African innovation and talents still need exposure to the outside world as the picture presented of Africa is often not the real situation on the ground, according to one of the bosses of social network Yookos.
In an interview with HumanIPO, Yookos’ chief executive officer (CEO) Tomisin Fashina. said this was one of the reasons behind Africa’s largest homegrown social network was created in 2011.
“There is a lot happening in Africa that is lacking exposure. We have made Yookos the voice of Africa, offering African values and opinions to the rest of the world. We are looking to provide Africans with a platform for expressing themselves,” said Fashina.
So far, it looks like the social website is well on its way to achieving this objective, having more than 15 million users.
The majority of users of the social site are from Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda and Kenya.
One of the most unique features of Yookos is that it integrates all the interesting features from other sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – acting as a supposed “one-stop shop” for social networking as far as social networking is concerned.
Yookos’ two and a half year journey started from a church. It was a church online platform that was used to network and to encourage prayer among people.
After some time it started attracting people from outside and, seeing its potential for growth, the founders decided to change it to include the rest of Africa and the world.
This would necessitate some changes in terms of expansion and the group hired developers from the United States and the United Kingdom to work on the site and make it bigger and better.
Now it is a corporate entity with operational headquarters in South Africa and employing 60 people, including six in Lagos and five in London.
Yookos is present in more than 160 countries and still growing.
“We are a growing site and we are looking to increase our database. Our major focus is mainly on Africa, but we are not limited to Africa,” said Fashina of their plans to expand.
To reach as many people as possible and for convenience, Yookos is also available on the Android and iOS platforms and now people can access the site on their smartphone, tablet or any other gadget.
