Seeing several tech founders like Jack Ma of Alibaba pay a visit to Kenya on July 20, and Mark Zuckerberg of a Facebook visit to Nigeria ending last year, and even the recent visit of Alphabet CEO, Sunder Pichai to Lagos at the Google Nigeria event are no small deals.
It means the world tech giants are ready to take a stake on African tech ecosystem. The focus is Africa with its diverse opportunities.
The rate of competent talents is increasing, from developers to business experts. Most of these talents have demonstrated to be world class.
Some have been recognized for speaking at an international tech conference, while others have developed and shipped favorite apps online. This alone has proved that Africa too can deliver what the world can use.
Also, the rapid rising of tech startups in Africa has shown the world that Africa understands tech business.
Companies like Paystack of Nigeria have provided payment solutions to several businesses. Recently Paystack announces that she has crossed N1bn monthly transaction volumes, this signifies the sustainability of their product and how people have widely adopted it.
Others like Jumia, Africa no one eCommerce store, Andela that has trained hundreds of developers and the rests have a good business model that is worth investing in.
Although the internet is still underserved in Africa, looking it on the other way it brings more opportunity for investment. With adequate funds, this problem can easily be alleviated, and more people can come online.
So far, Africa is a continent that is still in the developmental stage; its business can still be identified as a rough one that needs more touches for perfection, same also with it talents (people) and resources.
In other to level up we need support in all areas as to improve the tech ecosystem. Our startups need funding and more of world-class standard developers and business experts.
Facebook has partnered with Techcrunch to bring the startup battlefield to Africa. It’s a world startup competition that gives startup opportunity to pitch their business to renowned investors and successful startups have access to individual grants say $25000.
To know that this event has been adjusted to include Africa region shows that something good is coming out of Africa. The world is recognizing our strength, our products, our talents and they want to help us improve it.
This is the right time for Africa to buckle up and take full advantage of this and similar ones, to seize this as an opportunity to transform the tech ecosystem to the finished product.
The bottom line of every developing business lays opportunities, and business opportunity is so vast in Africa. But to unlock this opportunity, we need to transcend from developing to fully develop.
