Agerigna, an Ethiopian SNS, was awarded the grand prizeof SNS industry On June. 30, 2015. It was making a dream come true. Lately, KakaoTalk was taken over by Daum with evaluating about 3.5 trillion, and Line of Naver was also assessed great worth around 7 trillion.Agerigna is an accounting firm assessment of the amount of the present value of about 56.1 million (US$).
A small amount than KakaoTalk amount compared with KakaoTalk or expects to grow its value. The value of Agerignais expected to grow as an Ethiopian leading SNS as well.
In 2010, Mati and Teddy entered Ajou University to major in computer sciencethrough the Government scholarship program after having been granted bachelor's degrees of computer science at the Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. They were excited when they first used KakaoTalk.
They became determined todevelop an Ethiopian SNS. Mr. John Im, the Vice-Chairman of IEIECS(THE INSTITUTE OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION ENGINEERS), Computer Societyoffered to work with him because he was impressed by their passion and sincerity.
However, It’s not going easy to develop an Ethiopian SNS. Above all they had to develop a keyboard for Ethiopian own character, ‘Amharic letter’ because they didn’t have anything yet. Mr. John Im helped them to develop systemwith the support of experts of Hangul Society. They made itby the benefit of excellent Hangul input system.
SNS of Agerignasupports English as well as Amharic. It has high-performance and convenience. Their pioneering spirit and technology were recognized by being awarded the grand prizeof SNS. Now more than 400,000 Ethiopian are using Amharic input system of Agerignathanks to increasing of the number of download after uploading in Google Store.
These days, software is used all over the industries. And Korea is one of leaders in a global IT industry. Africans can make success by the technology learned from Korea, while Koreans can build up friendship with Africans through products made in Korea.
It can create employment of both countries as well as develop economy of both countries to send Korean youngsters into Africa and to make them spread our culture and IT technology. We should find a new way in Africa to get out of economic stagnation of a domestic market. Most countries of Africa has recorded economic growth of 5-10% every year over the past decade. Africa is the last blue-ocean in the world.
They have the market worth to about 2 trillion, many natural resources and working population. There are 52 citieswhich have more than 1 million population. Harvard Business Review forecasts about 50% of the whole African population will live in a city in 2030 even though they’ve already exceed India in the number of citizen’s population. HBR also said that about 50% of the whole Africans will have purchasing power in 2020.
I hope sincerely that such a case of Agerigna shows up again and again. And I wish Korea and Africa to get close each other and go together as well.
Vice Chair of IEIECS ImByoung Min (JohnIm)