Losing a loved one because help arrived too late is an avoidable tragedy. In moments of crisis, emergency response systems act like saviors, but in countries such as Liberia, these systems have long been fragile or nonexistent. That, however, is starting to change because of the vision and innovative spirit of one man: Oliver Wleh Klark Jr. He is the Founder and CEO of Advanced Converged Technologies LLC (My Watchman™), Co-Founder and CEO of RoviaGate Technology LLC, Co-Founder and Chairman of Building Innovative Technology Systems (BITS), and Founder and Chairman of KE Energies LLC. As a tech entrepreneur, Oliver is building hope for his country and continent.
He believes that success is when technology serves people. So, for him, success looks like a grandmother or pregnant woman who gets emergency care at 2 a.m. because their app, My Watchman™, worked, and it also means a government agency running a transparent payroll due to their infrastructure. Oliver hopes to leave behind a legacy of systems that outlive him.
“I want a child to grow up in Liberia or any part of Africa, tap an app in an emergency, and never know the pain of help arriving too late,” he says. “More than that, I want to inspire a generation of entrepreneurs to see problems not as curses, but as calls to innovate.”
The Starting Point
Oliver has spent a good amount of his life abroad. He went to the US as a refuge in 2001, and while there, he pursued higher education and later stayed on to work. At the first sign of stability, he returned home. “My journey started with a decision that many wrestle with, whether to stay abroad in comfort or return home to serve,” he says.
Once he began working abroad, he felt a calling stronger than ambition. He felt a growing sense of duty to return to his home country and help build it. Liberia, like many post-conflict nations, needed more than aid. Oliver points out that it needed solutions owned by its people.
Although he did not begin as a tech genius, Oliver always had an insatiable curiosity, a knack for connecting dots across sectors, and a belief that technology could level the playing field. These qualities have enabled him to blaze a trail in the technology space after his return to Liberia.
“From launching local ventures in software and security to co-founding infrastructure companies like RoviaGate and BITS, my path has been defined by turning problems into opportunities,” Oliver says.
Launch of My Watchman™
Before the introduction of My Watchman™, Libera didn’t have an effective emergency response system. Oliver saw firsthand how loved ones and community members suffered or lost their lives because help did not arrive in time. He experienced a frightening security emergency involving his wife, his girlfriend at the time. He also witnessed communities in Monrovia suffer repeated burglaries, and people calling for help that never came. Oliver points out that whether it was a medical emergency, a fire, or a robbery, response time often meant the difference between life and death.
What he saw made him think, “We can build very complex systems, but we can’t build a panic button that works?” That frustration fueled him up to work on a solution, which led to the introduction of My Watchman™. His vision was to democratize emergency services, enabling anyone, anywhere, to get help at the tap of a button.
Oliver started with a simple idea to “connect people to help faster,” but since then, it has evolved into a robust emergency response platform using mobile technology, GPS, and partnerships with public and private responders. “We are not just building an app,” Oliver says. “We are building trust in a system that many thought would never work. My Watchman™ is about giving people back a sense of control in moments of chaos.”
Challenges Encountered on the Path to Success
Success often conceals the challenges that paved the way. “There have been several moments that tested every fiber of our resolve,” Oliver says. Now, when he looks back, he realizes that those challenges were necessary. They shaped him, refined their identity as a group of companies, and sparked the pivots that redefined their purpose.
For Oliver, his first trial came in 2014 when Liberia was hit by the devastating Ebola outbreak. “Almost overnight, the world around us changed,” he recalls. At the time, their primary business was infrastructure projects, particularly building networks, and this came to a screeching halt due to the outbreak. Then, Government operations were mostly manual, and only about 25% of the workforce was classified as essential. So, the Ebola outbreak led to the closing of offices. “Contracts ceased, and revenue vanished,” Oliver recalls.
He still remembers the silence in their office during that time. It was not the kind that comes from absence, but the kind that echoes uncertainty. They couldn’t pay their young team for months, but, fortunately, no one chose to walk away. “They stayed. They worked. They believed,” Oliver says.
Some days, they also could not afford fuel for the generator. Instead of giving up, they worked with the power they had in their laptops, charged from home. Other days, Oliver and his team wrote code on the whiteboard in their office or ‘squatted’ in hotel lobbies. “We were building the future without the assurance of a present,” he points out.
“But it was in that darkness that our brightest ideas emerged,” he adds.
They realized that if Liberia’s public services were digital, they wouldn’t need to shut down during national crises. That became their new north star. They soon pivoted from infrastructure to local, purpose-built e-Government and e-Governance platforms, designed by Liberians for Liberia. Between late 2015 and early 2017, they developed and introduced many firsts in the country. This included the first digitized work permit system for the Ministry of Labour, which automated every step from application to approval.
They also launched the first digital vehicle registration and driver’s license platform for the Ministry of Transport, as well as the first online Budget Management System for the Ministry of Finance, which remains in use today. Additionally, they were the first to introduce HR and payroll software tailored to Liberia’s tax code. This solution has been adopted by clients such as ECOBANK, GIZ, and LPRC, and has even been scaled to Sierra Leone, Ghana, and Nigeria.
“We didn’t just survive Ebola; we became architects of national resilience,” Oliver says.
Then in 2020, just as they were set to launch Advanced Converged Technologies LLC, the parent company of My Watchman™, the world was hit by another crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic. But this time, Oliver and his team were ready. They used the lockdown period as a live testbed, refining the My Watchman™ Emergency Response Platform under real-world pressure.
Oliver says that during the pandemic, there was a sharp rise in cases of sexual and gender-based violence. But victims had nowhere to turn, as reporting mechanisms were almost nonexistent. “We knew we had to act,” Oliver says. So, they built and launched an SGBV-specific emergency button on the My Watchman™ app, allowing at-risk women to alert responders silently and instantly. The International Rescue Committee and Irish Aid believed in the idea and piloted it with 150 subscriptions for women in six informal settlements across Liberia. Oliver also extended the service for free for an additional six months.
“These challenges, Ebola and COVID, could have broken us,” he says. “But instead, they revealed our true mission: to build systems that keep people safe, governments functional, and futures possible.”
From the challenging times, Oliver has learned that Crisis doesn’t break visionaries, it refines them. He believes that every challenge is an invitation to innovate, to serve more meaningfully, and to lead with greater purpose.
Building Hope, One Life at a Time
As a husband and father who travels frequently, Oliver wants peace of mind knowing his family is safe when he is away. He wants families to sleep at night without worry, knowing that help is just a button away. He also hopes to see children grow up in a Liberia where safety is no longer a luxury. Additionally, he wants young tech talent to realize they don’t have to leave the country to build world-class solutions.
On the global stage, Oliver is determined to prove that emerging markets are not charity cases. They are actually innovation goldmines. “What we build in Liberia can inform how emergency tech is deployed in Nairobi, Lagos, or even underserved areas in the U.S. and Europe,” Oliver points out. “My Watchman™ isn’t just Liberian, it is global innovation, born in Africa.”
He, however, acknowledges that My Watchman™ app has yet to gain widespread acceptance, particularly among those at the very heart of their mission: the everyday men and women at the bottom of the wealth pyramid who form the majority of Liberia’s population. But Oliver and his team are not discouraged or deterred by that.
They are executing a multi-pronged strategy to break down barriers to access. Through public-private partnerships with the government, they are embedding the app into national emergency response frameworks. They are also collaborating with international NGOs to drive inclusive research and leverage grant funding to reach underserved communities.
In addition to that, Oliver and his team are building shared-value distribution partnerships with telecom providers and insurance companies, making sure the app becomes more than just another download. Oliver expects it to become a life-saving tool bundled with services people already trust and use. “And through strategic investor engagement, we’re laying the foundation to scale continent-wide, because safety should know no borders,” Oliver says.
They have one clear goal: to ensure that no Liberian and no African is ever left alone in an emergency, simply because they couldn’t afford to be safe. “This isn’t just technology. It’s dignity. It’s equity. It’s the future we owe our people,” Oliver says. “We are not just building an app. We are building hope, one life at a time.”
Leadership Is Stewardship
Oliver helms two companies as CEO. For him, leadership means stewardship. He says it is about recognizing that vision alone is not enough. People, systems, and culture are needed to carry it forward.
My Watchman™ focuses on emergency response and public safety, while RoviaGate builds digital infrastructure and government systems. Oliver points out that the missions of the two companies are different, but the heartbeat is the same: to solve real problems using technology that’s practical, scalable, and local.
“Good leadership in this context means creating room for others to lead,” he says. “I am not obsessed with being the smartest in the room; I’m obsessed with building rooms where smart people want to stay, grow, and execute.” He hires for character first, then coaches for skill. Whether it is a dispatcher at My Watchman™ or a software engineer at RoviaGate, Oliver looks for people who take ownership and believe in the bigger mission.
Leading two growing companies can be demanding, but Oliver manages to do that effectively. He is also setting an example for others in executive positions. According to him, he has learned to stop chasing balance and start building rhythm. He structures his week around impact areas, not hours. Oliver devotes Mondays and Tuesdays to strategic planning and external meetings; Wednesdays are for product and innovation reviews; and his Thursdays and Fridays are focused on execution and team building.
Oliver also protects his mornings. For him, those first two hours are sacred. That is when he reflects, prays, works out, reads, and/or plans. And weekends are reserved for rest and family, even though he does sneak some alone time in the office. “I love the quiet of the office when I am alone in the building, it opens my mind,” Oliver shares. “Leadership is a mental sport, and without rest, you burn out fast.”
And, at least twice a year, Oliver plans trips to get away from it all. But he does not forget to carry his laptop with him. “Waking up without the ‘office pressure’ and opening your laptop on the beach, under a cabana, after a few drinks, makes me see ‘clearer’,” he says.
Designing for the Future
The technology space is witnessing a wave of radical developments. Oliver is most excited about the convergence of AI, connectivity, and public infrastructure. He explains that at My Watchman™, they are already integrating AI to predict response patterns and optimize dispatch routes. This is designed and led by and through BITS. BITS is leading the AI front, building AI infused Agri-solutions amongst many things. And at RoviaGate, they are preparing to launch a secure national identity and data fusion platform to help governments unify fragmented systems.
“We’re not reacting to the future,” Oliver says. “We’re designing for it.”
Advice for Aspiring Young Entrepreneurs
Many young Africans are dreaming of bringing new ideas and solutions to the technology space. Oliver advises these aspiring entrepreneurs to solve real problems. He wants them to build answers, not just apps, and to listen more than they pitch.
And Oliver encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to start where they are with what they have. “You don’t need a Silicon Valley budget to build a solution that changes lives,” he points out. “Also, be obsessed with impact, not applause. The world needs fewer influencers and more builders.”
