2. e-government or mobile-government
How to empower African administration to
server their citizen with internet and mobile technology.
In this second article of the series, I’ll will present 10
untapped opportunities for startups to empower African public administrations
to serve their citizens using internet and mobile technology, also called e-Goverment and m-Government (m for mobile)
opportunities.
According to the 2012 United Nations E-Government Survey,
most African countries are lagging in the global effort to improve e-government
services. For Startups looking for opportunities to serve African governments,
it means there are lot things left to be done, and loads of money to make too.
Governments spending on e-government worldwide has reached more than 10
billions dollars last year, and will be sharply increasing during the upcoming
years, analysts predicted.
#1 Recruitment and career management solutions
Hiring, retaining,
and motivating great people are challenging thing to do for anyone, but much
more for African governments which are all struggling to attract great talents.
They are in direct competition with the private sector, and international
organizations which are more flexible, more attractive and also pay much more.
For governments which
are looking to upgrade themselves, and staff their organization with talented
and motivated individuals, tools like recruitment and career management
solutions are a must have. The good news for startups which want to go into
this area is that I don’t know one single African government which has already
deployed this kind of human resource management tools.
Good Recruitment and
career management solutions should include a complete employment lifecycle
features:
- Strategic human
resource planning
- General and
Specialized Recruitment procedures
- Executive Search
& Recruitment
- Career management
and employees motivation schemes
- Talent Management
Tools and Services (Assessment Centers, Psychometric Testing, Graduate
Solutions, Recruitment skills training, Career Management, Coach Training,
Development Centres, High Potential Programs, Leadership Development, Coaching
and Mentoring, Organizational Change Support, Career Coaching, Outplacement
Support, Senior Executive Career Transition)
No country could be
built without a strong human resource development, deployment and management
skills.
#2 Government procurement and warehouses/inventory management solutions
This a very sweet
opportunity to explore, because most of governmental institutions have very
little expertise in the area of procurement tools, world class logistic, and
warehouse and inventory solutions and innovations are things most governments
don’t have the skills for.
The benefits for
government are quick and easy to demonstrate: centralized purchasing and budget
management, enhanced supplier management and information sharing, automated
purchase order generation, reduced duplication, administration, and overhead
costs, etc.
The best tools will
have some features like below:
- Supply Chain
Planning
- Demand Planning
- Vendor Managed
Inventory
- Supplier Management
- Procurement
- Strategic Sourcing
- Warehouse
Management
- Transportation
Management
- Order Fulfillment
- Contract Management
The implementation of
this kind of tools will require high level political decision, because most of
African government corruption is possible exactly because of the lack of tools
like this.
#3 Chambers of commerce, Taxes Collection & Government Payments
solutions
Here we could think
about 4 kinds tools:
Business
administration and Tax
- Online
pre-applications for business license
- Online business tax
payment and business license renewal
- Online tax wizard
- Online search of
county businesses
- Corporations filings
& searches
- Initial business
filings
- Corporations
certificates of existence
- Registered agent
designations
- Registered
principal searches
- Corporate letters
of good standing
- Corporate annual
report filings
- Business name
availability searches & registrations
- One Stop Business
Registration
- Over-the-counter
credit card processing
- Certificate of
compliance filings
- Corporate image
searches & retrievals
- Business license
applications
- Annual business
renewals
- Trademark searches
& registrations
- Deed searches &
document retrievals
Professionals
Licensing/permits
- License renewals
- License
reinstatements
- License status
monitoring (for individuals or groups)
- Receive real-time
license monitoring updates for changes in status
- Professional
license database lookups
- Continuing
education credit submissions & tracking
- Interactive mapping
overlay for professional license database lookups
- iPhone and smart
phone mobile apps for professional license database lookups
- Secure transaction
payment processing, billing, and reconciliation
- Customized
reporting
- Real-time online
customer service
Public events,
Streets and outdoor licensing & permitting services
- Online application
- Follow up system
- monitoring systems
Property Tax
- Online property tax
payments
- Online historical
tax record search
#4 Encryption, cyber security, and data security solutions
Most of African
governments are vulnerable to foreign countries spying, intrusion and
data integrity corruption. High level official offices and phones numbers could
be easily taped. Computers networks are poorly secured, many African businesses
are victim of online and physical fraud.
Any good solution in
this area should cover keys elements as:
- Network Security
- Website Security
- Email
- Mobile Devices
- Employees
affiliations and integrity report
- Facility Security
- Operational
Security
- Payment Cards
- Incident Response
and Reporting
- Privacy and Data
Security
- Scams and Fraud
detection
If some highly
trained local hackers, acting with integrity and trust would come up with
solutions and tools that would help local officials, they would make loads of
money.
#5 City & Mayor services
City service will be
well empowered by IT solutions for managing some routines tasks like:
Marriage License
- Online
pre-application
- Online
commemorative license ordering
- Online duplicate
ordering
- Online historical
data search
Civil documents
service
- Birth Certificates
- Court and Prison
Records
- Marriage
Certificates
- Marriage
Termination Documentation
- Passport, ID cards
- Photographs
- Police Certificates
- Adoption
Documentation
Motor Vehicles
- Online renewals
- Online email
notification sign-up
- Online address
update
Notary Public
- Online
pre-application
- Online renewal of
commission
- Online address
update
- Online notary
public search
#6 Law enforcement officers’ solutions
IT solutions in this
segment might focus on services like follow:
- Online incident
reports
- Online inmate
lookup
- Online wanted
criminals list
- Online arrest
reports
- Online accident
reports
- Online traffic
citation payment
- Online court fees
and fines payment
#7 Roads and governments real estates management solutions
This segment is one
of the most profitable area where smart entrepreneurs could make a difference
and make loads of money.
IT solution here
should focus on assets and inventory management tools, then and move to field
report services. Most of the information on government building, and states
infrastructure are now kept in large boxes of papers, hardly accessible, and
which doesn’t help in anyway to manage the states resource properly, and also
plan maintenance, upgrade or extension.
The kind of solutions
needed are Property & Asset Management Solutions, which main features might
include:
Road management &
design
- Road Management
Act, regulations & codes
- Register of Public
Roads
- Road Management
Plan
- Notice of Incident
- Road Use &
Performance
- Types of roads
- Traffic systems
& signals
- Design standards,
manuals, notes
- Real time Traffic
& road conditions
- Road projects
(Planning & proposals)
- Tenders &
suppliers
- Annual reports
Public real estates
assets management
- Public Buildings
and estates Act, regulations & codes
- Register of real
estates
- Types of real
estates
- Public assets
Management Plan
- Notice of Incident
- Real
estates Use & Performance
- Buildings control
and security systems
- Design standards,
manuals, notes
- Real time real
estates conditions
- Real estates
projects (Planning & proposals)
- Tenders &
suppliers
- Annual reports
#8 Land Information Management solution
This area is full of
private and public opportunities. Smart entrepreneurs will have a lot of fun
working on those opportunities and will be rewarded with long term, convertible
assets and with loads of recurrent money.
Land Information
Management solutions will help people secure land tenure, improve land rights
registration, and civil records management. Best solutions would include:
- Land registry
system,
- Geographic
information system (GIS)-based land cadastre system,
- Property
information and taxation system (utilities, taxes, zoning, land use, public
safety, cadastre, registry, etc.),
- Real estate
industry tools (mortgages, title guaranty, property appraisal, real estate
brokers, etc.)
- Automating land
registration system
- Indexing and
imaging of the public records
- Archiving
historical documents for preservation
- Integrating with
the existing central government information systems
#9 Payment Solutions for eGovernment Portals or mGovernement
Invoicing the public
sector, getting paid and paying the governments in many countries are not easy
things to do. It’s time consuming, and frustrating and you have to face
outdated procedures being applied by unskilled and poorly trained employees.
There are only few governments with a decentralized payments gateways that are
automated and connected to a centralized payment and accounting system.
The best solutions
would include:
- the management of
all transactions that flow between government agencies and their constituents
regardless of the payment type (cash, bank transfer, credit cards, debit cards,
and ACH) or the payment channel (Cash, Web, mobile, over-the-counter,
interactive voice response, mobile, and subscription), and also
- the necessary
automation of workflow, notification, roles and access rights.
#10 Government IT infrastructural management solution
Top level
entrepreneurs would focus on this area, backed with sufficient seed funding,
and staffed with highly qualified IT and management people in the core team.
They should be able to design top level network, and plan government wide IT
infrastructure, and have savvy political skills to navigate in the messy
political scene without compromising their integrity and code of honor.
Most African
governments need top down solutions providers able to act first as advisers,
then research and Development (R&D) partners, and then move on to long term
partnership with solutions including:
- Network
- Hosting Services
- Properties
Operations
- Training
- Security
The above 10 ideas
are very exciting, and working on them will give you a sense of mission as they
will affect the lives of millions of people.