About Mark Essien

I’m the founder and CEO of Hotels.ng Hotels.ng - one of the biggest online hotel booking agencies in sub-saharan africa. I also founded HNG Internship, which is a free coder bootcamp - we’ve put more than 10,000 africans in coder jobs.

I’m also a coder - mostly C++, but a few other languages too.

I enjoy bike riding and tinkering with hardware.

I’m from Akwa Ibom State in Nigeria, which is also where I grew up.

I studied at the BHT in Berlin (B.Eng Computer Engineering), followed by the Freie Universität, Berlin (M.Sc Computer Science).

Prior to founding Hotels.ng I did iPhone apps. Before that I did a language learning site (Ingolingo), and before that a DirectShow Mpeg Encoder.

What I think is important

I think that pushing the bounderies of human understanding of the world is very important. There are still mysteries left in the universe that we must do our best to understand.

I also think it’s important to reduce human suffering in the world.

I think that everyone deserves a fair shot at being all they have the potential to be, without any structural obstructions placed in their way.

I think that the delta lies in aesthetics, and that beautiful design is one of the things we must always strive for.

Art I like

I am very fond of vocal jazz - e.g Billie Holiday. I mostly read Science Fiction. I watch a lot of good movies, mostly if they are speculative, e.g District 9