Facebook Chief, Mark Zuckerberg, is in
Nigeria on his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa, using his time in the country
to visit the Yaba Technology hub in Lagos, meet with developers and partners
and explore Nollywood.
Zuckerberg says he will also listen,
learn and take ideas back to California on how Facebook can better support tech
development and entrepreneurship across Africa.
One of his first stops on the trip was to
visit a ‘Summer of Code Camp’ at the Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) in Yaba, known as
the Silicon Valley of Nigeria.
At CcHub, Zuckerberg met with developers
like Temi Giwa, who runs a platform called Life Bank that makes blood available
when and where it is needed in Nigeria. Life Bank saves lives by mobilising
blood donations, taking inventory of all blood available in Nigeria, and
delivering blood in the right condition to where it is needed.
After visiting CcHub, Mark Zuckerberg
said: “This is my first trip to sub-Saharan Africa. I’ll be meeting with
developers and entrepreneurs, and learning about the start-up ecosystem in
Nigeria. The energy here is amazing and I’m excited to learn as much as I can.
“The first place I got to visit was the
Co-creation Hub Nigeria (CcHUB) in Yaba. I got to talk to kids at a summer
coding camp and entrepreneurs who come to CcHub to build and launch their
apps. I’m looking forward to meeting more people in Nigeria”.
Mark then proceeded to Andela, an
engineering organisation that is building the next generation of technical
leaders in Africa.
Andela is a business that recruits the
most talented technologists in Africa and shapes them into world-class
developers through a four-year technical leadership program.
In the two years since it was founded,
Andela has accepted just over 200 engineers from a pool of more than 40,000
applicants.
Andela developers spend six months
mastering a technical stack and contributing to open source projects before
being placed with global technology companies as full-time, distributed
teammates, working out of Andela headquarters in Lagos and Nairobi.
Earlier this year, the Chan Zuckerberg
Initiative invested in Andela after being impressed by the company’s innovative
model of learning and its drive to connect the global technology ecosystem with
the most talented developers in Africa.
The Director of Andela Lagos, Seni
Sulyman, said: “We are excited and honoured to welcome Mark Zuckerberg to
Lagos. His visit reinforces not only his support of Andela’s mission, but his
belief that indeed the next generation of great technology leaders will come
out of Lagos, Nigeria and cities across Africa.
“Andela has created a platform for
passionate, driven software developers and engineers to break into the global
tech ecosystem, but the barriers to entry are still very high. Mark’s visit
demonstrates to all Nigerian developers and entrepreneurs that they’ve caught
the attention of the tech world, and they are capable of succeeding on a truly
global level”.
On plans to expound Express WiFi he said:
“This week, we’re launching a satellite into space to enable more entrepreneurs
across Africa to sell Express Wi-Fi and more people to access reliable
internet. That means more connectivity and more opportunity for entrepreneurs
like Rosemary everywhere”.
Zuckerberg’s presence has become the talk
of the day in Nigeria’s commercial city, with lots of ‘welcome to Nigeria’
messages on his Facebook page.
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