10 year-old Malawian coder hailed at Facebook conference

Apr 15, 2016 Top News 113
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Panashe Jere

Panashe Jere, a 10 year-old Malawian app developer has been hailed for his achievements at the Facebook F8 conference where he also met Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Panashe created an app called Talk to Me which won the Smart Kid Category of the TNM Smart Challenge Competition.

Panashe Jere
The young Panashe Jere hailed.

The app converts input text into voice so children should always have someone to talk to. For winning the TNM competition, Panashe earned himself a trip to Silicon Valley in the United States of America where he met Zuckerberg who congratulated the young developer for creating the app.

Zuckerberg later posted on his Facebook account about meeting the young Malawian saying: “this guy started coding earlier than I did.”

The Facebook founder accompanied the words with a picture of him meeting a seemingly thrilled Panashe.

The boy is at Silicon Valley together with a team of three 22 year old Malawians – Walter Moyo, Thandie Magasa, and Daniel Mvalo ¬– who created Maternitech, an app that provides educational information aimed at combating Malawi’s high under-18 pregnancy rate.

The four have since met Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg who also congratulated them for creating the apps.

During the conference, the Maternitech team was also featured in an international livestream interview.

Facebook used its F8 conference this year to launch products developed by African coders.

The social network wanted the African developer’s to use Facebook’s global reach and scale to market their products globally.

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113 Comments

  14. ali bho….kma vuto kumalawi kukhomelerana…..nde osat munkhomelere mwanayoxo apa!!! GOD BLESS U KID

  17. Wopanga helicopter uja achemeleredwenso apa

  36. Author, that 10 year old is not a “coder”. Coding is not as easy as you think. Go to UNIMA & ask how many students enroll for computing and how many of those are able to write good quality code to solve real life problems.

  38. I like that boy, he is so creative I listened to his speech on the day of smart challenge gift presentation, he inspired me so much #keep blazing #malawi

    15. I think ada amenewa anabadwa ndi ufit wawo , simungayamikire kut mulungu akutionesera masomphenjenya kuzera mzeru za munthu wina , iwe osadabwa kut wina akupanga ndege sichitukuko chokhachokha chimenecho , sanje siimanga muzi bro, kwaine ndingot kip it up mulungu azikudalitsa

    16. I think ada amenewa anabadwa ndi ufit wawo , simungayamikire kut mulungu akutionesera masomphenjenya kuzera mzeru za munthu wina , iwe osadabwa kut wina akupanga ndege sichitukuko chokhachokha chimenecho , sanje siimanga muzi bro, kwaine ndingot kip it up mulungu azikudalitsa

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