Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey impressed with Africa
BY ALAN GREEN
After a three-week, four-nation tour of Africa during which he met with high-tech operators and entrepreneurs, Twitter chief Jack Dorsey was so impressed he announced plans to move to Africa for three to six months as early as mid 2020.
From Ethiopia, the last stop of his African trip, Dorsey tweeted at 2:39 PM on November 27 from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport: “Sad to be leaving the continent…for now. Africa will define the future (especially the bitcoin one!). Not sure where yet, but I’ll be living here for 3-6 months mid 2020. Grateful I was able to experience a small part.”
The high tech executive’s trip, which started on November 8, took him to Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. Contacted by the press for more details on the plans, Twitter had no further comments as of today. However, speaking with CNN, Techpoint publisher Adewale Yusuf, who organized a meeting between Dorsey and tech publishers and entrepreneurs, said he was not surprised about Dorsey’s plan, adding that the American might not pick just one country: “He might shuttle between a few African countries. But I definitely think Nigeria will be one of the countries.”
While in Africa, Dorsey met with high-tech entrepreneurs and influential business leaders, including Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Twitter board member who formerly worked as managing director of the World Bank. According to CNN, software developer Dara Oladosu, who created the Twitter bot Quoted Replies aggregates comments on tweets, received a job offer after meeting company executives.
Dorsey, now a vocal advocate of Bitcoin, recently announced plan to integrete it into Twitter and Square, unsurprisingly met with Bitcoin entrepreneurs as well.
In Ghana, the team met with bitcoin entrepreneurs. Dorsey, who recently backed cryptocurrency startup, CoinList, has become a vocal advocate of Bitcoin and has said he plans to integrate it into Twitter and Square, his other venture.