This archive report was first published on 6 August 2019.
August 6, 2019, Lagos, Nigeria - Basil Okpara Jr., a 9-year-old from Nigeria, has made a name for himself in the world of mobile gaming. Using the free programming application Scratch 2, he has built more than 30 mobile games.
Seated in a stylish living room of a home in a suburb of Lagos, Basil is tapping away on his laptop keyboard, building a hide and seek game. Scratch 2 allows users to create games, animations, and stories online or offline.
According to his father, Basil's interest in creating his games grew at age 7 after he got scolded for spending all of his time playing. His father, Basil Okpara Sr., bought him a tablet when he was 4 years old because he saw that he was always grabbing phones to play games with.
But Basil's interest in creating his games grew at age 7 after he got scolded for spending all of his time playing. His father said, 'you are always playing games, can't you think about building your own games so others can play yours too?'. I was angry when I said it, and I did not know he took it seriously.
Since then, Basil actively showed interest in learning how to make his own games, prompting his parents to buy him a laptop and register him to learn the first steps of building games. Basil, who wants to be a scientist in the future, titles his games based on what they are about.
One of his games, titled Frog attack, will be available to the public on Google play store in August. Africa has the largest youth population in the world, and like Basil, this population is taking the lead when it comes to innovation on the continent.
