From Cybercafé to Y Combinator: Achille Arouko’s Journey in African Tech
2 min read
Before building financial infrastructure for African businesses, Achille Arouko was an eight-year-old boy sneaking out of school to spend an hour in a cybercafé.
That early curiosity, driven by a need to find answers, set him on a path from self-taught programming in the Benin Republic to engineering school in France, connections in Silicon Valley, and eventually Y Combinator.
Arouko’s formative experiences with technology shaped his thinking and ultimately led him to Nigeria’s tech ecosystem.
He recalls growing up in the Benin Republic, where the most “technological” thing he had access to was television. His days were filled with watching TV, playing football, or hanging out with friends. Computers were not part of his world until one particular day at school.
When he was about eight years old, a man walked into his classroom, told him he was in the wrong class, and led him to the cyber class. Weeks later, the students were given a test on “cyber,” a term he didn’t understand at the time. He improvised his answers.
While the teacher marked the papers, an older boy offered to show him what “cyber” really was. They went straight to a cybercafé, paying roughly 300 CFA francs for an hour, where Arouko watched the boy use a computer and play Mario on Windows 5. That experience changed everything.
From that day, he constantly told his mother he had problems only a computer could solve, and she would give him money to return to the cybercafé. He sometimes lied about homework to spend more time there and even attempted to hack the café’s time counter to extend his sessions without paying.
For the first time, any question he had could be explored independently. He didn’t need a book or a teacher who shared his curiosity. He could simply type, search, and find answers, discovering that information was limitless.
About The Author
