In a very quite environment in the heart
of the capital Accra lives the youngest Software and Web Developer who through
his vision, resourcefulness and innovativeness has created the Anansi Operating
System which is now been patronized not only in
Ghana but also overseas as well. Biztecah Africa caught up with him to
learn more…
Q* Describe the
software - what does it do, who is it targeted at/where would it be used? (is
it for enterprise or consumers/ business or entertainment/ desktop or mobile)
Anansi Operating System is an Open Suse
12.1 clone OS we developed on top of the linux kernel which re-defines the unix
desktop user experience. It is a general purpose operating system from
enterprise to entertainment purpose.It is free and you don’t have to buy Office
(Word, Power-point, Excel etc.) separately. It comes with Libre Office
preinstalled. (Saved ~ $200) You are free from Viruses so you don’t have to buy
another upgrade of Norton or any other Antivirus software. (Saved ~ $75)
Q*
What prompted you to create this software - was there a gap in themarket for
it?
I am a strong advocate of free and open
source software. I realized that proprietary operating systems are being
entrenched in our society. Companies and the government spend so much money on
paying for licenses for these software whereas these monies could be used to
improve other sectors like education. These proprietary software contain so
many bugs and also can easily be attacked by viruses and malicious software. I
believe that the way forward for advancement in technology is the collaborative
use of open source technologies. Africa is on the move, and software and
technologies are a powerful tool for boosting economic growth and poverty
reduction. There is always a gap in the market for a great innovative product.
After facebook and twitter everyone thought there was no gap for any new social
network but Google plus and pinterest proved otherwise.
Q*
How far advanced is development? (is it ready to go to market?)
It is already in the market. We
launched it exactly two weeks ago and it has had over 2314 downloads on my
server and the open source community around the world have created a torrent
file for the OS and it has been downloaded more 2370 times making a total
of 4684 downloads and still counting. http://www.anansios.oasiswebsoft.com/
Q*
Is there anything similar on the market already? If so, what makes
this
different?
There are so many linux distributions
including Ubuntu, Fedora and Finnix. Anansi has an Gnome 3 desktop
environment and we have embedded all the basic softwares and system wares
that will enhance your desktop connectivity examples are wine-devel
package,apache2 package, audacity package,libreoffice-base package,anansi
softwares,netbeans-javaparser package plus many more.
Q*
How will it be distributed?
It is on my website www.oasiswebsoft.com
and there is also a torrent file online that you can download it from for free.
Q*
Who designed it? (what is their background?)
I built it with my colleagues from my
university namely Aaron Nii Adom Nathan and Jeffery Aboagye-Asare. We are now
third year university students studying Information technology. We are Open
Source Software Developers with proven track record of successful projects eg
Anansi Web Browser. We are Capable of working independently and also do well
with a distributed team. Also, possess the ability to work on all the states of
software development process from requirements to final deployment. We write
code in so many programming languages including Java,C++,C,python,php and many
more. The othe softwares we embedded in the OS are from open source developers
from around the world.
Q*
What were the biggest challenges on the way to achieving this new product?
Funding, We spent so much money trying
to secure an unlimited server to host the OS for downloads. Most of our
programming skills are self-taught but our biggest obstacle we faced was not
having an expert to physically train us with some of the technologies we were
working with.We did a lot of learning online but It would have been even better
if we had a technical person do that in front of us so that we could have a Q
and A session.
Q*
Where do you see Ghana's software development sector 5 years from now?
5 years from now 80% of softwares used
by Ghanaians will be softwares built by Ghanaians or African’s. The software
industry is growing at a fast pace and everyone is getting involved.
Q*
What interventions would help the sector grow?
1.Attention and investments from the
Government and venture capitalists.
2.Collaborative software developments
will also boost the tech scene in Ghana.You will realize that there are so many
developers and startups building similar apps instead of coming together
in the spirit of free and open source development to build one great app.
Q*
What would your advice be to other aspiring entrepreneurs in
Ghana's/Africa's
software market?
Always ask God first to direct your
path, look for a relevant problem around you, find the right tools and
technology to build the solutions. There are so many relevant data made
available online to make your work easy. Use these technologies and don’t limit
yourself creatively.
Nana Appiah Acquaye
www.biztechafrica.com
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