After establishing the first African office in 2015, Facebook has already made a number of investments across the continent to support the technological ecosystem. They have provided reliable connectivity infrastructures and help businesses grow locally, regionally and globally.
Some of these noble initiatives are- SMB Grants program in Nigeria and South Africa, which provides a combination of cash and ad credits to help over 900 small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the development of 2Africa, the world’s largest subsea cable project that will deliver much needed internet capacity and reliability across large parts of Africa and the ongoing training programs across the continent which support students, SMBs, digital creatives, female entrepreneurs, start-ups and developers.
With all these investments, Facebook has recently announced the opening of a new office in Lagos, Nigeria. As made known, the office will be home to several teams across the Facebook business which includes- Sales, Partnerships, Policy and Communications
In addition, the office will also be the first office on the continent with a team of engineers and the office will support the Sub-Saharan African region when it becomes operational in H2 2021.
According to Ime Archibong, Facebook’s Head of New Product Experimentation, “The opening of our new office in Lagos, Nigeria presents new and exciting opportunities in digital innovations to be developed from the continent and taken to the rest of the world.
In his words, “All across Africa we’re seeing immense talent in the tech ecosystem, and I’m proud that with the upcoming opening of our new office, we’ll be building products for the future of Africa, and the rest of the world, with Africans at the helm. We look forward to contributing further to the African tech ecosystem.” He added.
This new office which is as a result of the 2018 opening of NG_Hub, their first community hub space in Africa in partnership with CcHub, and the 2019 opening of their Small Business Group (SBG) Operations Centre in Lagos, in partnership with Teleperformance.
The SBG office supports small and medium businesses across Sub-Saharan Africa through community programs as well as marketing training programs, are all aimed at enabling SMBs to accelerate the growth and development of their businesses.