Blazing the Technology Trail in West Africa: TheSOFTtribe

"Technology is the only way for Africa to get rich. We don't have a proper infrastructure and we can't compete in manufacturing...But if you put me behind a PC and tell me to write software for a Chinese customer, then I can compete brain for brain with anyone trying to do the same thing in the U.S." Hermann Chinery-Hesse¹.

These are the words of an independent software developer, who over the past fifteen years has blazed a trail for the information technology sector in Ghana. Drawing on this experience, Mr. Chinery-Hesse has become a compelling advocate for intellectual property as a means for creators in developing countries to leverage their creativity and ingenuity. As thousands of delegates gathered in Accra in February for the 2005 African Regional Conference of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), WIPO Magazine sought out Mr. Chinery-Hesse to learn more of his story.

The SOFT tribe story

Hermann Chinnery-Hesse does not balk at a challenge. Fifteen years ago he left a comfortable life as a software developer in London, and set out to prove to skeptical friends what he had always maintained, namely that his native Ghana was a land of opportunity waiting for entrepreneurs with innovative business ideas.

With no start-up capital beyond a few personal savings, no infrastructure, and no equipment other than his old computer, it was clear to the young Hermann that he had to rely on the only resources available to him: his determination and his creative talent for writing software programs. "I knew I was no genius," says Mr. Chinery-Hesse, "but I had seen for myself in the U.S. how it was possible to take a good idea and turn it into a good business." And so was born S.O.F.T. Company Ltd., at a time when the Ghanaian software industry was non-existent.

On the basis of a single software package, which he had developed when freelancing in the U.K., Mr. Chinery-Hesse landed his first contract with a Ghanaian travel firm while still en route to Accra. The payment enabled him and his founding partner, Kojo Gyakye, to buy a second computer. Yet by the time they won their first contract to write a network application, the company still did not possess a network of its own on which to run the program. They had an early breakthrough when the Swiss-based multinational, Nestle, contracted S.O.F.T. to provide production management software for their operation in Ghana. Mr. Chinery-Hesse laughs as he remembers...