What does Africa need in order to create the next Silicon Valley?

Let's face it. There is only one Silicon Valley in the world. In California, United States. However, Africa, can replicate the successes of Silicon Valley and ensure that it becomes a global player in the ICT industry. Here are a few things that Africa must get right if it is to become that global superpower in IT related industries.

The first thing that Africa must do is to ensure that it creates a chain of world class universities that are able to churn out innovative talent. While Africa's universities are great in teaching, they have not been as deep when it comes to innovation and creativity. This is reflected in the low ranking of African universities globally. What if we had a few universities that could give the likes of Harvard and Yale a run for their money? The continent would no doubt be better placed to lead the charge and become an ICT leader in many fields.

Secondly, we must ensure that Africans have access to capital. Currently, getting capital for African businesses is a hard nut to crack. This is made even worse by the fact that banks are not willing to lend to the ICT sector, because most of the products are intangible. Towards this end, there is also the missing venture
capital market in Africa, which makes it even harder for businesses to source for capital. To circumvent this problem, African policy makers could enact policies to ensure that ICT incubation hubs are created throughout Africa.

Thirdly, we must ensure that we are able to safeguard our intellectual property laws. Currently, ideas are the new capital, and we must ensure that innovative ideas are protected, and the thinkers and visionaries are able to profit from their ideas.

Lastly, African innovators must in all sincerity ensure that they create products that solve the continent's needs, and so, they should work with the end problem in mind. In this then, we could say an effective ecosystem that ensures that there is a rich supply of talent, access to capital, protection of intellectual wealth through effective laws, and creation of products that can solve our immediate problems could be the ideal solution to ensuring that Africa becomes a superpower in ICT, and possibly even, replicate many of the successes in Silicon Valley.