Nigeria urged to tap into $2b Raspberry Pi market for education, agric

Chief Commercial Officer of Raspberry Pi Ltd, Mike Buffham, has stressed the need for Nigeria to tap into the $22 billion global Raspberry Pi market to improve education, agriculture, and health, particularly remote access to health.

He noted that the market value of Raspberry Pi stands at $5 million for the enthusiast and education marketplace and about $16 to $17 million in industrial embedded applications.

Speaking at the Raspberry Pi corporate event yesterday in Abuja, Buffham observed that Nigeria is developing, adding that the country has aspirations to participate in computing and harness the opportunities it unlocks for people.

He said, “I see a lot of things in Nigeria where you are developing, you clearly have aspirations to be in computing, and not computing for the sake of computing, but the opportunities it unlocks for people. Real meaningful opportunities. So, improving agriculture, improving education, improving health, particularly remote access to health. All of these are great applications for low-cost computing and therefore great applications, I think, for Raspberry Pi.”

He stated that the Raspberry Pi mini-computer has provided new opportunities to enhance tools for education, adding that the low cost means it could be a viable option to develop solutions for the education sector in developing countries.

Buffham explained that the core mission of Raspberry Pi is to put low-cost, high-quality general-purpose computing in the hands of as many people as possible, whether in enthusiasts, education, or industrial applications.

According to him, Raspberry Pi is computing that’s suitable for the wide general marketplace, and the unique thing about the product is the cost-to-performance ratio.

He said, “You won’t buy a product that has the computing power that a Raspberry Pi has at the low end, $4, at the very low end, but in a very viable computer for $35. So it’s the sort of cost-to-performance ratio. When you’re running the computer eight hours a day, you are running it at probably 20% or less of the power consumption. So you’re paying much less for your electricity, and particularly in an environment where power is so critical and it’s not always stable, it’s a really good benefit.”

Buffham, who highlighted the enormous opportunities that Raspberry Pi presents for the education and health sectors in the country, said, “I think we are very much scratching the surface of the opportunity in Nigeria, definitely education opportunity. Definitely one in education. It’s definitely a great case, a great opportunity in PC replacements where both from that cost, installation cost, and total cost of ownership.”

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Also speaking, the Sales Manager for the Middle East and Africa at Raspberry Pi Ltd, Ken Okolo, noted that Raspberry Pi builds more general-purpose computers mostly found in different industrial verticals, including medical technology, agricultural technology, and EV charging, among others.

He said, “When we think about Africa personally, I think the need for computers in educational environments, for instance, a lot of our public school children will not have access to computing devices, probably never see one until maybe when they get to university, sometimes afterwards.

“Those are environments, public school labs, where I think our low-cost, affordable devices could play a very big role across Nigeria and the African continent at large to help young people to be able to access the use of computers, which in turn then helps them with their learning and to be able to access the world in general.”

Okolo observed that Nigeria is a good market for Raspberry Pi because it will help our young people to be able to access digital opportunities from around the world, adding that the best way to access opportunities is through the use of technology.