Mohammed Rufai: Helping Rural SMEs Hit Full Potential With Connectivity
Chief Technical Officer of MTN, Mohammed Rufai isn’t one to shy from detailing his career journey. He is usually eager to discuss his job role at the multinational telecommunication outfit where he started as an RF/BTS Support Engineer in Kano in 2002. With eyes lit from an intention to educate, one will always find themselves yearning to gain further insight from Rufai.
Recently, he’s found his job a tad challenging following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus that hit the world last year. “It has been one of the biggest challenges of my career,” He noted in an interview with THISDAY Newspapers. “The current situation is unprecedented, and telecommunications networks are immensely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.”
A bump, Rufai elaborated the immense pressure the lockdown restriction put on him and his team in terms of logistics, and ways in which they had to find sustainable solutions to the problem facing them while ensuring that businesses which relied on fast internet connectivity were able to access it to carry out their daily activities that could range from a simple Zoom conference call for executives to students partaking in a virtual class.
“We have responded as comprehensively as we can. Initially, this meant radically adopting new ways of working to ensure that we could continue to maintain our network under very challenging conditions.
“We recognised that increased demand, especially on our data network meant we needed to accelerate the deployment of planned investments in our infrastructure to ensure we could accommodate the traffic and enable our customers to work and attend school from home.”
Furthermore, the Telecom company dispersed over two billion toll-free SMS on COVID-19 messages to its customers. This was a practical move to curb the spread of disinformation and misinformation around the viral agent.
The COVID-19 pandemic emerged some months after Rufai’s role as Chief Technology Officer was confirmed on May 1, 2019. In his current role, he is tasked with designing the company’s technology strategy, developing its technology infrastructure, and supervising the implementation of network operations.
Previously, he served in the capacity of general manager, technology in South-East Africa and Ghana. He held the position of Chief Technical Officer at MTN Ghana until 2015.
The roles didn’t come with just arduous tasks, which he diligently executed; it came with a long list of laurels. Twice, he was named the Chief Technical Officer of the Year at the Ghana IT and Telecommunications Awards (GITTA)
Experiencing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic first-hand, in terms of the disruption of the economic structures, demand for seamless connectivity, and being restricted due to lockdown measures, Rufai joined a team of the panellist at MTN-led The Revv Program positioned to help SMEs hit hard by the pandemic find their footing in the aftermath of the horrendous events that lasted for months.
The Revv Program is a give-back initiative proposed by MTN Nigeria. It is geared towards impacting vitality on over 10,000 SMEs. The Revv Platform helps SMEs prioritize growth through relearning, rethinking, and retooling their businesses in a digital economy.
Attached to it is a series of business-related programs such as the Masterclass fashioned to impart relevant skills and knowledge to business owners. Here professionals guide business owners on how to maximise the output by leveraging available technological assets.
Also, an Advisory service was set up to provide daily insights and access to free digital training, advice from experts, and provision of bespoke suites to work more efficiently to increase sales and profits.
The Productivity Support is a compilation of practical tools, business resources and opportunities, including Solutions to help manage businesses remotely; etc. the additional feature of Access to New Markets is where MTN utilises its online real estate to create and drive awareness for SMEs.
In the end, a select number of SMEs, 200 precisely, were inducted into the Y’ello 200. An exclusive platform MTN Nigeria will be supporting the delivery of empowerment tools and awareness creation opportunities.
At the programme, Rufai highlighted the numerous ways high-speed broadband connectivity plays a role in boosting SMEs, further pointing out some of the mitigating factors against accessibly of the internet to rural regions and ways in which the problem has been gradually alleviated
“For all (online presence, cloud services etc.) these to be accessed to improve the efficiency of any business, you need connectivity. And you need that reliable connectivity that is good enough for you to access those sites. For instance, if you have a shop, and you need to manage your inventory, i.e. what is going in and out, sold or bought… you don’t need to buy that server, you don’t need to buy that application, all you need is to subscribe to that on the internet, and all you need is a simple connection, and then you can use those applications on the internet over that connectivity,” said Rufai on the ease of accessing the internet today.
He continued: “In regards to rural areas, these are things that are available, and the people that operate from rural areas, be it farmers or any other business cannot be left out because they also deserve these solutions to be able to improve the efficiency of their businesses.
“So the challenge with rural coverage… for a start, the coverage normally starts with urban areas to rural areas, the solutions that are being deployed in the urban areas are designed for high capacity and a large number of people. And those solutions are both from economics and the capacity that they provide are not suitable for rural areas. From our end, we have tried satellite solutions, which will provide the basic 2G coverage but [cannot] carry large data or provide reliable connectivity.
“That’s really the challenge. I’m glad to say that these technologies are now evolving, 3G services are now being deployed over satellites and they are quite efficient. And we have managed to find cost-effective solutions that can be deployed in rural areas to provide these services. So we have these advanced satellite systems where we can [mount] a mast and put a satellite, and then that area can have internet connectivity,” he concluded.
In addition to attending Lagos Business School, Rufai has certifications from Cranfield University and Duke Corporate Education, India. He is a graduate of Computer Science from Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi.
