Remember Ime Archibong? The tall, dark, hunk from Nigeria making waves at
Silicon Valley who made it possible for Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO to jog
on the Lekki-Ikoyi link bridge in Lagos last year? He has predicted that Africa
will produce its first Fortune Global 500 Company within the next 10 years. His
reason? Connectivity. According to Ime, Facebook’s VP Partnerships, it will be the inevitable
result of what happens when the economic power of the internet and the connectivity
in Africa collide.
While most of the 2016 Fortune Global 500 companies like Walmart, State
Grid, Sinopec, Apple, Shell, Volkswagen were from three areas of the World, the
US, Europe and East Asia, the continent with the largest population, Africa had
none. Ime believes this will soon end. According to him, ’We now live in a world where revolutionary
ideas can come from anywhere. Sometimes, all it takes is a connected person
with a good idea and nothing to lose.’ See the list of Fortune Global 500 companies here
For him, connectivity is a catalyst for strong economic growth and that’s
the very reason why nine out of every ten Fortune 500 company from 1955 is
gone. Disruptors like Amazon, Google, eBay, Salesforce, and Facebook merely in
existence for less than a decade, have taken over.
For Africa to produce its first Fortune 500 company though, it needs to
overcome three principle barriers to connectivity as identified by Facebook :
infrastructure, affordability and awareness.
Read Ime’s article on medium.com here
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