Global technopreneur and Founder of Facebook has told a Nigerian audience of App developers and local content builders that in spite of his fame and busy schedule, he still finds time to change diapers for his baby. He said his best Nigerian food was Jollof rice.
He stressed the need for local content development as a precursor for creating impactful value on the internet space. Mark Zuckerberg met with Nigerian app developers and entrepreneurs to listen and learn new ideas on how Facebook can better support technology development and entrepreneurs in Nigeria as well as help Nigerian engineers build to reach local and international audiences.
Zuckerberg who is in Lagos in his first ever visit to sub-Saharan Africa, said that he’s in Nigeria to learn about the startup ecosystem.
Speaking at a live press viewing conference, Zuckerberg said that it is high time people began to build apps like Facebook that will connect the world in one space, but for this to be done internet accessibility is very key.
Dressed in a simple T-shirt Zuckerberg showed his humanity when he said he was always touched by the testimonies of people who met him on the streets and other public places and announce to him in excitement that they met their spouses on Facebook and later got married. Some of such people, he said, would point at their children as proof of their union.
The low-point of Zuckerberg’s visit to Ngeria was that journalists were shut out from having an interactive session with the ICT billionaire whom the global media has helped to popularize. Organisers of the Zuckerberg visit strangely quarantined Nigerian journalists from the man who was being hosted barely 300 metres away from where he was having an audience with App developers. This restricted local journalists to only listening to the man that has charmed the world by his Facebook creation. They could not ask questions.
He added that while building cheaper and sustainable infrastructure is critical to internet accessibility, the networks have to be affordable, this way more people can be brought on board to access the internet, knowing the value it adds to them.
“In the next 10-15 years we hope to have everyone on the internet. The best way to predict the future is to create it,” he said.
He however reiterated the fact that for all these to happen, working with local content producers to build contents that will focus or work with the needs of the community/people is important.
The visit however, demonstrates to all Nigerian developers and entrepreneurs that they’ve caught the attention of the tech world and they’re capable of succeeding on a global scale.
