The man does have a thing for surprise visits. After his two-day two-day visit to Nigeria that saw him tour the Yaba tech ecosystem, Mark Zuckerberg is now in Kenya.
Mark first stopped over at iHub Nairobi to check out some of the stuff the engineers there are building. According to his Facebook status from an hour ago, “Just landed in Nairobi! I’m here to meet with entrepreneurs and developers, and to learn about mobile money — where Kenya is the world leader.”
And those Kenyans don’t even waste time – they’ve already put him on their local food. Here’s Mark eating lunch with Joseph Mucheru, the Kenyan Cabinet Secretary of Information and Communications. He’s having something called ugali with a whole fried tilapia, and he’s eating with his fingers.
Mark Zuckerberg’s African Tour (I’m calling it that) is not just a validation of the Nigerian or Kenyan tech ecosystems, it’s a validation of the African tech ecosystem as a whole. We’re not just being recognised by having our startups get into Silicon Valley programs, SV founders are making trips down here. This is something many of us have wished for and to see it finally happen is amazing.
If I were to make a bet on Mark’s next stop, I’d say South Africa.
