“I am hoping we can start talking about Tema (Ghana), Kogi (Nigeria), and Mombasa (Kenya). There are talents there too and I think they can be afforded the opportunities those in the major cities are being afforded today.”
These are the words of Nigerian Software Engineer, Babatunde Fashola who works at the headquarters of social media giant, Twitter.
In a submission during TIE Conversations Twitter Chat hosted by CTN Technologies’ Seraphine Akua Dogbey, he stated that this move would help develop more talents to contribute to the African tech scene.
He further noted that the continent was the exporting tech talents has been a great move so far, as it is contributing to the improvement of the economy.
However, retaining them to help solve the prevailing problem in their countries would be great because “Africans problems are best understood by Africans.”
Fashola tweeted “We are exporting our talents which I think is great. It makes money flow back into the country thereby improving the economy, somewhat.”
“What I truly would like to see is that we retain these people in our countries so they could innovate through our problems and proffer solutions. Good solutions stem from deep understanding of problems. Africans problems are best understood by Africans,” the Software Engineer added.
According to him, the prospects of growth for tech communities in Africa depends largely on government policies.
Speaking on whether the continent was ready for the fourth industrial revolution, Fashola responded positively.
He listed a number of areas that must be strengthened such as; infrastructure, data collection and protection etc…
Check out the full chat on our Twitter page @ctntech. Click here