Chris Kwekowe- The 23 Year Old Entrepreneur Who Turned Down A Job Offer from Microsoft To Build His Startup

In August 2016, Chris Kwekowe was one of a number of young African innovators who had the chance to meet with Bill Gates. It was a TV interview, and Kwekowe had the stage to let the world into what made him such a remarkable person- notable enough to have a seat next to the world’s richest man. But the 23 year old education-technology entrepreneur decided to go against the script. He looked Mr. Gates in the eye and told him that he had turned down an offer from Microsoft, to pursue something he considered “more defining”- he knew what he wanted, and he was going after it. And it wasn’t a job with a ready-made global giant.

But what could have given him the guts to speak so confidently?

Kwekowe’s “more defining” engagement probably refers to Slatecube, a social startup which he set up with his brother Emerald in 2014, to help young Nigerians like him get equipped with the skills they need to get gainfully employed. The platform leverages on the links it has with such institutions as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Udemy, to train talents from the African continent and make them able to thrive in today’s business world.

Slatecube deals with a biting challenge. A large fraction of Nigeria’s youth is unemployed. Experts frequently cite the absence of requisite skills demanded by hiring firms as a leading cause of the high unemployment rate for this section of the country’s population. Slatecube helps to solve this problem by offering practical oriented courses and internships with startups for young Nigerians, and get them linked to jobs across the world.

The whole point for Kwekowe appears to be that helping Africans improve their career prospects- and therefore, their quality of life –is worth more than getting fat pay cheques from a world-renowned tech giant. He says he prefers a development path for Africa that involves “more sustainable investment in innovative social startups like Slatecube that solve some of the continent’s biggest problems”, to a strategy that only encourages dolling out aid to charity foundations.

Kwekowe, who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, also serves as brand ambassador for Intel; he says his work with them helps him communicate a message of self-belief and personal development to Nigeria’s youth.

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ikenna-nwachukwu

Ikenna Nwachukwu holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He loves to look at the world through multiple lenses- economic, political, religious and philosophical- and to write about what he observes in a witty, yet reflective style.

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