Why Mark Zuckerberg Is In Lagos, Nigeria

FUNSHO AROGUNDADE

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and 7th richest man in the world is in Lagos, Nigeria.

Zuckerberg, in Sub-Saharan Africa, for the first time breezed in to Nigeria on Tuesday from a trip from the Vatican City where he was to get some face time in with Pope Francis.

The Facebook billionaire and his wife, Priscilla Chan came face-to-face with the Pope after flying to the country devastated by an earthquake that killed nearly 250 people.

On arrival in Lagos Tuesday morning, Zuckerberg visited the Co-Creation Hub (CcHub) in Yaba, Lagos.

While in CcHub run by Bosun Tijani, the Facebook founder engaged with students and was in apparent wonderment at children coding.

“Next stop: Lagos! 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,” excited Zuckerberg posted on his Instagram page.

He added, “Our first stop is 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 here!”

Zuckerberg has being engaging with Nigerian entrepreneurs and startups for a long time now.

In June, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative invested $24 million in Nigeria’s talent accelerator, Adela.

As its first lead investment, Mark Zuckerberg and Dr. Priscilla Chan’s social issues-minded fund is looking to help Andela train more engineers in Africa to get tech jobs.

In a statement, the Zuckerberg said, “We live in a world where talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity is not. Andela’s mission is to close that gap. Companies get access to great developers, and developers in Africa get the opportunity to use their skills and support their communities. Priscilla and I believe in supporting innovative models of learning wherever they are around the world—and what Andela is doing is pretty amazing.”

Seni Sulyman, Director, Andela Lagos, comment on Zuckerberg historic visit to Lagos, Nigeria: “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.”

Nearly a year ago, the Iyinoluwa Aboyeji-led Andela announced its Series A Funding round led by Spark Capital which was meant to maintain its Kenyan and Nigerian growth while also maintaining a high standard of operations.

Facebook also launched FreeBasics in Nigeria a few months back.

On Tuesday afternoon, Zuckerberg also stopped by at 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.

On Wednesday 31 August, there is going to be a Facebook Developers’ Event and expected at the meets are top developers from the Facebook team to show up with Zuckerberg chairing the event.