Arinze Izukanne is a solutions architect who firmly believes in using technology to solve the world’s challenges. He is an electronic and communications engineer by training and an Information and Communications Technology expert by experience. He has over 16 years’ experience in Telecoms & Information Technology. He spent the first seven years of his career implementing satellite communication solutions, while the next seven were spent developing information technology solutions which usually leverage on communication networks. Over the past three years, he has actively managed the implementation of solutions where technology is used to solve everyday challenges. He currently runs an information technology consultancy, TradeSmart Global Services and an IoT StartUp Delta Telematics Ltd . He is a firm believer that demystifying technology will facilitate the adoption of technology in Africa which will result in increased efficiency and lower costs.

Arinze has been an innovator from his early days in the university. In his second year at the University of Nigeria, he together with a classmate, designed and constructed a satellite antenna completely from locally sourced materials. He took a keen interest in research and development, often looking to develop new solutions which would lower costs and increase efficiency. However, these research and development efforts were hampered primarily due to the very poor power supply. The cost of R&D was drastically increased when utility power is unavailable. He had hoped to begin the manufacture of his antenna design locally but that dream was nipped in the bud as the cost of manufacturing in his native country Nigeria, without low-cost utility power, was prohibitive and made locally manufactured antennas uneconomical. Having lost the opportunity to develop a lot of ideas, which could have changed lives, he decided to commit himself to developing solutions to improve power delivery so that the next generation will not lose opportunities like he did. This inspired him to set up an energy initiative “New Energy Research Project” which provides information on the Nigerian Electricity industry via a website www.nerp.abv.ng.

While developing the platform, he discovered a lot of information gaps in the electricity industry pivoted on a lack of accurate data. These greatly affected the service delivery chain and resulting in poor planning and very poor power delivery. To close this gap, he set out to design a transformer monitoring system which gathers electricity distribution data, across large networks at the transformer level. The solution also analyses this information and provides business intelligence which would help resolve the gap he noticed. Today he has co-founded a start-up called Delta Telematics to develop and manufacture this transformer monitoring solution with a goal to ensure relevant data can be gathered and the resulting business intelligence used to improve electricity delivery in Nigeria and Africa.