By 
Samuel Ufoeze, Robotics Team Lead and Founder at USCO Limited, with Ugochukwu Sylvester Ugwuanyi of IT Edge News.Africa at GITEX Nigeria: one builds the future, the other tells its story.
Across the startup ecosystem, hardware development has long been a graveyard of ambition; a realm where promising ideas collapse under the crushing weight of prohibitive costs. But Samuel Ufoeze, Robotics Team Lead and Founder at USCO Limited, is rewriting that narrative. In an exclusive interview with Ugochukwu Sylvester Ugwuanyi of IT Edge News.Africa, Ufoeze revealed how his organisation has diversified into hardware outsourcing. This is a strategic pivot that dismantles the financial barriers historically scaring startups away from building the hardware they need to compete.
For many Nigerian technology entrepreneurs with an idea for a smart device, robotics system or Internet of Things (IoT) product, the journey from concept to physical product has traditionally led in one direction: China.
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The pattern is familiar. An entrepreneur develops an idea, searches for an embedded systems engineer or hardware manufacturer, travels to China, spends months working with overseas engineers and manufacturers, develops a prototype and then begins the long process of product validation before mass production can commence.
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Unified Scientific and Creative Operations (USCO) Limited believes that model can change.
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The Nigerian technology company is positioning itself as a local engineering and hardware outsourcing partner capable of taking an idea from concept and software development through embedded systems engineering, prototyping, fabrication and, eventually, mass production.
According to Samuel Ufoeze, Robotics Team Lead and Founder of USCO Limited, the company has diversified from robotics engineering training into hardware outsourcing in an attempt to solve one of the most persistent problems confronting Nigerian technology entrepreneurs: the high cost and difficulty of turning hardware ideas into commercially viable products.
Turning a $700,000 Hardware Challenge into a $150,000 Opportunity
Ufoeze said establishing a conventional hardware company can require enormous upfront investment, particularly because of the cost of engineering talent, equipment and research and development.
“To run a hardware company, you need engineers, each of whom costs a minimum of USD150,000 in salary – that’s minus the cost of equipment and other investments.”
He estimates that equipment alone could require at least $300,000, depending on the size and ambition of the operation.
For a startup still attempting to validate whether its product idea has commercial potential, such costs can be prohibitive.
USCO’s proposition is therefore based on outsourcing the engineering infrastructure rather than requiring every entrepreneur to build a hardware company from scratch.
“Why spend over USD 700,000 just to start when you can get a working prototype with $150,000 sent to us?” he asked.
The model potentially changes the economics of hardware innovation in Nigeria. Instead of raising substantial capital to hire engineers, establish a laboratory, purchase fabrication equipment and build an engineering team, an entrepreneur can focus on the product idea while an existing technical team handles the engineering process.
Why Nigerian Inventors Keep Going to China
The dependence on China is not simply about manufacturing costs.
For many Nigerian inventors, China has become part of the product-development ecosystem itself. Entrepreneurs travel there because the country offers access to engineers, manufacturers, components, prototyping facilities and established supply chains within one industrial environment.
Ufoeze argues that Nigeria can begin building some of that capacity locally.
“If you want to develop hardware or build any type of robotics, we can handle the entire process, starting from giving you your initial prototype: designing the software and the hardware, even if you want to embed AI into it,” he said.
The company, he added, can also support mass production.
“We have the 3D printing machine and other devices with which to make that happen.”
That proposition is significant for Nigeria because the country has a large consumer market for electronics and smart devices but comparatively few indigenous companies designing and manufacturing sophisticated hardware.
The gap between consumption and production represents both a weakness and an opportunity.
From Embedded Systems to AI-Powered IoT
The emerging hardware opportunity is not limited to conventional electronics.
According to Ufoeze, Nigerian engineers are increasingly capable of working across embedded systems, firmware, IoT, robotics, artificial intelligence and three-dimensional modelling.
USCO’s own work includes smart-home technology designed to operate without an internet connection.
Ufoeze described one product developed for a client as comparable in concept to smart-home systems such as Alexa and Google Home, but designed to operate locally.
The system can interact with connected devices and provide AI-enabled responses without depending on an internet connection or a cloud-based large language model.
The significance goes beyond convenience.
Offline intelligence could have applications in environments where internet connectivity is unreliable, expensive or unavailable. It also points towards a broader hardware opportunity in which Nigerian developers are not merely assembling imported components but designing products around local needs.
Local Engineering, Global Standards
One of the biggest questions confronting locally manufactured technology is whether Nigerian-built products can meet international regulatory and quality requirements.
Ufoeze believes they can.
He said USCO has been obtaining FCC certification and CE marking for products, describing them as critical regulatory requirements for commercial products intended for international markets.
For wireless and connected devices, regulatory compliance can involve testing for issues such as electromagnetic radiation and other technical requirements.
“All of these things will have to be certified. You have to apply for FCC,” Ufoeze said.
The certification process, he argued, provides an external test of the quality of the company’s engineering.
Adding:
“If what we deliver isn’t the same quality, it means our certification wouldn’t have scaled through there.”
The implication is important for the Nigerian hardware ecosystem. Local production does not necessarily have to mean lower standards or products designed only for the domestic market. With the appropriate engineering, testing and certification, locally developed products can potentially compete beyond Nigeria.
Nigeria Has the Ideas, But Not Yet the Supply Chain
The hardware challenge, however, extends beyond engineering talent.
Ufoeze’s experience at USCO highlights a less visible obstacle: the difficulty of obtaining relatively basic hardware components within Nigeria.
He cited components used in the company’s 3D printers and robotics projects, including GT2 timing belts and linear bearings, which he said were difficult to source locally.
Even bearings, he noted, sometimes have to be purchased from automobile parts dealers rather than specialised hardware suppliers.
For materials such as aluminium and steel rods, he has had to rely on artisanal welders for guidance on where to find the required specifications.
For more specialised components, importing remains unavoidable.
This exposes one of the structural weaknesses of Nigeria’s hardware ecosystem. Building an indigenous manufacturing industry requires more than engineers and inventors. It also requires component distributors, specialised suppliers, fabrication businesses, testing laboratories, logistics networks and maintenance services.
Without that ecosystem, even a technically capable hardware company can remain dependent on foreign supply chains.
Building the Tools Nigeria Does Not Have
USCO’s response to some of these challenges has been to manufacture some of the equipment it needs.
Ufoeze said the company has begun building its own 3D printers and currently has about four of them.
This illustrates a potentially important feature of indigenous hardware development: solving one manufacturing problem can require creating another piece of infrastructure first.
A company seeking to produce a robotics component may need a 3D printer. A company building the printer may itself need specialised components. That creates a chain of dependencies that Nigeria will have to gradually localise if it wants to move from importing finished products to building a genuine hardware manufacturing ecosystem.
Why Hardware Engineering Costs More Than Software
Ufoeze’s own journey into robotics helps explain why the sector has remained relatively small.
He said his interest in robotics and prosthetics began when he was younger. Between 2015 and 2017, when he sought formal training, he discovered that there was no robotics engineering academy or incubation hub in Nigeria that could provide the type of training he was looking for.
He turned instead to online courses from foreign institutions and practical experimentation with whatever tools and materials were available.
That experience eventually contributed to the creation of USCO’s robotics training operation.
But hardware education comes with a fundamentally different cost structure from software development.
A software developer can begin with a laptop and freely available development tools. Hardware engineers need laboratories, soldering stations, fabrication equipment, sensors, components, testing tools and, increasingly, 3D printers.
And unlike software, mistakes in hardware can be expensive.
“If I make a mistake during coding, it’s rectified by Control Z,” Ufoeze explained. “For hardware, if you get the wrong part, you would have to order another set of parts.”
The result is a sector where research and development can consume significant capital before a product generates its first revenue.
USCO’s Hardware-as-an-Engineering-Service Model
This is where USCO sees its opportunity.
Rather than asking every entrepreneur to recruit an embedded systems engineer, firmware developer, 3D modeller, fabrication specialist and IoT expert, the company offers to provide the technical capability as an outsourced engineering team.
“If you have an idea for a hardware product, you don’t have to think about the engineers to employ or looking for someone good in embedded systems, 3D modeling and fabrication, firmware design, IoT,” Ufoeze said.
Adding:
“Instead of worrying about all of that, you just engage us as your engineering team.”
The model could be particularly relevant to startups because it converts some of the fixed costs of hardware development into an outsourced service.
An entrepreneur does not necessarily need to establish a laboratory before testing an idea. The engineering infrastructure already exists.
The Bigger Opportunity: A Nigerian Hardware Industry
Ufoeze believes Nigeria’s opportunity ultimately goes beyond what USCO itself can build.
He points to the country’s large appetite for electronics and smart hardware and argues that the gap between consumption and local production should become a catalyst for indigenous innovation.
“Most of the manufacturing is done outside the country and we just bring it in,” he said.
That dependence creates an opportunity for Nigerian entrepreneurs who can identify local problems and build products around them.
It could also create a new category of technology businesses: companies that do not merely develop software applications but design physical products for Nigerian and African markets.
Such businesses could operate across robotics, smart homes, industrial automation, agricultural technology, medical devices, security systems, energy management and other IoT applications.
Why Government May Eventually Have to Pay Attention
Interestingly, Ufoeze said USCO has had virtually no significant interaction with the Nigerian government beyond areas such as import duties and customs clearance.
He does not necessarily see government intervention as the starting point for the sector.
A believer in Tony Elumelu’s Africapitalism philosophy, Ufoeze argues that private businesses must identify problems, develop commercially viable solutions and demonstrate that those solutions can work.
“By the time we have about 100 hardware companies in Nigeria that will develop their products and are solving real problems, and are doing so well to become household names, the government would have to come in,” he said.
There is an important policy argument embedded in that position.
Government support may be more effective when it is built around an emerging ecosystem rather than attempting to create one entirely from the top down. A critical mass of private hardware companies could create the demand for specialised training, testing infrastructure, financing, component supply chains and supportive industrial policies.
From Importing Technology to Designing It
Nigeria’s technology story has traditionally been dominated by telecommunications, fintech and software.
Hardware has received less attention, even though every digital economy ultimately depends on physical infrastructure and devices.
Phones, sensors, routers, servers, smart appliances, industrial controllers, medical equipment and robotics all sit at the intersection of software and physical engineering.
The challenge for Nigeria is therefore not simply to reduce the number of electronic products imported from China. It is to build the technical and industrial capacity to design, prototype, test and manufacture products that solve problems in Nigeria and can eventually compete in international markets.
USCO’s proposition is one response to that challenge.
Its larger significance may lie in demonstrating that the Nigerian hardware entrepreneur does not always have to travel thousands of kilometres to turn an idea into a physical product.
If local engineering firms can provide the talent, equipment and technical expertise needed to move ideas from sketches to prototypes and prototypes to commercial products, the economics of Nigerian hardware innovation could begin to change.
The road to a truly indigenous hardware industry will still require capital, specialised components, industrial infrastructure, standards, skills and patient investment.
But every product successfully designed, engineered and manufactured in Nigeria reduces one more layer of dependence on external ecosystems—and creates another piece of the industrial foundation needed for the country’s emerging digital economy.
