Mark Zuckerberg shares his plans for Africa’s future

By Nikita Geldenhuys

The South African press was invited to a screening of the session in Johannesburg. The event was part of a developer workshop to help Nigerian engineers build applications for local and international audiences. The workshop was one of a series held across the continent. 

Zuckerberg noted in the session that this was his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa. “I wanted to come to Lagos first because of the vibrant developer and entrepreneurial ecosystem that you have here,” he told the audience. 

“We’ve been doing town hall Q&As, sitting down with people in the Facebook community and hearing from them on how they use our services – and how we can do better. Here in Lagos, I wanted to not just sit down with people in our community, but sit down with developers and entrepreneurs. The reason for that is that there’s this energy here. You feel it as soon as you get off the plane. I think the world needs to see that.”

He referred to the changing conditions both in Nigeria and in Africa, as economies shift from resource-based to entrepreneurial and knowledge-based. “You guys are the ones leading that change, not only re-making Lagos and Nigeria, but shaping the whole continent and influencing how things are going to work around the world for the next generation.”

Responding to a question regarding the need to modify social platforms for emerging markets, Zuckerberg said that the company is customising its platform for these areas by allowing the Facebook community to translate the service. 

“There’s also a lot of technical work that goes into customising the service for different areas. We want to make sure that Facebook loads quickly for people that are on a 2G network, a 3G network, and a new LTE network. We have to make sure it works in all of these different conditions around the world.”

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which was launched by Zuckerberg and Dr Priscilla Chan, has made investments in the Andela training programme and Bridge International Academies in Africa. 

“The premise of Andela is that talent is evenly distributed around the world. Just because someone hasn’t had the opportunity to learn Engineering, doesn’t mean that they’re not going to be a great engineer,” he explained. 

“The Andela folks have basically built this programme to take you in a month or two from not knowing anything about Engineering to being a professional engineer, who can work with large companies around the world.” Zuckerberg foresees that the programme will train thousands of engineers on the continent.

 

Bridge International Academies is an education innovation organisation that designs technology-enabled, national syllabus aligned content and training programmes. These programmes help communities to deliver high-quality nursery and primary education to children. It operates in 460 nursery and primary schools across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and India.

On the question of Facebook’s plan for news media in Nigeria, Zuckerberg noted that of main importance is good content that represents all cultures and languages. “One of the things that I’m most excited about for my trip to Lagos is going to check out Nollywood. It sounds like a national treasure. I think the ability to produce content that is video, moving or emotional, will help tell a story that is not just entertaining to people here, but tells the story of the amazing entrepreneurship and culture that is going on here to the whole world.”

He noted that Nigeria is the biggest country on the continent for Facebook. It aims to help invest in connectivity in the country. “The more that we can do to help folks here to build the future, that’s the better that we can do. Does that mean we are going to have to invest more in the future? Yes, of course, we will.”