While basking in the added attention brought to technology in the country and continent and noting that Zuckerberg’s Facebook gospel isn’t the only way forward, I’ve noticed that most of the people with the clout and connection to do big things in the ecosystem are on here (or can be reached through acquaintances here).
So, I propose that we do a wish list of things to help the ecosystem grow so those who’re bringing in Zuckerberg, YCombinator, 500Startups and the like can look through these for ideas. Also, since the government was a bit slighted by his visit (or I think they are), we could be a unified voice when they come knocking to get into this “tech thing”.
I’d like it if we stick to the point and leave debates on other threads. Also, you could like posts you’d like to see sooner so whoever has that connect can make happen.
I’ll go first with the provision of building tools for especially students and other Africans. Something like the GitHub education pack. This should jump start a lot of development (outside any single entity’s garden) by providing free or discounted online infrastructure (the hubs already do this for physical ones).
I know not all students have an .edu.ng address (or your own country’s equivalent). We could ask government (NIRA?) or do it school by school.
Also not all international service providers might be interested so we could replace with Nigerian/African alternatives? Like Paystack (or any in the space) for Stripe, Gigalayer (and others like the Angani offshoot) for AWS (if AWS isn’t available).
What do you guys think? With @cyberomin, we might even do it with Github sooner than we think.