We are Set to Dominate Africa- Roland Agambire

Roland Agambire is the Chairman of RLG, a fast growing African ICT brand. He was at the City People Awards of Excellence on Sunday April 2nd, 2013 where an honour of excellence was bestowed on RLG. He speaks on the plan of RLG to dominate Africa and create massive employment for the youths. Excerpts:

You Have just Won the City People for Best ICT Company, Congratulations sir.

Thank you very much.

But what does this award portends for your organization?

For me awards don't really mean anything. At the same time I believe that awards serve as some form of scrutiny that whatever you are doing some people are watching and they recognising the good works you are doing in the society. So I believe that this award is one of those things that will further challenge us to continue to look at the future for the African youths. What has always been paramount to us is how to create an African brand in this continent and if City People from afar can recognise the RLG brand that is growing in the continent, then that is worth celebrating. The award will help rejuvenate the ideas and energy we've put in the brand. It means that within Africa, we can also be proud of our own.

How long has RLG been serving Africa?

The RLG brand has been serving Africa for the past eleven years. It means It has been in existence for that long. What it seeks to do is to create reliable jobs for young people in the area of ICT development. Now, what we've done over the years is to train and set up young people in ICT. Presently, we are in different parts of the world. In Africa, we are in Gambia, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria. In Asia, we are in China and in the Middle East, we are in Dubai. Now, the brand as over the years churn out a lot of young people in Ghana. About 30 thousand people have been employed through this brand. Here in Nigeria, we just finished training the first batch of five  thousand people in Osun state. The idea is for us to train and set up over fifty thousand. We are setting up one of the biggest plants n Osun state and in may we wish to commissioner that plant. So far that's what RLG has been doing and we are looking forward to see how we can begin to dominate the Nigerian market.

Please tell us more about your Oakcity Project?

The Oakcity Project seeks to do is to bring all the players in the ICT industry to one point. Now what is happening is that Africa is lucky to have a lot of the natural resources especially in the Petrochemical industry and most of the components you see on our mobile phones are by-products of this petrochemical industries and it goes into waste. What we want to do is find a way to turn those wastes into instruments of wealth creation. Now if you wants to have the industry players who have had the experience and exposure in High Technology and have lived else where, you'd  find out that you cannot put up anything and convince them to be part of it. You need something that is more iconic; something that befits their idea of research, development and the lifestyle it will create for them and their staff that will make them to want to come to Africa. Now looking at Ghana, we are the centre of the world; how can we take opportunity of this positioning of the country whereby you can easily transport, create  and distribute goods and services across the globe of Africa? And so Oakcity is there to create that ambience so that people who have stayed in other parts of the world like the Silicon Valley would be ready to come and work in that place.

What will be your exact focus in term of the products you will be bringing into the market?

Oakcity will focus in helping all the industry players to be able to create their products at one place and be able to have the best of lifestyle. In Oakcity we are going to have a technology university that will beable to focus its energy only on components designs and other ICT gadgets . It's going to have the best 7 star hotels to accomodate visitors and conferences. We are going to have a golf course. It's a full-fledged advanced city with 25,000 people living in it and having everything you can find in most cities. Though 25,000 people will be living in it, 50,000 people will be working in it. I think Africa should be lucky to have such city which will have the tallest building in the next 2 years in Oakcity. It's for Africa not just for Ghana.

And how well is government involved to support you in funding this?

Our focus is the private sector. We have an overwhelming support from the private sectors that are investing in Oak City. The only thing we might need from the government is provision of water, road, power and other infrastructure. But then it's an open thing.

Thanks for your time sir

You are welcome. Thanks for having me.