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The location of the said new office is not clear yet and the social media giant seems not to be keen on revealing just yet. It is believed, however, that it would be revealed between now and next year. Facebook is, in the meantime, looking to hire a resident team of designers, engineers and developers. Beyond having easier access to the massive pool of talent that Nigeria has to offer, the over-arching goal of Facebook is to cover another billion users in the next few years and to achieve this, lesser covered areas of the globe like Sub –Saharan Africa and the MENA region. Within Africa, the main targets have been the bigger regional economies of Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. Before now, Facebook has been set about improving internet coverage to facilitate its goals in the region by partnering with telcos and service providers like MTN. For the past few years, it has been laying fibre cables across far distances to greatly improve internet coverage thanks to partnerships with internet infrastructure giants Main One in Nigeria.
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The establishment of an office would seem like a further reiteration of Facebook’s intentions in Africa. Before now, the company’s biggest engagement with Nigeria asides internet coverage was in the way of training and mentorship for the country’s top tech talents in NG-Hub, a platform where start-ups can be incubated and propagated. NG-Hub has been a product of a partnership with talent outfit, CCHub. It remains to be seen how much of an effect it would have on the tech talent pool especially as there is a dearth of jobs for many talented coders since Andela let go of many of its coding talents and with the COVID-19 pandemic in play, the economic downturn has bitten hard on many in the field. There is no telling if many would be absorbed by Facebook but if anything is true, it is that Nigeria has enough talent to sustain the new office. Featured Image Source: Technext NG
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