Naijaborn.com came to live May, 2009 as a Social networking platform for Nigerians and friends of Nigeria wherever they are in the world to “show themselves” and their creations.

Naijaborn.com prides itself as an African based custom built social networking engine that creates a searchable, detailed, user-generated database of the global Nigerian community.

So far it features about 2,000 members showing themselves from different locations in Nigeria and the world over, providing an opportunity for like minded members to network and showcase their intellectual capital.

Technically speaking, Naijaborn.com is a platform that strives to index Nigerian talents world wide and make it easily accessible to the world.

Naijaborn.com is founded by three Young entrepreneurs, two Nigerians and a Cameroonian namely:

Francis Oghuma (CEO and President, product);

Mambe Nanje Churchill (CTO and President, technology); and

Adekunle Samuel Owolabi (VP Product design).

Yours sincerely (NaijaWebGeek) recently caught up with the young Cameroonian who is the CTO and President Technology of Naijaborn in person of Mambe Nanje Churchill.

Mambenanje, as he is better known on the internet is a Cameroonian by birth and described as a Naijaborn by heart. He leads the Naijaborn development team into the future of social media and networking. He is also the CEO and President of AfroVisioN Group, a software firm in Buea, Cameroon.

Here is the exclusive interview NaijaWebGeek had with him:

NaijaWebGeek: Please let’s meet you, citing your background and qualifications.

mambenanje: I am Mambe Churchill Nanje known on the internet with my name mambenanje and I am a Cameroonian software entrepreneur with a lot of experience in web and software engineering. I have worked as a computer instructor at age 19 to 20 and I started my business at age 20. I am the founder and CEO of www.afrovisiongroup.com and of recent I took up a role as the CTO of naijaborn.com. I am also a macromedia certified professional since 2005 and I took an intensive online course for the SCJP java programmer exam and trained in that field as well.

NaijaWebGeek: Considering you a Cameroonian as the CTO of naijaborn.com, how did you get involved in naijaborn.com(Nigerians showing themselves)

mambenanje: First, I am Cameroonian but we are all Africans. I read an article on startupsnigeria.com interviewing Francis Oghuma and he talked of his projects for the African market. I immediately realised I could get to work with him. I did some googling and got his contacts, we talked for over a week and we decided to start with naijaborn.com, then enter other African countries starting from Cameroon. So we are going Pan-African starting from Nigeria.

NaijaWebGeek: So, we hope to see an ‘Africanborn’ kind of network in the future?

mambenanje: Ooh, well not disclosing anything but maybe and maybe not. One thing is for sure – we want to unite Africans in Diaspora with the Africans back home with innovative technologies that will be community driven and also developed by any person in the community on unique platforms. So you should expect anything since we will delve a lot into the spheres of open innovation with a guided focus.

NaijaWebGeek: Technically speaking now, what really is Naijaborn.com and what do you hope to achieve with it considering other forms of social networking sites like Facebook or more professionally LinkedIn?

mambenanje: naijaborn.com is a place to find Nigerians and friends of Nigeria. It aims at connecting Nigerians at home and abroad to opportunities in their careers. Naijaborn will be a user generated index of Nigerian talent for any person to use in his or her own advantage. It will grow into an ecosystem of community driven services accessible from all sort of gadgets including phones, computers, PDAs and other internet friendly equipments. So expect naijaborn to get you that money transfer solution, that ecommerce platform, that movies rating and sales platform and lots more. With our developers platform and APIs, we will let any person interested in building software systems around naijaborn for Nigerians to easily expand on the platform.

NaijaWebGeek: Naijaborn.com has been on since May, 2009. What has been the response so far; in terms of members joining and interaction on the network?

mambenanje: Naijaborn has been in private Beta since May 2009 and we have had a lot of reviews and interviews all over Africa from top bloggers and we are currently in beta and we have about 2000 Nigerians worldwide using the platform – sharing pictures, notes, private messages, their art works, their songs and lots more. The site with no offline advertising so far has had a lot of positive attention, and now we are focusing on making Nigerians in Nigeria get online. Hence, the reason my partner is currently in Lagos pushing things offline.

Note we were in private beta May 2009 to June 2009 then we have been in public beta June 2009 to present. In January we hope to go out of beta.

NaijaWebGeek: Fine. What method(s) do you hope to use for revenue generation on the platform?

mambenanje: Currently we are not thinking of Revenue generation but on a personal level, I see a lot of opportunities. We can offer financial transactions with a cost per transaction as in ecommerce and other forms of online sales for the Nigerian market, we will get a lot of premium services and accounts along with the site. We can also get some newsletter marketing for brands, we will organise events, get developers pay to access our API to an extent, and lots more. But like I said we are not thinking of monetization but we know what can get us some revenue as time unfolds

NaijaWebGeek: Issues on security and privacy you’ll agree with me are important when dealing/interacting with Social networking sites, are these issues well taken care of?

mambenanje: Yeah that’s right. Security and privacy are top techs that must be found in a social network platform but you will confirm with me that most of what Naijaborn is currently asking for from users is what a lot of Nigerians won’t really care sharing with anybody. Especially when the information can help provide you with some career opportunities but nonetheless we will work out solutions that will let users control who can access their information and who can do just about anything on their information. And also we will ensure they are ok with whatever has to be done around their content or with their content.

NaijaWebGeek: On a personal level now, what has been your source of inspiration as a young African web entrepreneur and software developer.

mambenanje: Ok, I use to see a lot of things happen on the web and computer and wonder how they were made that is some 9years ago. Then I set out on a mission to understand how the things work and how I can create mine. This has been my driving factor from day one till date. I just wish to be able to build my own things as a scientist just like every other scientists in the world. Try out new things, try out new experiments, see results and celebrate success.

NaijaWebGeek: There must have been challenges, so many I believe especially in a developing world like ours, what are some of these challenges and how have you been coping?

mambenanje: Ooh, I had serious issues with my parents choosing this career. I had a lot of issues being a young man doing technology which is new and a young man is usually wrong about things hence can’t know much in technology. I have also had a lot of stress studying on my own with online tutorials and taking my exams, also working and studying at the same time was stressful for me. The big one was setting up my own company in Africa while working out everything by myself with only family and friends helping and learning business the hard way on the field, but it’s all good now I am strong

NaijaWebGeek: It’s good to know this.

Talking of Social Networking penetration and internet use generally in Africa, are we there yet?

mambenanje: Africa is nowhere near world figures This is a fact but we are gradually getting there with what I see Etisalat and the others doing. Trust me in three years time Internet access in Africa will be as high as the figures in India though not as in USA but that will be a good figure to get some software and web developers some huge client base and a lot of money rolling.

NaijaWebGeek: Delving into your work at AfroVisioN Group – how has it been so far?

mambenanje: My work as a software developer and business man in AfroVisioN Group has been exciting but very very stressful because I didn’t have examples to follow in the fields of software and web development in Cameroon and Africa. I had to learn by making a lot of mistakes and delving into software markets that won’t work in Cameroon. We built a couple of software that were not actually needed just because we didn’t have the experience needed but so far we understand much of what is needed and its pretty exciting when clients give us their testimonials and praising us with wonderful words, and that comes with a lot of fulfilment and some respect.

NaijaWebGeek: So, what do we expect from Mambe Nanje, as the CEO of AfroVisioN Group and CTO of Naijaborn?

mambenanje: Ooh well, I don’t know, let’s just wait and see what the Lord will guide me into and lets stay productive

NaijaWebGeek: On a final note, what is your advice to aspiring web entrepreneurs/software developers in Africa?

mambenanje: Like my colleague of Kerawa always say…go for it. this is the only way you will get to know if you can make it or not but it’s a field with a lot of potentials in Africa because Africa’s software needs will be produced mostly by Africans and that’s a fact.

NaijaWebGeek: Thank you for your time.

Nigerians Keep showing Yourselves!