FACEBOOK CEO Mark Zuckerberg is visiting Nigeria this week on his first trip to Africa, using his time in the country to visit the Yaba technology hub in Lagos, meet with developers and partners, and explore Nollywood.
Zuckerberg is in Nigeria to listen and 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.
CcHub opened in 2011 and at the time didn’t even have an office. Five years later they fill three floors and the roof of a building. At CcHub people can learn how to code, developers can get help launching their first products, and find mentors and funding.
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 mobilizing blood donations, taking inventory of all blood available in the country, and delivering blood in the right condition to where it is needed.
After visiting CcHub Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, said:
“This is my first trip to sub-Saharan Africa. I’ll be meeting with developers and entrepreneurs, and learning about the startup 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.”
Meeting developers at Andela
Mark then went to Andela, an engineering organization 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.
Seni Sulyman, Director, Andela Lagos, said: “We are excited and honored 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.”
At the end of the day Zuckerberg stopped by an Express WiFi stand in Lagos owned by Rosemary Njoku. Facebook’s Express WiFi lets entrepreneurs like Rosemary set up a hot spot to help their community access apps and services built by local developers
This so called Zambian music they can’t even export such bubble gum music. Dununa reverse, Chikonko Mwikate just promoting hate.
We need to promote Tech ideas. Not hero worshiping politicians who just are interested to fill their bellies.
True ,zambia will never develop , all what people know is politicking , watch how many comments will be posted here,
Engineering requires thinking which most Zambian can’t do. They like yapping from without.
Most Tech projects have failed in zambia ; the so called INFMIS ,E -Governance ,sZamtel Fiber Optic are all white elephants.
There plenty opportunity in Tech Industry cutting across ; software dev,web , hardware ,networking which the youth can explore…but no initiative at all.
Its a pity.
Too funny. I waited to see if people would bite… Hahaha
Truth is there are some brilliant, young Zambians tech even forming groups to share and all they need is a shot. Load shedding doesn’t help, lol but they are there. Working away, creating, inventing and testing. One day we will regret ignoring their potential while still trying to claim them as ours.
Big market though in Nigeria. Increasing irresistible to many. My guess is East and South Africa will benefit next. Huge interest and support.
Gosh my typing brain is always affected by lack of coffee…
I am very disappointed with all the comments I have read regarding this topic except that of #3.1 A Phiri ana bwela.. They are just too negative and without thought. As individuals we should ask ourselves what it is we can ably do without waiting for the government to do it for us. If funding is a drawback, we have Zambian owned businesses that are doing well and I am sure if they are approached to assist with funding for a project that will add value to their operation, they will certainly consider the tendered RFF(Request For Funding). If you open your eyes, there are a lot of things that Zambians are doing that we must be proud of considering that our technology base is in it’s infancy. The examples are numerous starting with those in carpentry, construction, electrical wiring,…
These are things I have seen with my own eyes that are being done. The question to those that have commented is, what is it that you are doing or have done that makes you be so negative? If indeed you have made accomplishments, have you been to your former schools (Primary/Secondary/college/university) to talk about it and motivate the upcoming generation of would be engineers, scientists, etc.? Let’s be positive in our thinking. One Zambia One Nation.
EYES. How can you motivate people the government is even failing to just allocate 30% of the budget to the education sector. Primary and Secondary schools are poorly funded how do you tap talent. Even if we visit our former schools and give motivation talk it won’t help. I was listening to ZNBC radio 2 news that the government is about to procure computers to use for ICT exams for Grade 9s. This September. No hands on lessons to the students and exams are approaching.