Facebook dominated the news in Africa last week as founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made his first trip to the continent, visiting start-up hubs and entrepreneurs in both Nigeria and Kenya.
By all accounts, he was suitably impressed with the level of innovation, passion and ideas that he encountered. He chose
Nigeria as his first stop as it has the largest Facebook audience on the continent: 18 million users; as well as for its entrepreneurial energy and potential, he said in an address to entrepreneurs, streamed live.
His core message was to go out there and "create"; and he wanted to emphasise the importance of the internet and accessibility. He said: "The world needs to see the energy here. In Lagos, and across the continent, things are shifting really quickly from a resource to knowledge-based economy. This story and the entrepreneurial spirit in the country and continent is under appreciated by the world. There is a vibrant developer and entrepreneur ecosystem that exists in this country."
Zuckerberg added Kenya to his itinerary to see how technology innovation is changing the country; learn more about what mobile entrepreneurs are doing with the latest technology; and find out how Facebook can better support small businesses, developers and content creators across growing markets. He visited
Kenya's iHub and The Community Space. He was reportedly impressed by how engineers there were using mobile money to build businesses and help their community.
Have a great week!
Louise Marsland
Africa Editor: Bizcommunity.comComment online in our ed's column archive. Go mobile with apps and m.bizcommunity.com. Engage with us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. Subscribe to YouTube and via RSS. Send all your African marketing and media news and event invitations to africanews@bizcommunity.com, exclusive opinion pieces to contributors-africa@bizcommunity.com and international news to internationalnews@bizcommunity.com. Read "How to contribute to Biz, from op-ed pieces to news".
