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Herman Chinery-Hesse inspired generations of Africans with his enthusiasm for the disruptive promise of technology and laid the foundation for the continent’s youngest technology entrepreneurs to thrive.
The Ghanaian technology guru, who has died aged 61, was a radical innovator with a devilish sense of humor and a generosity of spirit that won him friends and allies in Ghana, the continent and beyond.
Early in his career as a software programmer he was nicknamed the “Bill Gates of Africa.” It was always a misnomer. He never turned his brilliance into billions of dollars. But he left Africa much richer for his ideas.
Chinery-Hesse believed in the power of technology to change the legacy of colonialism, reshape corrupt bureaucracies, and connect African producers more equitably to global markets. But for much of his life, cut short by cardiac arrest last month, he was ahead of his time and expounding an African way of doing things that his peers have yet to catch up to.
He pioneered what he called “tropical tolerance,” an ethos that underpinned the software company, theSOFTtribe, which he launched when he returned to Ghana from the United States in 1991, armed with a degree in industrial technology from Texas State University and an Amstrad. XT.
Tropical tolerance was about adapting the software to African realities, to withstand power outages and network outages, and making it easy to use at a time when digital literacy was in its infancy. Until recently, you could still find the original MS-DOS-powered payroll and purchasing books that he created in the early 1990s running at gas stations in Ghana.
“Herman was dedicated to developing software for Africa and Africans that was lightweight, appropriate and resilient,” said David Kwamena Bolton, another digital prodigy of his time and co-director of theSOFTtribe. Kwamena Bolton said millions had been wasted over the years by dumping US and EU technology that was not suited to the African market.
Chinery-Hesse also mentored younger Ghanaians. One of his greatest legacies, according to his friends, is the network of fellow pioneers he built, who could often be found gathered at his weekend retreat in the Aburi Hills overlooking Accra, germinating ideas.
“If you look at the Ghanaian tech space today, most people in top positions have come through theSOFTtribe or have been personally mentored by Herman,” said Tetteh Antonio, a friend and CEO of theSOFTtribe. Antonio said he was excellent at fostering creative talent, in part because of his unorthodox and non-judgmental ways.
Chinery-Hesse, who was married to Sadia with whom he had two children, was born in Dublin to Ghanaian parents in 1963. He had no money to set up a manufacturing business when he returned to Accra aged 28. But he decided that his PC was a factory. enough; He taught himself to code and set about building a company that within a decade had become the gold standard for software development in Ghana and parts of West Africa.
His business was bootstrapped.
“We didn’t have the Silicon Valley-type injection of money. Most of us had to hit the bottom of the barrel and fuel our ventures with income capital,” said Bright Simons, another fellow traveler in Ghana’s emerging tech scene. Through years of hard work and hustle, “Herman made the case that there was a distinctive African business culture,” a self-generating, agile culture, Simons said.
Their model worked in part because of Africa’s economic limitations. Chinery-Hesse saw these as opportunities. Ghana’s manufacturing industry might not be able to compete on the global stage, but Ghanaians could compete with ideas and codes, he believed.
“Each feature of underdevelopment represented a business opportunity. I still believe that,” Chinery-Hesse explained many years later of the promise he saw upon his return to Ghana, when the country was recovering from coups and military junta.
Although his software was adapted to African realities, his personality often clashed with them. Together with Kwamena Bolton, he computerized Ghana’s civil aviation networks, digitized much of the private sector, electronically formatted utility bills, and then purged thousands of ghost workers from the public payroll, a challenge that millions of donors had failed to solve. .
But they were reluctant contractors of the state and were often at odds with it. His efforts to digitize the civil service met with strong resistance from vested interests. A legal dispute with the state water company remains stuck in court. He gained little or no state support when he tried to expand his business abroad.
While the huge African tech companies that followed in his wake – Futterwave, Jumia and Konga – have raised millions of dollars from Wall Street, Chinery-Hesse was hesitant to tap foreign capital or replicate Silicon Valley models. He wanted Africa to build its own. However, some of its boldest ventures, in payment systems and e-commerce, struggled to get off the ground due to a lack of cash.
“I felt like we couldn’t compete against the global giants,” said Joe Jackson, co-founder of theSOFTtribe, who ultimately went his own way. “I felt like we should find a way to put ourselves in the value chain instead of creating a new chain. “Herman thought it was a cop-out,” he said. “Every society needs its dreamers. People who really think and dream of a future where maybe some of us, like me, are too real.”