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Ghana Cyber City

The New Technology & Innovation Hub of West Africa


Project Overview

The $40 Million Ghana Cyber City is an innovation venture designed to provide high tech office space
and a Tier IV data center targeted at the emerging West and Central African market with a booming
telecommunications, ICT and financial services industry. The project will also facilitate incubation of
innovative firms and create 5,000 jobs in 5 years. The Ghana Cyber City will bolster West Africa’s
market share in the $550 billion offshore outsourcing market.
Partners
Equity and development partners of the Ghana Cyber City include Gateway Innovations (Ghana),
Xalles Limited (Washington), Ernst & Young (New York) and Technolopolis (Finland).
Gateway Innovations was established for the primary purpose of planning, developing and managing
the first technology park in West Africa. Gateway has already secured 40 acres of commercial land at
strategic location within the 3,000-acre University of Ghana campus.
Xalles Limited (Herndon, Virginia) provides business strategy and systems implementation services to
firms in the financial services and information technology industries in primarily the United States,
Canada, Ireland, Africa, Latin America, Brazil, and Singapore.
Ernst & Young provides financial advisory and strategic planning services.
Technolopolis (Finland) is one of the largest technology parks in Europe and is mandated by the
United Nations to facilitate the technical and financial implementation of the Ghana Cyber City.
Ghana
The world’s 15th most competitive outsourcing destination.
• Official Language: English
• Population: 23 million
• GDP: $34.52 billion (PPP) 2008
• GDP Per Capita: $1,500 (PPP)
• Stable currency
1US Dollar = 1.45 Ghana Cedi
• Labor Force: 11 Million
• Standard & Poor’s Rating:
B+ (2008)
• GDP Growth Rate Per Year: 6%
• Energy: New Oil Economy
• Literacy Rate: 72.6%
• Skilled labor market
• Fastest growing industries:
Technology, Real Estate,
Financial Services, Tourism.
• Fiber Optic Access:
SAT-3/WASC
GLO-1, MAIN One
Location of Ghana Cyber City
Land Value and Location
The project is located only 5 miles from the Accra International Airport, in the heart of one of the
best-performing property markets in Africa.

Business Competitiveness
Ghana is ranked top 20 in the world in implementing business reforms (World Bank: Doing
Business Report, 2010) and is the world’s 15th most competitive outsourcing destination (Source:
A T Kearney's Global Services Location Index, 2009).

Free Zone Enclave


The proposed Ghana Cyber City will be designated a free zone area, providing tax incentives for
companies at the tech park.

Links with Research University


The University of Ghana would provide access to a 20,000-strong pool of skilled labor, including
programmers, software developers and technology managers and analysts.
Products and Services

IT Outsourcing & Incubation Data Center


•BPO and Applications on Demand •Storage and data
svc & virtualization
•Software Dev.
•Server & security
•Lotus Notes
•Network engineering
•SAP, Oracle
•IT svc consolidation
•PeopleSoft & relocation services

Broadband & IT Service Business Consulting & Office Rental


•Broadband Service •Office Space Rental
•24-hour maintenance •Virtual Office
& tech support svc •Financial Mmgnt
•Network engineering •Supply Chain Mgnt
•Software, Peripherals •Business Analytics
Management
Profile

Yaw Owusu, Managing Director


Columbia Business School, Executive MBA Program, 2001-2002; BS, Mathematics, Albright College
Tanko Mohammed, Chief Operating Officer
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management, MBA 2004
Eric Osiakwan, Broadband and Data Center
Fellow, Berkman Centre, Harvard University , Cambridge, Massachusetts
Jennifer Yador, Marketing and Communications
Harvard University Kennedy School, MPP 2007; Columbia Business School, MBA 2007
Nii Simmonds, Technology Incubation
Wharton School of Business, Grad BPO Cert; BS, Management & Finance, Pennsylvania State Univ.
Tony Widjaja, Strategic Planning
University of Toronto, Canada, MBA; BS Applied Science & Engineering
Case Study: CtrlS

Data Center

Services: Managed LoadBalancing,


Co-location, SAP, Firewall, IPS/IDS.

Raised $160 Million, the biggest in the


data center industry.

Seeks to develop over a million sq ft


of data center space in India.

Clients: Pacific Internet, Hartex


GlobalOutlook, eXensys, 7Hills.

Partners: Industrial Development


Bank of India, Oracle, IBM.
Case Study: Shanghai International Business Incubator

Incubation

Incubation Area: 593,641 m2


Number of Tenant Firms: 2,123

Number of Knowledge Workers: 23,216


Incubation Fund: $22.9 Million

Six incubation bases, including


STIC, Caohejing, Yangpu and Withub.

Sales Volume: $805.2 Million


Net Income: $71 Million

Established in 1997.
Number of Graduated firms: 481
Case Study: Affiliated Computer Services
Business Process Outsourcing

Established in Ghana in 2000

Currently Employs over 1,800 in


Ghana, up from 85 in Nov. 2000.

$3 billion dollar in revenue. Clients


include Aetna, Procter & Gamble.

Spends $3,000 per employee per year


in wages in Ghana.

Handles 2 million to 3 million claims ACS joined the ranks of Fortune


per day overall. 500 Companies in 2003
Fiber Optic Backbone
Broadband technology options for the Ghana Cyber City.

SAT-3/WASC
South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable.
First links to Europe for West and Southern African broadband consumers.
Operational Date: 2001.
Capacity: 120 Gbit/s. May be upgraded to 340 Gbit/s.
WACS
West Africa Cable System.
Participants: Vodacom, MTN, Telkom South Africa, Broadband Infrasco.
Operational Date: 2011
Capacity: 3.84 Tbit/s
MAIN ONE
Landed in Ghana in 2009.
Span: 14,000 km, between Portugal and South Africa. Dual Fiber pair.
Operational Date: May 2010
Capacity: 1.28-Tbit/s.
GLO-1
Globacom-1
Landed in Ghana in 2009. Span: 9,500 km.
Minimum capacity: 640 Gbit/s
Financial Projections
Revenue Analysis: Management projects a net loss of $2.6M in Year I, and profits of $2.3M and $8.6M
in Year II and Year III respectively.
Investment Requirements: The total cost of a fully-developed Ghana Cyber City is estimated at $40M in
5 years. The project initially requires $10M in equity investment and additional $10M in debt financing.

$28,000
Gross Revenue vs. Net Earnings
($ in thousands)
23,000

18,000

13,000

8,000

3,000

Year I Year II Year III Year IV Year V


-2,000
Gross Revenue Total Expenses Net Earnings
Long-Term Project Goal
The 500,000-square-foot Ghana Cyber City will accomplish the following:

• Develop the first Tier IV data center in West Africa.


• Provide high tech office space for 100 companies.
• Incubate innovative firms and strengthen Ghana’s
market share in the $550 billion offshore
outsourcing industry.
• Employ 3,000 knowledge workers in 5 years and
attract 40 global IT -BPO firms including:
Xalles Limited, Washington, DC
IT World, Abuja, Nigeria
Google, Mountain View, CA
Sun Microsystems, Santa Clara, CA
IBM, Armonk, New York
Electronic Data Systems, Plano, TX
Microsoft, Redmond, WA

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