LONDON, United Kingdom, August 30, 2016/ -- Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) (http://www.Facebook.com)
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 (http://www.LifeBank.ng) 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.
(Link to Mark's post: http://APO.af/eTWrly)
Distributed by APO on behalf of Facebook.
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