How a chance meeting with Twitter bosses landed a Nigerian developer his dream job
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Lagos, Nigeria – The Co-Creation Hub
in Lagos, Nigeria's most populous city, holds so-called tech-In series,
where software developers and designers try to create new web and
mobile based solutions to social challenges affecting the everyday lives
of Nigerians over the course of two days.
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Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Accra, Ghana – The Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, or MEST, in Ghana's capital Accra provides training, investment and mentoring for aspiring technology entrepreneurs.
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Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – Located in Tanzania's largest city, Kinu
aims to be an open space where Tanzania's tech community can
collaborate, and make a joint effort to find new solutions to social
challenges.
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Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Kampala, Uganda – In the heart of Kampala is Hive Colab,
a community-run innovation hub which offers co-working space. It's a
place where tech entrepreneurs, web and mobile app developers, designers
and investors can meet, nurture ideas and get them off the ground.
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Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Monrovia, Liberia – Recovering from a recent, bloody history of conflict, Liberia is turning its attention to tech. Monrovia's iLab offers
free training in information and communications technology and serves
as a meet-up space for a range of tech enthusiasts and professionals.
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Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Nairobi, Kenya – Africa
is experiencing increased investment in its tech industries. One
contributing factor is the amount of tech hubs in the major urban
centers that are sprouting. According to research from GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator in 2016 there were 314 active tech hubs across the continent.
Part of the appeal of tech hubs is that they provide affordable shared office space, fast internet, and access to reliable electricity, something that the continent overall still grapples with. Nairobi Garage in Kenya's capital offers all of these things, and holds tech events, conferences and workshops helping entrepreneurs gain new skills. Also in Nairobi, iHub tech incubator lists more than 150 companies that can trace their origins to ideas sparked there.
Part of the appeal of tech hubs is that they provide affordable shared office space, fast internet, and access to reliable electricity, something that the continent overall still grapples with. Nairobi Garage in Kenya's capital offers all of these things, and holds tech events, conferences and workshops helping entrepreneurs gain new skills. Also in Nairobi, iHub tech incubator lists more than 150 companies that can trace their origins to ideas sparked there.
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Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Durban, South Africa – Over
50% of tech hubs are in five countries, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria
Egypt and Morocco. One of the biggest in South Africa is Durban's SmartXchange,
which strives to develop small and medium enterprises, and holds
monthly forums where successful business figures offer advice to
aspiring entrepreneurs.
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Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Cape Town, South Africa – Cape Town-based RLabs
organizes digital and entrepreneurship bootcamps, and provides an
investment of up to $20,000 for every social enterprise developed
through their program.
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Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – The east Africa nation's capital is home to iceaddis
which supports youth-driven private sector initiatives and promotes
interaction between techies, entrepreneurs, investors and people from
the creative industries.
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Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Lagos, Nigeria – The Co-Creation Hub
in Lagos, Nigeria's most populous city, holds so-called tech-In series,
where software developers and designers try to create new web and
mobile based solutions to social challenges affecting the everyday lives
of Nigerians over the course of two days.
Hide Caption
5 of 9
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Accra, Ghana – The Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, or MEST, in Ghana's capital Accra provides training, investment and mentoring for aspiring technology entrepreneurs.
Hide Caption
6 of 9
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – Located in Tanzania's largest city, Kinu
aims to be an open space where Tanzania's tech community can
collaborate, and make a joint effort to find new solutions to social
challenges.
Hide Caption
7 of 9
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Kampala, Uganda – In the heart of Kampala is Hive Colab,
a community-run innovation hub which offers co-working space. It's a
place where tech entrepreneurs, web and mobile app developers, designers
and investors can meet, nurture ideas and get them off the ground.
Hide Caption
8 of 9
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Monrovia, Liberia – Recovering from a recent, bloody history of conflict, Liberia is turning its attention to tech. Monrovia's iLab offers
free training in information and communications technology and serves
as a meet-up space for a range of tech enthusiasts and professionals.
Hide Caption
9 of 9
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Nairobi, Kenya – Africa
is experiencing increased investment in its tech industries. One
contributing factor is the amount of tech hubs in the major urban
centers that are sprouting. According to research from GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator in 2016 there were 314 active tech hubs across the continent.
Part of the appeal of tech hubs is that they provide affordable shared office space, fast internet, and access to reliable electricity, something that the continent overall still grapples with. Nairobi Garage in Kenya's capital offers all of these things, and holds tech events, conferences and workshops helping entrepreneurs gain new skills. Also in Nairobi, iHub tech incubator lists more than 150 companies that can trace their origins to ideas sparked there.
Part of the appeal of tech hubs is that they provide affordable shared office space, fast internet, and access to reliable electricity, something that the continent overall still grapples with. Nairobi Garage in Kenya's capital offers all of these things, and holds tech events, conferences and workshops helping entrepreneurs gain new skills. Also in Nairobi, iHub tech incubator lists more than 150 companies that can trace their origins to ideas sparked there.
Hide Caption
1 of 9
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Durban, South Africa – Over
50% of tech hubs are in five countries, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria
Egypt and Morocco. One of the biggest in South Africa is Durban's SmartXchange,
which strives to develop small and medium enterprises, and holds
monthly forums where successful business figures offer advice to
aspiring entrepreneurs.
Hide Caption
2 of 9
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Cape Town, South Africa – Cape Town-based RLabs
organizes digital and entrepreneurship bootcamps, and provides an
investment of up to $20,000 for every social enterprise developed
through their program.
Hide Caption
3 of 9
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – The east Africa nation's capital is home to iceaddis
which supports youth-driven private sector initiatives and promotes
interaction between techies, entrepreneurs, investors and people from
the creative industries.
Hide Caption
4 of 9
Photos: The African tech hubs fostering innovation
Lagos, Nigeria – The Co-Creation Hub
in Lagos, Nigeria's most populous city, holds so-called tech-In series,
where software developers and designers try to create new web and
mobile based solutions to social challenges affecting the everyday lives
of Nigerians over the course of two days.
Hide Caption
5 of 9
Lagos, Nigeria (CNN)A
Nigerian software developer has landed a job at Twitter following a
chance meeting with the company's executives during a visit to the
country last week.
Dara
Oladosu met Jack Dorsey, who was on a "listening and learning tour" in
Africa with other Twitter executives and met with members of Nigeria's
tech community and business executives.
One of their first stops was a meeting with tech publishers where Oladosu's app, Quoted Replies, a Twitter-based bot that helps users collate quoted replies to tweets was discussed.
Oladosu was not on the initial invite list for the event held at TechpointNG but a last minute invitation ensured he got to meet the Twitter bosses.
"Titi...the
person that interviewed me for the Techpoint articles got me a pass to
the event Jack was at. She asked if I could make it there and
coincidentally I was on leave at work at the time so I made it before
the event ended," Oladosu told CNN.
Impressed
by his work, Dorsey and his team including Kayvon Beykpour, Product
Lead and co-founder of Periscope, Parag Agrawal, Chief Technology
Officer, and Mike Montano, Engineering Team Lead invited him to join
them.
"Someone from the audience
was talking about the bot when I got to the event. So, when the person
finished, Titi introduced me as the developer who built it. I got the
microphone and explained what Quoted Replies was about and how I built
it," Oladosu said.
In a video from
the event, Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter's Product Lead said the team is
willing to implement Quoted Replies on Twitter as a feature and would
like Oladosu to join the team to work on it.
"Thank
you for building that bot... We need to do it and I will love for you
to maybe consider joining the company and help us," Beykpour said in the
video.
For Oladosu, the job offer is a dream come true.
"Twitter is one of my dream places to work because I have a lot of ideas that I'd like to implement," he said.
"I have checked their career page multiple times in the past looking
for opportunities. This is like giving me what I want on a platter of
gold," he added.
Now, he says he
wants to work with the Twitter team build a native quoted replies
feature. "A native feature means that you won't need to use the bot
anymore. You'd just have options on the app or on the website to view
quoted replies," he said.
Twitter declined to comment on the job offer, when contacted by CNN.
In December 2018, Dara Oladosu built the Quoted Replies bot
Oladosu, 27, built his now-viral bot in 2018, allowing users to track all the quoted responses to their tweets.
Oladosu
who currently works with Facebook-backed tech development company,
Andela, says he was inspired to create Quoted Replies when he realized
people were interested in a platform to aggregate quoted comments to
their tweets.
"I stumbled on the
fact that I could use the search bar to locate quoted tweets... I
started to research how to create a bot to do this so that I wouldn't
have to show people how to do it all the time. I wanted them to be able
to use it without coming to me," he told CNN.
In 2015, Twitter revealed its "retweet with a comment" feature where users can directly quote tweets with comments.
Oladosu
says he got the bot running in December 2018 but had to make a lot of
modifications to it because Twitter initially marked it as a spam bot.
It
eventually became popular in July 2019, and according to him, in
October, the bot got 46.2 million impressions. CNN has been unable to
independently verify this figure.
Quoted Replies also has an Android and IOS app built by Oladosu's friends -- Hamza Fetuga and Abdulhafeez Sagaya.
Oladosu
says he is excited about building on his already existing work with
Quoted Replies with the Twitter team. "I feel overwhelmed. I have a lot
of ideas they could potentially implement down the road too," he said.
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