Welcome Mr. Otto Akama, this is BaretaNews platform. I hope you are aware that this platform advocates for the independence of Ambazonia. However, we will keep this interview void of any political leanings as we understand you believe in a united Cameroon if not a federal one. However, we seek to know the technology climate in Anglophone Cameroon considering that Makonjo Media is one of the biggest name in the Silicon Mountain. Once again welcome.

First and Foremost, what is Silicon Mountain? A lot of people from the Cameroons have been hearing of it, can you tell us more, it’s origin and probably how it operates? Is there some form of an association that brings all the tech guys together? Any events?

Silicon Mountain is Fako Division. More precisely, it is the community of ICT projects and entities in Fako Division in Cameroon. Silicon Mountain members are technology enthusiasts who contribute in developing Fako’s technology strength with respect to talents, jobs, businesses, new technology, businesses, reputation and everything in between.

We understand Makonjo Media recently won an award, what is it all about? Congratulations by the way.

Makonjo was recently named Web Hosting Company Cameroon for 2017 for our Web Hosting secured fast and affordable web hosting services that targets Cameroonian Web Designers, especially those who do not have Debit Cards or PayPal. This was a recognition award by TMT Magazine in the USA.

Tell us more about Makonjo Media, how did you have the idea to build this empire? What services does this media offer to those home especially to the diaspora who may want to invest Home?

Makonjo Media is not an empire. Not yet. We are an engineering company with a passion for media and entrepreneurship. We also love creating skills in media and software engineering. At the core of our mission, we want to promote the creation of businesses in Africa with potential to create jobs.
As a company, we grew up of 4 persons to 18 persons between July 2017, when I resigned from my former job at ActivSpaces and November 2017. We are still 18 today operating in Buea and Douala. Our team comprises young developers, digital marketers and writers.Our clients are Africans in the diaspora who want to build businesses back home that heavily depends on software technology.

For people who want to build tech businesses, we help them to build their apps; the web app, android app and iOS apps. We build all these three at a neighourhood of 2.5 million frs to 3 million frs. We also offer Public Relations & Digital Marketing services where we help these businesses to become known by making sure they are on TV, newspapers, blogs and have a healthy social media page.

So, in summary, we offer software development and public relations services.

I was inspired by figures. I have always thought of ways in which an Africa politically led by youths would be free from the clutches of Europe’s clutches of grants and debt reliefs. Then I realized that Africa’s diaspora contributes a huge percentage of Africa’s income through remittances; for some years, it is even bigger than foreign grants.

This got me thinking. What if these monies were used to create businesses that can make money rather than being used to repair houses and spent in clubs. If such is scaled across Africa, this could create jobs and wealth and we will not have to depend on the government for jobs anymore.
So, I decided to start in my own small way to help Africans in the diaspora to create businesses. I believe in that way, we will be creating jobs for Africans back home.

Recently, we know of the Internet block out for months and presently it is partly blocked and only accessible through VPN. How has this affected the Silicon Mountain and Makonjo most especially?

Accessing the internet through VPN is just a small part of the problem. The internet has been drastically slowed down, and I strongly believe this is intentional. The cover page of Eden News paper issue No. 1048 says that the South West Region is the second in the Cameroon’s chart of tax recovery.Our businesses are being hurt. We cannot maintain a 5 minutes communication with a client abroad. This hurts trust and reliability. We are lucky, our partners love us and want to work with us. But this might not last if our operational quality gets watered down due to bad internet. I am really depressed by the quality of internet in Buea and it is hurting our businesses a great deal.
I wish that the government should erase their notion of reducing internet quality and bring back our internet like it was mid-2016.

What future does Makonjo has for the Anglophone Cameroon and the Cameroons in general?

We want to inspire entrepreneurship through story telling and by directly helping entrepreneurs to achieve their dreams by building their technology and helping them to launch.We are presently creating stories of African entrepreneurs who whose stories can inspire. We hope to get these stories to primary and secondary school classrooms to be added to our History lessons. History lessons heavily fed with political heroes have failed the country and the whole of Africa. We wish to replace history books with the history of entrepreneurs. We believe that if successful, such history lessons will inspire kids to transform Africa into a success the world has never seen in the next 30 to 50 years.

I am sorry, I need to come back a little bit to politics. What is stopping the tech community in Buea, the seat of technology to invest their talents in an independent Ambazonia? Are they being driven by business interest or fear?

Silicon Mountain is a technology cluster. While we suffer from the whims of today’s political happenings, you must understand that the community does not exclude Francophones who believe in the potential of the cluster. As a cluster, we remain apolitical. Nonetheless, we are always willing to contribute to the technological and economical development of the country. Individuals in Silicon Mountain are not compelled to be apolitical. Some persons have their political views and could contribute as they see fit, but never as the community.

As an individual, I believe that politics has destroyed the world more than the army and the media combined. Politics destroys people wherever it lays it hands. In business, councils, teachers, freedom fighters, war and media. I will always fight for freedom.My voice has been featured in your publication before, calling on all to fight for freedom. However, when freedom fighting gets politicized, I am usually lost. Perhaps, my little brain does not have the capacity to withstand such complications.

However, what future does Silicon Mountain has for an Independent Southern Cameroons if this should come to reality? What role can they play?

Silicon Mountain is Fako Division. Fako’s cluster of technologically innovative people. All things being equal, our mission to continuously improve our community with technology will never change irrespective of which country Fako finds itself.

How much support is the present government of Paul Biya offering start ups such as yours and the entire Silicon Mountain

I would say all talk no action. Meetings and ideas, nothing done. Zero support. The government prefers to start new technology communities in Kribi and Yaoundé than to support the existing one in Fako. It’s okay, any day the government executes a support program, I’ll make you know. But for the las 7 years, nothing has been done to help us. We’ve rather been plagued by intentionally slowed down internet.

We understand Silicon Mountain is largely Anglophone. Any competition with the Francophones? What challenges do you guys face presently.

Silicon Mountain is a community. I don’t see any competition between communities trying to improve on themselves. Of course, we have inspired the creation of Yaounde’s community now called 7Coline. But again, we learned about the value of community from other communities, so the creation of other communities is perfectly okay.

How can the diaspora help in fostering a strong silicon Mountain?

I believe the diaspora has a big role to play in the development of Silicon Mountain. The diaspora has to believe in the technologists back home, not because we are perfect, but because we strive to be.Diasporans who are consultants in companies that ship jobs to India should start shipping those jobs to Silicon Mountain.Diasporans who want to build technology startups back in Africa could hire Makonjo Media to lead the development of the applications.

Diasporans who have access to grant and funding organizations should connect local entrepreneurs to access these funds like our brothers in Nigeria do. Diasporans working in companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft should not sleep while their brothers in Senegal and Nigeria are directing all support resources from these corporates to their countries while Cameroon’s communities are starved of support.

There’s a lot that Cameroonians in the diaspora can do. As for me and my company, we know we have to support Diasporans to build their tech giants back home, while they enjoy the comfort of their safe jobs overseas.

Any last words?

The Cameroonian youth has the power to bring lasting change for good, but we are lazy. I am too. We play safe. And the old generation is taking advantage of it. We need to seize our future in business, municipal governance, government, innovation and everything in between.

I know we want to do this. We just don’t know how. However, I believe if we ask ourselves daily “What I want to do today, will it bring maximum impact?” and answer the question honestly, we will stop our acts of escapism to pushes us to carry out lesser roles than what’s deserving of our potentials.

Thank you for accepting to talk to BaretaNews and may God bless you.