By The EastAfrican

More by this Author

This past week Facebook’s big guns in Africa descended on Nairobi for a week-long itinerary that saw an evening of networking at a women in tech event.

It brought together influential women working in Nairobi’s technology ecosystem and held the company’s first female-focused developer event in the country aimed at engaging women tech developers, founders, engineers, and academics.

Beyond technology talk however, the company on Thursday hosted a gathering of group leaders from some of Kenya’s largest and most diverse Facebook Group communities, representing a wide range of groups from parenting to leisure, non-profit, and media.

The objective of the meetup was to listen, learn and connect to strengthen the social media platform’s ecosystem in Africa, as they share moments and insights that matter most to them.

Facebook believes group leaders play a vital role in this, with their passion and dedication in helping to foster, form and strengthen communities.

According to Ime Archibong, Facebook’s vice president of Partnerships, “More than one billion people use Facebook groups each month,, and more than 100 million of them belong to ‘meaningful communities’ - which are groups that quickly become one of the most important parts of their social media experience and an important part of their real-world support structure. Our aim is to help more Kenyans find and join such meaningful communities.”

Groups have become an increasingly popular part on the social media universe over the past few years. They bring people together in personal, practical and powerful ways, creating new communities and strengthening existing ones.

“Facebook groups in Kenya range in focus from parenting and religious support communities to women in business to groups covering nearly every imaginable profession and hobby,” said Nunu Ntshingila, regional director, Facebook Africa.

“We are thrilled to spend time with group leaders from Kenya to find out how we can do more to support them.”

One of the largest groups in Kenya is Group Kenya led by Okaka Alfred with a community of 2.4 million members. Other groups represented were Let’s Cook Kenyan Meals, founded by Pamellah Oduor, with a community of 830,000 people.