thisdaylive.com - From the Ugandan who wants to change how we communicate with loved ones, to the Kenyan who simply wants to feed his community, the recently-concluded Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme’s boot-camp, which brought together 1,000 African entrepreneurs from 54 countries on the continent is an important milestone in recreating Africa’s economic story, writes Solomon Elusoji

Rugaju Abel Noah went to Iraq. The military didn’t quite change him, but he got an idea that was life-changing. “Unlike the Americans who were smart enough to build the infrastructure to make communication between their soldiers and home-family very cheap and accessible, it was very expensive for Ugandans to call home,” he said. “For one dollar, you had about two to three minutes. One dollar! I wanted to change that.”

An information technologist by training, young Rugaju got to work and within two years came up with a Voice over IP (VoIP) service, something like Skype and Viber. The catch, however, is that his service (Call Home Free) allows users to subscribe on the internet (paying a small monthly fee) and call every mobile phone in Uganda for unlimited periods.

“The problem is that investors don’t believe in the idea,” he smiled wryly, “they say nobody has done it before. But in the next ten years, I should be a billionaire because I want to take on the whole of Africa.”