Ghana: A high school graduate has developed a social network. What was his motivation? Find out now

Theafricanreporter.com interviewed a young Ghanaian programmer who has come up with a social network. It is actually the first from Africa developed by a high school graduate.

Emmanuel Apetsi – 20, is a Senior High School graduate from Accra Academy in Ghana who is willing to spark Africa with high programming knowledge and development. He is a self taught computer programmer which means he learnt the skill on his own.

He and his team launched WIZBOOK.NET – a platform that has been under development for more than a year – on 31st December 2015 in his room. He was motivated to develop this platform by Adsense who denied him on several occasions of their web ads service when he tried to apply with his former website cyberkonk.com.

Realizing that Adsense was not ready to accept his application for web ads, he shifted attention to improving his skills and learning social networking in order to create a platform that helps make communication between African countries easier and local, while making some revenue.

According to Emmanuel, a wiz is someone who is especially clever, as a result his social network wizbook is a collection of clever people.

When asked if the name was a copy of facebook, Apetsi said he would totally disagree with anyone who said so because, his book does not contain only faces but the individuals themselves who are especially clever at things.

He told us of the challenges he faced. His major challenge was the power crisis in Ghana termed “dumsor dumsor” which actually delayed the whole project. This crisis according to the Power Ministry of Ghana is over, however there are doubts. Despite challenges and discouragement from peers, Emmanuel never gave up.

In our interview, he always emphasized on craftsmanship and skills. He explained the reason when he said craftsmanship and skills are very important assets every African student should have because without them no work can be done. To prove this, he has developed wizbook, without furthering his education to a higher level.

Emmanuel who has not been to university, wants to see wizbook spearhead and blaze fast across the African continent in the coming years. He has ask the wizzes of wizbook to expect regular updates that will enhance better user experience, precision and speed.