In the 1990s, when most Nigerian businesses still relied on paper files, fax machines, and office memos, Chuma Chukwujama was already convinced software was the future he should pursue.
Fresh out of studying electrical and electronics engineering at Obafemi Awolowo University, one of Nigeria’s premier universities, in 1996, he had realised something early: he did not want to become a traditional engineer.
Nigeria was still under military rule; engineering jobs were limited despite a high employment rate of over 82%, which was mostly informal; and the internet economy, which would later reshape business operations worldwide, was only beginning to take shape. So instead of searching endlessly for employment, Chukwujama started building technology.
“If thousands of engineering graduates came out of universities at the time, only a small fraction could find actual engineering jobs,” Chukwujama told TechCabal in an interview. So I started asking myself what else I could do, and that was how I began building technology.”
He started his first company, Allied Technologies, in 1996 at a time when businesses globally were beginning to shift from paper-based operations to digital tools. That same year, Microsoft released products that helped make computers and the internet more practical for everyday business use. These included Internet Explorer 3.0, one of Microsoft’s early web browsers that helped popularise internet browsing, and Windows CE 1.0, a lightweight operating system designed for early handheld and portable devices.
