INTERVIEW WITH THE FOUNDER AND CEO OF EQUINOX INTERCOM LIMITED (EIL)
Background Information
Equinox Intercom Limited (EIL) is a medium scale enterprise providing electronic business solutions and services to the various sectors of the West African economy, starting from Ghana where the head office is situated.
Equinox Intercom Limited joined the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Center in October 2006. The incubator is being sponsored by the Ministry of Communication under the Government of the Republic of Ghana and the United Nations Development Project (UNDP).
The Idea of starting EIL was conceptualized by the founder and CEO, Cecil S. Nutakor in 2002 after he dropped out of high school due to a change in interest from medicine to information and communication Technology.
Where does the company name come from and what does it signify?
The word equinox in astronomy is an event where night and day are nearly of the same length but in theory the day is longer than the night. An intercom (intercommunication device) is an electronic communications system within a building or group of buildings.
The company (EIL) seeks to achieve a situation where we can finally bridge the digital divide that exit between Africa and the rest of the world. In other words achieving equal day and night. But then in theory the developed world is far ahead of Africa (day is longer than night) hence the company (EIL) must act as an intercom (a digital bridge) between Africa and the rest of the world in order to bridge the divide. It is based on this ideology that we provide electronic (digital) business solutions and services to serve as the digital bridge between the various economies within African and linking them to the rest of the world.
Unfortunately ICT was not an integral part of the Ghanaian high school curriculum at the time, therefore I had no choice than to drop out and start studying ICT related technologies such as programming, networking and database administration on my own. Today I am glad to say about 90% of the knowledge I have in ICT was acquired through self teaching.
Although having gone through several challenges common to all entrepreneurs, today EIL provides services and solutions to a cross section of the Ghanaian economy notably the educational and ICT sectors.
With an ever growing clientele, the company is currently focusing on the provision of purpose driven software and network security management, while providing ICT consultancy and training services to both the public and private sectors.
What is unique about EIL?
Our philosophy. And that is bringing purpose driven ICT services and solutions to the door steps of our valued clients. We need to give everyone the opportunity to join the digital revolution. We believe strongly this approach is the ultimate way of bridging the digital divide that exists between Africa and the rest of the world.
What are your major products and services?
eCampus is our lead product among others while training remains our major service. eCampus is basically a platform for electronic for that matter distance learning which facilitates knowledge sharing. E-learning has become a necessity within the information age we find ourselves today. It is therefore important for educational institutions to acquire a platform (eCampus) for the effective delivery of e-learning.
What does the product do and what is unique about it?
eCampus is an eLearning and eWorking platform allowing teachers or educational institutions to build effective online courses and to manage learning and collaborative activities on the web. Translated into 35 languages, each course space provides a list of tools enabling the teacher or course manager to :
- Write a course description
- Publish documents in any format (text, PDF, HTML, video...)
- Administer public and private forums
- Develop learning paths
- Create groups of students
- Prepare online exercises
- Manage an agenda with tasks and deadlines
- Publish announcements (also by e-mail)
- Propose assignments to be handed in online
- See the statistics of the users activity
- Use the wiki to write collaborative documents
The unique thing about eCampus is that it is adjustable to various training contexts; eCampus is not only for schools and universities, but also by training centers, associations and companies. The platform is customizable and offers a flexible and custom-made working environment.
Training remains one of our valued services. We offer training in ICTs with focus on open source solutions in particular. We are currently running a certificate program in Open Source Software with the Ghana Telecom University College using eCampus as the platform for delivery. We will be graduating our first batch of students in September 2007.
At EIL we have realized that the ultimate way Africans can provide solutions to their numerous problems is through the effective use of Open Source Solutions.
Who are your clients and how many do you have? How are you focusing on expanding your user community?
We have two universities using eCampus, they are Regent University College of Science and Technology and Ghana Telecom University College. Getting the universities to buy and use eCampus has been very disappointing. We are therefore introducing an Online Learning Center whereby regardless of a students university they can subscribe to our Online Learning Center to use eCampus to access accredited course materials for knowledge sharing among themselves, students of other universities and individual from the general public who will subscribe. In doing that we will be organizing awareness forums at strategic locations come October to entice our target users to join the community
Is the company profitable? How long did it take for that to happen?
The company I will say is not profitable at the moment, If things work out in accordance to our current business plan the company will become profitable by the last quarter of 2008.
How many employees do you have and all they are Ghanaian?
We currently have five employees with two of them having their industrial attachment which will end in October. They are all Ghanaians.
How do you measure the success of the company?
Being able to win bids and execute contracts with the very limited available resources. In line with the fact that it is extremely difficult for SMEs to win bids and execute contract efficiently and effectively in Ghana and for that matter Africa. We see it as great success at this stage if we win bids and we are able to execute them effectively without problems.
What is the ultimate goal for Equinox and how are you going about achieving that?
At EIL our ultimate goal is to bridge the digital divide, basically serve as a digital bridge through the provision of products, solutions and services. We hope to provide on-demand services in financial and human resource management, customer relations and project management, sales and purchase management and inventory control management systems gear towards the Small and Medium scale enterprises who can not afford a complete set of all the above mentioned enterprise resource management tools, but can afford to pay monthly or annual fees to connect and use these tools on-demand without having to bother about backups, security, hardware, storage space, vendor loyalties and license fees.
To achieve this objective the company has released that there is a critical need for ICT driven human resource for the various sectors of the African economy we want provide services to. We are therefore focusing on training people in ICT related courses and making eCampus a standard within the educational sector whereby students will get use to ICT before graduating. We believe that after a student has used eCampus throughout his or her academic years s/he will become conversant with computers and for that mater ICTs in general, making him or her an ICT driven human resource who will not be afraid to use the computer at the work place.
What problems did you encounter coming up with eCampus?
I will say the problems were with the concept of electronic learning it self. Electronic learning is still not very well embraced by the majority of people. They seem not to have confidence in the concept. Majority are still glued to the traditional concept of having a teacher standing in front of them. Moreover the various decision makers within most educational institutions especially the public schools are still not well informed about electronic learning.
I think in general people need a lot more education on the subject matter and that has been our main challenge, since we can not reach out to everyone due to insufficient funds for organizing forums, seminars and conferences.
At EIL the main challenges are with marketing, creating awareness and providing incentives to entice people to embrace eCampus as an efficient platform for distance learning.
How do you currently go about creating awareness on the grassroots level?
We do that through the use of direct marketing technique. Basically talking to potential users, contributing to radio and Television programs in line with our products and participating in conferences and seminars where we can interact with the masses in society
What is your message to funders/supporters and what is your message to users?
To the funders and supporters i will say we need a lot more financial support from them to achieve our objectives, moreover our objectives are tailored to contribute to the socio-economic development of the African people hence supporting us means they are supporting the numerous Africans who otherwise will have be lift out in the information age.
To users of our solutions and services, I will say they should see the services we provide as an instrument through which they can gain competitive edge with other players world wide. Moreover our solutions will also enable them to work more efficiently and effectively without having to worry about business continuation in case of any disaster since we take care of that for them using our encrypted and automated backup systems.
Do you have some specific lessons that you know now and wish you would have known when you started your business, and which you would like to share with fellow entrepreneurs?
Yes, I would like to tell my fellow entrepreneurs not to play with legalities. They should try and sort out all legal issues with the appropriate authorities before things get out of hand. it is very important to register with the TAX authorities, Internal Revenue etc.
A very personal lesson to share with them is about founder syndrome, don't wait till is too late start thinking about it and you will identify if it is happening to your business or not. if it is, they are so many ways to go about it, you can find solution on the Internet., but the simplest way to go about it is by forming your board to advise you on how you should go about things.
What is your competition?
Every business needs competition to do well. I will say we have more competition from the international community than we do have within Ghana and the entire West African sub region.
If our strategy works we will have differentiated ourselves sufficiently to not have to compete for the market but rather be the pace setters.
Do you think eCampus will meet the needs of the future generations?
Yes, ideally eCampus is for the future generations of the African people. In that with continues creation of awareness the future generations will become very comfortable with the entire concept of electronic and distance learning, hence accepting and appreciating eCampus as a unique platform for knowledge sharing.
How have you benefited business incubation?
The idea of business incubation I will say is a great step towards the right direction for empowering young and desperate entrepreneurs especially in Africa. All the same the implementation of this wonderful idea is still facing a lot of challenges with regards to hindrances in line with policies, access to financial services and knowledge sharing among entrepreneurs.
I will like to use this opportunity to congratulate infoDev for the great work done on sustaining the incubator initiative.
eCampus can help significantly on the issue of knowledge sharing among incubators. During this year’s conference of the network in Accra, I donated eCampus on behalf on EIL and the Ghana Multimedia Incubator Center to the Network as part of our contribution to solve the identified problem of knowledge sharing.
The platform when put to good use will serve as a catalyst in providing learning materials from mentors and consultants to entrepreneurs across Africa. We want to see eCampus being used as an online learning center for the network.
The incubator (GMIC) has been very instrumental toward the creation of credibility for our company and products. We also receive funds supports in the form of grants and soft loans to further pursuer the implementation of our business strategies.
All the same I believe there is a lot more the incubator can do.
I would like to be remembered as a major contributor to the socio-economic development of the African people. This should be my legacy.
For more information about Equinox Intercom Ltd
www.eil.com.gh (will be finalized at the end of August 07)
equinox.intercom@gmail.com
ceo@eil.com.gh
info@eil.com.gh