of SnooCODE telling us about the location-mapping technology which has been used by Ghana’s National Ambulance Service and is being developed to power drones, to Kolawole Akinboye of Rensource Energy giving behind the scene details of their project empowering SME clusters in the Kano with microutilities.

But the best part of the day was the panel discussion with Chidimma Onyeokoro of Concept Group, Ifeanyi Okonkwo of Tizeti, and Tunde Onilude of SOLO Phone on strategies for going to market with a hardware product.

Hardware product development is still pretty tough, especially in Nigeria. Last year, we ran a survey among our members and saw that while it’s easier to build a prototype than before, it is still painful to move forward with that prototype to a product.

One of the ways we think could help is a mentorship programme where hardware developers are paired with an experienced mentor. The programme will run in yearly cycles with a minimum time commitment for both mentor and mentee. We call it Advisory Board.

Applications are currently open to anyone in Nigeria building a hardware product and has a proof of concept with the plan to go to market. While there is a long way to go for hardware, we want to make it’s development softer.

Special thanks to our sponsors Major Concepts, Kuunda3D, Youth For Technology, Imisi 3D and Involute Lab.

Making hardware a little softer was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Between the 4th and 6th of April this year, Hardware Lagos will host her first conference. For three days, there will be workshops and talks delivered by experts from across Africa and outside the continent.

But why now?

For close to three years, we have run meetup events in Lagos. From meeting with only 12 people sitting shoulder to shoulder in a small waiting room in Yaba to packed events at Capital Square with speakers calling in from abroad.

In those earlier meetups, the conversation focused on technical details. How could we make products or prototypes with the tools we had? Who had special tools? What resources were available in the community?

In the later meetups, the conversations have changed. Now, members of the community are concerned with manufacturing, developing relationships with overseas partners, market sizes and market research. There has also been some funding in the space, particularly in renewable energy/solar power.

There are other things that have shaped the conversation. We have seen members of the community get jobs and internships as a result of attending events and networking, and we have seen startups come to the event to attract talent. We have also seen would-be founders look for partners.

Bringing this together

When technology and business meet, great things happen. But these meetings do not happen by chance, they happen by deliberate effort and careful curation. This is the reason for Datasheet, our flagship conference with its first iteration in April.

By bringing together some of the best product developers from around the continent to deliver workshops and talks, we believe we can make these new connections. Attendees will hear about companies like Lumkani and Gearbox, Microscale Embedded and Rensource, and how they are doing great work.

But most importantly, we can see how far we have come in product development and how far we still have to go, we will share more of this during the State of Hardware Lagos session at the conference.

Register today at datasheet.hardwarelagos.com.

Datasheet - Nigeria's first conference on hardware product development

Why It’s Time for a Hardware Conference in Nigeria was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

While we all know how hard hardware is, there are a myriad of ways to get a product to market. In Nigeria, where funding is difficult to find and market sizes can be quite difficult to ascertain, it is important to manage your cash flow as prudently as possible especially in the early days.

On Saturday, November 10, we had three panelists discuss this at our meetup held in the American Corner at the CcHub, Yaba. Speaking were Uche Onuora, CEO of HITCH; Yang Yan, Product Development Manager at ARTOP Group; and Jeremy Kirshbaum, Researcher.

Jeremy started off the event with a preview video of the ARTOP Group and described how they support hardware entrepreneurs with their product development needs from across the world.

This set the stage for Yang to introduce himself, having called in remotely. He spoke about how ARTOP Group helps entrepreneurs from different parts of the world to utilize Shenzhen’s manufacturing abilities to go to market faster.

One question he received was on the timing for approaching a manufacturing partner:

Hardware Lagos on Twitter

Yang: for most cases, it's best when there is an actual prototype or roadmap to market. In some cases, if the product could be really profitable in the market, a manufacturer could be interested in also supporting fincancially at the idea stage. https://t.co/uC3MUyTxuv

Uche was on hand to answer questions with a more nuanced view of the local context. He described his company’s early customer development process using off-the-shelf hardware components and how they got accepted into the HAX Accelerator in Shenzhen.

He stressed the need for developing the business case for a product in the early stages and how using off-the-shelf parts or white labeling can help so that you’re not just making a product no one needs.

Hardware Lagos on Twitter

'When validating your idea, especially a hardware one in Nigeria, it's best to leverage Chinese expertise by white labeling' - Uche Onuora.

When answering a question about optimizing the technology one builds for cost, he was more instructive:

Hardware Lagos on Twitter

'There's almost no point optimizing for cost at the early stages. Ask yourself: do I even have a business?' - @CUcheOnuora

Intellectual property is a hot topic in hardware in Nigeria. As product development is expensive, would-be entrepreneurs care about the value of their developed technology. Jeremy, however, had another opinion on this.

Hardware Lagos on Twitter

Jeremy: the best protection for your product or idea is by being in the market.

The consensus seemed to be that using off the shelf parts or white labelling is the way to go to establish oneself in the market in a cost effective way. When reasonable demand is met, a manufacturing partner could then be approached to come on board. Manufacturers themselves are interested in opportunities in emerging markets, such as Nigeria, and could even provide supply chain financing for the product roll out.

We had over 70 attendees who came around and had a wonderful time at the meetup. As usual, we care about your feedback and are looking forward to receiving you at our next event!

To learn about upcoming events, sign up to our mailing list. We have something interesting in the works.

Yusuf Olanrewaju on Twitter

Today has been all about @hardwarelagos with Jeremy and Uche Onuora, it's was an eye opening event about hardware prototype to manufacturing and supply chain, plus opportunity to network with like minds. All thanks to @hardwarelagos we can't wait to have you in Kwara State. #IoT

Special thanks to the American Corner in Co-Creation Hub for hosting us.

Getting to Market was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Data can confirm ideas but also provides a baseline to check improvements. While we know that there are many makers and entrepreneurs in the hardware space in Nigeria, we wanted to be able to make certain statements with quantitative data.

We developed the State of Nigerian Hardware Survey, inspired by Fictiv’s annual survey which captures a larger audience. In line with our usual ethos, we are presenting the results of that survey.

Who Responded?

About 60% of the respondents lived in Lagos and 88% are male.

Where do they work?

29.8% of makers work for companies (which may or may not be hardware-related), while 24.6% are working for a hardware startup developing a product. 21.1% still are freelancing.

Consumer Electronics and 3D Printing (15.8% and 10.5% respectively) are the two biggest industries that attract makers, this makes sense as both industries go together for prototyping.

What is the expertise?

Mechanical and Electrical Engineers lead the pack significantly. But the key to this chart are the skills that are lacking: Machinists and Industrial Designers. It is quite interesting that there are more IP Lawyers and Accountants than the previous two, it would point to the idea that intellectual property and money are taken more seriously than design for manufacturing.

The surprise.

3 in every 4 people either pay for their design software or use freemium and open source software. The leading packages are: Arduino IDE, AutoCAD, Fusion360, Inventor and SolidWorks.

Free membership.

While everyone belongs to one or more communities, whether online or physical, only 7% pay for membership. Most communities are however free and there are not many paid memberships to belong to makerspaces.

Product development.

Only 3.5% of people have a product in market, very low. It would seem here that the problematic stage of product development is manufacturing; more focus needs to be on helping makers carry products to the market.

Developing relationships with overseas manufacturing partners is one way to do this, given the low amount below. We are thinking of organizing a trip of Shenzhen with the Shenzhen Open Innovation Lab sometime soon.

Biggest headache.

This was a surprise too.

Supply chain, the ease of getting components and materials, is the single biggest headache of makers in Nigeria. Funding follows quite closely, as early stage funding is hard to come by. The next three culprits are: people (there is a small ecosystem), lack of makerspaces and training.

Big thanks to all those who filled the survey and to TechCabal for sharing the survey, two respondents won $50 Adafruit gift certificates: Olabode Olakanmi and Dara Obademi!

Makers, by the numbers was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Shenzhen, China has become the manufacturing capital of the world. If you walked through the Huaqiangbei market with $50 you could get a stencil, USB Fan and Light, a memory card and smart watch. All these, with enough for shipping. This is powered by the sheer manufacturing ability that characterizes China and makes it a destination for anyone building hardware.

What can we learn from such an ecosystem and how can makers and hardware entrepreneurs get engaged with offshore partners? This was the central theme of our seventh event. While we engaged David Li of the Shenzhen Open Innovation Lab, we also got to discuss the experiences of Tunde Onilu of SOLO Phone and Ifedayo Oladapo of Grit Systems.

David took his time to explain the open and collaborative nature of the Shenzhen ecosystem, citing this as the key reason why hardware has really taken root in the here. As well as the manufacturing knowledge, the ecosystem is also rich in supply chain competence which helps the manufacturers and partners deal with all kinds of requests from all over the world.

After a video introduction, David fielded questions from the audience with the interaction captured below.

After this, Hamza Fetuga moderated a chat between Tunde and Ifedayo about their experiences dealing with offshore manufacturers. Drawing on the variety of the products offered by their companies, it was good to compare notes and best practices.

In his current role as Product Portfolio and Enterprise Manager at SOLO Phone, Tunde shared his perspective on white-labeling and the opportunities that exist there for Nigerian entrepreneurs. Accordingly, Ifedayo discussed Intellectual Property concerns for electronic designers.

v2.4: Navigating China wrapped up our events for 2017, and we hope you enjoyed being a part of our events. See you next year!

Special thanks to CapitalSquare, our event hosts.

v2.4 was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On the 19th of August at Capital Square, Ikoyi we organized our sixth event. This edition focused on local manufacturing and had three speakers, each at the helm of a manufacturing outfit.

At 2pm and going on for about 4 hours, there were thrilling sessions one after the other and exchanges from all in attendance.

Ushering in the event was Temi Aiyelari of Hardware Lagos who welcomed all attendees and did a brief introduction of the speakers.

Our speakers were Ahmad Sadiq of Microscale Embedded, Akinwole Akinpelu of Stampar 3D, Jude Abalaka of Tranos Consulting, with the project showcase on rLoop by Tobi Oyinlola. To loosen the tension in the room, attendees were asked introduce themselves telling everyone their names, what they did and what they hoped to gain from the day’s event. This was swiftly followed by a brief recap of the last event by Hamza Fetuga also of Hardware Lagos.

Mr Ahmad Sadiq of Microscale Embedded went first, talking about PCB design for manufacturing. He spoke at length about his experiences, both good and bad in building PCBs for products in the past. He shared several lessons he had learnt over the years and other vital pointers for people who intended to venture into hardware. Some of the tips for cheaper PCB manufacturing he recommended were using cheaper chips, implementing sleep mode on your micro-controllers to conserve power and using off market enclosures to package the device.

He argued that custom enclosures can be too pricey for devices that are not certain to sell high volumes. The Microscale Embedded chief went ahead to argue against the use of open source chips beyond the prototyping stage. Boards like the Rasbperry Pi and Arduino can play to one’s disadvantage when a huge part of their capabilities remain unused (wasted). As an alternative, he suggested the use of boards like Vocore and MediaTek which are low cost and expandable. He however mentioned that chips like that can be a slightly more difficult to program. For people who don’t have much expertise in circuit building and hardware programming, he proffered outsourcing.

Ahmad also mentioned that one has to carefully understand what the design constraints are before going ahead to choose components. For example where power consumption rate is important, ZigBee and RFID can be used in place of WiFi for wireless data transfer. After his session, questions around talent development and discovery in the hardware sector in Nigeria as well as the role of government in the development of hardware were also asked. He said his company usually has to train new entrants before they can be trust to work without supervision. This he said can be attributed to the deplorable state of education in the country. He lamented the government’s absence of sufficient support, funding and incentives for hardware development in Nigeria.

You can never lose out by putting money in tech because even if the company runs down, a lot of knowledge is gotten — Ahmad Sadiq

The next session was about an rising form of manufacturing gradually gaining global prominence. Founder of Stampar 3D, Akinwole Akinpelu spoke on 3D printing tips and tricks.

Hardware Lagos on Twitter

Akinwole Akinpelu of @Stampar3D introducing himself before diving into his talk on 3D printing tips and tricks

Akin gave a brief introduction of himself, talking about his educational and professional background. He then proceeded by going over the definition of 3D printing highlighting the differences between additive and subtractive manufacturing. At Stampar 3D, they work on projects broadly classified into: individual projects, industry, student projects, novelty/arts/souvenirs and small scale manufacturing. Further along in his talk, he explained the unique benefits additive manufacturing brings to the table. In his words,

Design for additive manufacturing will introduce a whole new way of designing and building with less materials, less processing, less assembly and no tooling. The products are more customizable, weigh less, perform better and can launch faster. On the business side, supply chain is shorter, inventory control is easier and businesses can be highly responsive to feedback — Akinwole Akinpelu

While all the above are undoubtable, Akin stated that the main unique challenge to the adoption of 3D printing locally is cost. He went ahead to explain this point arguing that Nigerians value monetary cost over the sentimental joy that can be derived from a product. As long as it works, we don’t care how it looks or feels!

One of the most exciting parts of his talk was the showcase of some 3D printed works he had done personally and for some customers. We were able to grab a few pictures of them!

Hardware Lagos on Twitter

A 3D printed prostethic hand and a propeller by @Stampar3D

The third and final speaker of the day, Tranos Consulting boss, Mr Jude Abalaka did a very brief talk on Manufacturing Preparation. Mr Abalaka has a wealth of managerial experience in the manufacturing and energy sectors.

Jude stated that unlike many people think, power wasn’t the biggest challenge in manufacturing in Nigeria. He said the power can be easily solved with good generators. However, what was more of a problem to the manufacturing sector was the supply chain. If the materials needed for manufacturing cannot be procured, transported and/or stored, how can any work be done at all? He also spoke a great deal about the processes involved in sheet metal manufacturing from laser/metal cutting to CNC turret punching, bending, joining, painting, assembly and finally packaging.

Like the other speakers, he also took questions and did justice to them.

Hardware Lagos on Twitter

Currently we have a lot of competition from China, especially for small goods that can be mass produced" - Jude Abalaka

Showcase

The much awaited showcase of rLoop’s entry for the HyperLoop competition organized by Elon Musk. This presentation was led by Tobi Oyinlola, an embedded systems engineer who is on the Avionics team of rLoop. He was supported by another rLoop team member, Elochukwu Clarence, who is on the Mechanical/Manufacturing team.

They spoke about how the rLoop was formed from a thread on Reddit. From Reddit, a proper team was formed and a Slack was created for team members to interact. The beauty of the rLoop team is that it is completely distributed! Team members are from over 10 countries across North America, Africa, Europe and Asia.

The duo spoke introduced the idea of the Hyperloop and its underlying principles. They compared it to currently existing transport technology (like the Maglev speed trains and the Concord) in terms of cost, safety and speed. For the final stage of the Hyperloop competition they had to travel to the US. Their presentation had loads of pictures of their prototype, their teammates and notable events that took place at the finals. Tobi passionately spoke about the potential greatness that can be achieved when people collaborate and urged attendees to collaborate more and not be scared of things like “idea theft”.

i3D Challenge

Judith Okonkwo of Imisi3D joined us in announcing the first ever VR Hardware Challenge in Nigeria. More on that can be found here.

E B I S E R I on Twitter

i3D hardware challenge All in one Solar powered VR headset. #HardwareLagos #imisi3D

Our next event holds on November 18th and it promises to be lit! Save the date!

v2.3 was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Software is eating the world, but the world is hardware.

I once read the above text in an article I can not find now, but it has stuck with me since; it captured what I have always thought in a new way. Nigeria calls for innovation in technology and we respond in different ways. Software has blazed the trail and keeps doing so, but hardware is significantly different.

In the last year and half, Hardware Lagos has organized six meetups centered on different topics all around hardware and in that time we have seen people who make PCBs, turn metal, produce electronics and other things.

But we have also seen younger people who want to build hardware and are unable to. Unlike software where one can get a laptop and begin to code, hardware demands a more significant investment. Where do you get a 3D printer or laser cutter to make enclosures? Where do you get assemble a PCB? But worst, where do you buy chips? And if you find, can you afford them?

So we thought to our ourselves:

How could we get people interested in hardware to develop these skills working on real projects?

And we came up with an idea: pairing young graduates and students with companies who are developing products and a significant portion of the work will be available and open source.

Open source is important here, not just because it is a fad or a cool thing to do but because it is a way for other people who can not participate to also learn.

i3D Hardware Challenge

Imisi 3D is a virtual reality creation lab in Lagos, Nigeria. Led by Judith Okonkwo, they are driven by the belief that it is imperative we change the narrative here, and across the continent, becoming creators and not just consumers of technology. By driving skills acquisition and developing a content creation community for virtual reality, they are doing this.

In line with the belief that these technologies are tools for creating solutions, and a passion about applying them to education, they want to increase access to VR headsets. But this does not mean buying headsets and distributing, it means developing headsets designed for the community.

And this is why the challenge is to:

Create an all-in-one solar powered VR headset!

Currently, VR experiences are made possible via mobile device driven low end headsets like the Google Cardboard, mid-range mobile device driven devices like the Gear VR and Google Daydream and high end wired VR headsets like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Despite the growing adoption of this technology, none of these headsets are manufactured locally.

When we consider the future of this technology, we know that all-in-one VR headsets present the opportunity for creating even more positive impact as it functions without the use of a mobile phone. To take it further, solar power is important for the adoption of VR technology in Nigeria as it would allow for long time use and easy charging without access to the grid.

This Challenge will not be about people coming up with unrealistic design specs and renders, this time the applicants will work in a team and build the device over a period in three stages as follows:

Registration

Interested participants will register online using a simple form to gather their contact details and other information. The information will be used to build a design team with people of different skills (electronics, design, software).

Design

With the team(s) decided, the participants will receive a technical brief with preliminary specifications and begin research into the different aspects. With guidance, they will revise the brief and generate different ideas for the product with guidance from the mentors. The deliverable of this phase is a Bill of Materials (BOM) and technical documentation.

Assembly

After the components are purchased, the team will test, debug and assemble the parts together and fabricate the housings for the product. In this phase, the team will work together physically with the deliverable being a final prototype ready for testing by the general public.

Another important feature of this challenge are the mentors. These experts are available for a minimum of an hour a week to help the participants through each stage of the competition until they deliver the build.

After the activities, the participants will each receive a $50 Amazon voucher, transportation stipend (to cover their spending for Stage 3), a certificate of participation and memorabilia. The participants will also receive IP credit for their contribution to the work in the documentation.

I am excited about this Challenge (as you can tell), not only because the participants will get to work on exciting, new technology but also because of the talent development that will be the direct result of this.

Registration is open for two weeks at hardwarelagos.com/i3d

For more information, read the brief here or tweet at @hardwarelagos.

Judith Okonkwo contributed to this post.

A Different Kind of Design Challenge was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This year, Lagos celebrates her 50th anniversary with the final day of celebrations held on Saturday, May 20th. On that same day we held the fifth meetup, and the second of 2017: V2.2. The day was blessed with rain.

The theme for the event was solar energy and the business models currently in use in this market. Different from our previous events, we had designed this as a discussion forum/fireside chat between two players in this space. For this, we had Mustapha Abokede (Sunstretch Africa) and Muyiwa Kolawole (Rensource Energy) drawing on their experience in starting and running companies in this field. The session was moderated by Kayikunmi Sogo, a renewable energy expert.

Discussions on the day ranged from the challenges of running a solar business in Nigeria, to types of business models that work, to the reasons why solar is the option amidst the other forms of renewable energy. Mustapha, whose company has their office running on solar power, spoke about a number of issues including the key to making solar power more widespread and acceptable: changing people’s perception of solar energy itself. He explained what his company is trying to do with their solar experience centers where people can come experience and learn about it.

‘The key to making solar power more widespread is to change the perception of solar energy itself ‘

Sunstretch Africa and Rensource Energy are focused on the solar option because it is predominantly available in everywhere in Nigeria compared to the other forms of renewable energy. Also, solar has become the cheapest source of energy after overtaking wind energy late last year. With all the structural inadequacies with the power grid system in Nigeria, it made sense that this option was explored.

Muyiwa spoke about the projects that his company is involved with and the long term goals they were pursuing. He also discussed the “Power-as-a-service” model that his company is currently exploring. He lamented that the investments, in terms of grants, going into Nigeria from foreign aid bodies was to deploy solar in places that offered no economic advantage to the companies handling them. For example, while deploying solar stations to villages is a good humanitarian gesture, it isn’t the best in terms of running a business because the users in that location may not be able to pay for it. Based on data gathered by both companies, we see that rich people spend less on energy as a percentage of their income.

‘the investments, in terms of grants, going into Nigeria from foreign aid bodies was to deploy solar in places that offered no economic advantage to the companies handling them’

In terms of solutions to some of the power issues in the country, micro grids and distributed systems were discussed. Kayikunmi shared his experience working on a project in the Netherlands that involved micro grids. The segment ended with questions from the audience and then the technical segment commenced.

For the technical segment , Hamza spoke on HackChef, an open-source recipe guide designed as a pot cover that can assist amateur cooks to make meals from recipes seen online. He walked us through the current phase of work done on both the software and hardware parts and also what was remaining to to be done. The event ended after this segment.

A big thank you to CapitalSquare for hosting us! And Leke Togun.

We hope to welcome you on the 19th of August for our next event; we are discussing manufacturing.

V2.2 was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

On the 18th of February, 2017 Hardware Lagos held her fourth meetup at WebCoupers in Yaba. Compared to previous editions of the meetups, this one had a central theme which guided the selection of the topics and speakers.

The theme was Internet of Things and the event was to discuss the viability of developing solutions of the kind in Nigeria. Yen Choi, EVP & CTO of Netcom Africa and Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Lead Industrial Designer at TECNO spoke at the event, leaving us with their insights and other gems.

hackaday on Twitter

Looks like a packed house at the latest @hardwarelagos meetup! Join the #meetup for upcoming events: https://t.co/33UqCpXSRS #Nigeria

Yen spoke on Infrastructure for IoT. In his comprehensive talk he took us through the length and breadth of IoT, starting from the basic definition of the term, exploring subtopics like IoT characteristics, enabling technologies, stages of maturity, security, current and future states of infrastructure among other things.

His presentation had very descriptive charts and stattistics to back many of the claims and projections he made about the subject. A data advocate himself, Yen spent some time explaining how important data is in the whole IoT picture. A lot of data will be aggregated via IoT networks hence making sense of it will crucial to the success and adoption of the technology. He rounded up his talk by stating the challenges IoT adoption faces in Nigeria shortly before he dropped a list of predictions.

‘Connected devices will become the norm; devices will integrate with and into humans...’

This interesting list can be viewed on his presentation on SpeakerDeck.

Nifemi Marcus-Bello led the second talk. The lead designer at TECNO spent about a half-hour speaking on Product Design for IoT solutions. His talk was actually not peculiar to IoT solutions as he generally talked about applying design principles to industrial design. The talk began with humorous yet witty pictures of products made to solve unusual problems like controlling bus driver over-speeding in an Asian country.

With those pictures he explained the goal of product design: problem solving; and how important it is in the whole design workflow. He went ahead to enlist and discuss in detail each of the 5 steps involved in IDEO’s Human-Centered Design giving real life examples of some popular cases and a few of his personal experiences at TECNO and other places he had worked. His talk was particularly awash with follow up questions which he did justice to.

‘Even if it’s your final idea, you will never know it is correct if you do not test’

Be sure to take a look at his presentation here.

Hackaday HW Lagos on Twitter

Nifemi Marcus-Bello, product design of IoT solutions speaking on product design for IoT solutions

At the end of the talks, an informal networking session ensued. Attendees had a chance to ask more questions from the speakers and share ideas.

There was a live-stream of the entire event by the good guys at WebCoupers.

Our next event promises to be even more interesting. We will be focusing on solar systems and renewable energy solutions in Nigeria.

Until then…

v2.1 was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Judith, who is the CEO and founder of Imisi3D, spoke about her passion for VR, the state of Virtual Reality (VR) technology in the world and why Nigeria has to join the community early. She talked about one of her projects: creating a community of VR content creators and enthusiasts in Nigeria. Judith explained that the reluctance commonly expressed by people towards VR is due to the focus on the upper (and very expensive) end of the VR gadgets line like Facebook’s Oculus Rift or the HTC Vive.

She argued that people should focus more on the lower end which works with existing smartphone tech. Smartphone tech is accessible by local developers, content creators and potential end users. She also highlighted efforts by local enthusiasts to make cheap VR kits based on the open source Google Cardboard design. Her talk started with a fascinating 3D video of CERN ‘s Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Further demos were held after the event using various VR kits like the Samsung Gear and the Google Cardboard. Attendees had the opportunity to see a 3D camera record a video. Also, some Google Cardboards were given out to interested attendees.

She announced that Imisi3D will be holding the first VR hackathon in Nigeria next month around educational and healthcare solutions and implored attendees to register. If you haven’t experienced VR, and you must, do visit Imisi3D at CCHub; they work out of the third floor.

Opeyemi Babalola of Webber Technologies spoke on Developing Niche (Hardware) Markets with a focus on Nigeria. Blessed with a wealth of experience on this subject, Opeyemi discussed the journey of how his passion for basketball led him to doing his final year project at the University of Ilorin on the construction of a basketball rim.

After a career in the oil sector, he left his job as a Subsea Engineer at a multinational and eventually starting up his fabrication company. At Webber Technologies, standard basketball equipment are built from ground up, shipped and installed. At present, his company is the only one in Nigeria that employs a Plasma CNC Machine for it’s operations. (View our list of Hardware Service Providers in Nigeria here).

Attendees were particularly interested in his talk. He had on display beautiful pictures of various basketball equipment built by his company including rims and backstops. He took questions continuously for over an hour after which we had a general discussion session among attendees and speakers.

The speakers' slides are up on Speaker Deck, as well as other talks from the previous event. The next edition is scheduled for February next year and it promises to be even more exciting. See you then!

v1.3 was originally published in Hardware Lagos on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.