Blossom Academy

Blossom Academy is a technology talent development company that recruits and develops African data science talent, with the goal of connecting them with job opportunities.

To create a new generation of African data scientists, Blossom Academy provides a skills-based curriculum, designed in collaboration with industry partners that is reflective of real-world experience. During the 12-week immersive program, students build analytical tools to address the challenges of businesses in their region and receive coaching in critical soft skills. The majority of the program is delivered virtually, which enables Blossom Academy to leverage its learning management technology for quick, accurate follow-up assessments.

"While 10 to 12 million youths enter the workforce each year [in Africa], only 3.1 million jobs are created, leaving vast numbers of youth unemployed." - UNDP

African markets represent an untapped, vast opportunity for many businesses and organizations, however, the lack of credible consumer and market data often makes it difficult to address societal challenges. A recent surge in digital innovations is changing this while creating opportunities for data science talent. 

Organizations that are looking to enhance their use of data and invest in internal data science capacity face a shortage of capable African data scientists. Businesses frequently resort to hiring data science consultants from outside the continent, due to the scarcity of competent local resources. A lack of formal educational opportunities is a key contributor to the shortage of proficient data scientists on the continent. As a result, aspiring data scientists are required to access costly online resources or are forced to pursue informal education pathways to develop their theoretical knowledge and practical experience. This further limits career prospects as employment opportunities are more readily available to those with formal qualifications, rather than individuals who are self-taught.

Target Demographics

Blossom Academy recruits Ghanaian talents with diverse backgrounds and guides them through a structured training program under several specializations in analytics. The ideal Blossom applicant is either a college student looking to increase her chances of employment or an unemployed graduate searching for immediate job opportunities.

According to the Trade Union Congress of Ghana, approximately 300,000 graduates are produced in Ghana every year. However, educational policy makers haven’t figured out yet how to best provide the practical skills needed in the growing tech job market. With a youth unemployment rate of 48% (World Bank, 2016), we see recent university graduates of quantitative and engineering backgrounds and/or interests benefitting most.

Current outcomes for graduates: 

• 92% of our graduates secure employment within 30 days of graduating from our immersive training program.

• Graduating students increase their earning potential by 4X to 6X, relative to that of the average Ghanaian salary.

• The ability to take advantage of opportunities within the emerging markets/economy to work remotely and outsource their technical talent within the African continent and abroad.

Student Offerings

Each month, we offer short training sessions, such as Data Analytics and Python Programming, for beginners. These sessions serve as talent pipelines for our 12-week Immersive Programs. For our advanced applicants, we offer training in Data Engineering and Machine Learning.  

Our Recruitment Process

Prior to joining Blossom Academy's Immersive Program, applicants go through an intensive two-week filtering process encompassing aptitude tests and in-person interviews. We then baseline the top students up front with a survey in order to segment them into different learning styles; (1) Visual Learners, (2) Auditory Learners, and (3) Reading/Writing Learners. They are then placed into small groups to take online courses, interact with instructors in virtual classrooms, and work on real-world projects at our local facility. Each student is also assigned an academic mentor.

• Student On-Boarding Document: https://github.com/blossom-academy/Blossom-Onboarding/wiki

Technology We Leverage

Throughout the program, we build personalized data-driven profiles of each student by collecting several data points as it pertains to their unique learning style, working preferences, and engagement with the course content. We also build machine learning models mid-way into the program to predict which projects our students would likely excel at and also predict whether they are on pace to graduate or not. Following the completion of training, graduates join our database of analytics professionals where they are exposed to targeted job opportunities and educational content based on their profiles. Due to our emphasis on a strong alumni community, our graduates also mentor the next cohort of students.

Reference Articles

https://techpoint.africa/2020/02/17/blossom-academy-profile

https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.datacamp.com/email/other/Blossom+Academy.pdf

https://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/startup-snapshot-ghanaian-company-training-a-new-generation-of-data-scientists/62742/

Unique approach

Blossom Academy differentiates itself by first identifying the data challenges of employer partners prior to designing its curriculum. The academy also uses a method of learning that combines traditional classroom experiences with real-time virtual sessions called ‘Blended Learning.’ This innovative educational hybrid challenges the traditional face-to-face learning used by most institutions. Students are introduced to the course content at home to review at their own pace. They also acquire the complex skills of a 21st-century analytics professional by working through a series of real-world projects sourced from local SME partners. 

We also build and train machine learning models mid-way into our talent development programs to (1) forecast the students who are not on pace to graduate, (2) provide tailored online educational content following the training program, and (3) share personalized job opportunities based on their performance on projects.

Surveys/Interviews with our target population:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGXu8a--a8c&t=16s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3KaSANCLAE&t=7s
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiK1pWYgEYY&t=3s

Third party research:

• https://s3.amazonaws.com/assets.datacamp.com/email/other/Blossom+Academy.pdf
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlt7r5EopZw

Theory of Change:

Our theory of change rests on the 3 pillars of our teaching philosophy: 1) Peer-to-peer learning, 2) mentor based learning, and 3) project based learning. We’ve found that the combination of these activities enhances students' abilities to understand and apply the knowledge they have learned. 

Within Blossom Academy, students are taught data science skills within the context of real world problems. Students are presented data sets to analyze in the form of labs throughout the duration of the course and apply techniques to help uncover hidden insights and answer key questions that resemble the same challenging questions faced by our employer partnering companies. 

The Blossom Academy training program maintains a holistic view of the training/curriculum development activities through job placement. Students are also exposed to soft skills training, resume workshops, and corporate etiquette sessions designed to help bridge the gap between academia and employment/entrepreneurship. By staying in tune with the challenges and pain points faced by companies across Africa and abroad, Blossom Academy graduates transition into our Blossom Analytics division equipped with the ability to provide immediate value to businesses.

Since our 2018 launch, we have directly trained 155 students. By the end of 2020, we expect to have trained an additional 320 students.

We are currently averaging 30 students per month for our beginner programs and 75 students per year for our immersive programs. At our current page, in one year, we are well-positioned to train at least 435 students in one training center. 

Over the next 5 years, we envision operating in 4 countries, with at least 3 training centers in each location. Based on our roadmap, we are positioned to directly recruit and develop way over 5,000 data scientists. 

By making our virtual session accessible online, we expect to indirectly train over 500,000 data scientists. 

Throughout the program, we build personalized profiles of each student by collecting several data points as it pertains to their unique learning style, peer ratings, and engagement with the course content. We also build machine learning models mid-way into the program to predict which projects our students would be most successful in undertaking. In the next year, we plan to automate this process through our learning management platform, thus exposing our graduates to targeted job opportunities and educational content on a rolling basis.

Over the next year, we plan to scale our operations to other parts of West Africa (specifically Senegal), expand our course offerings, and also pair our graduates with on-demand opportunities outside of Africa. Within the next 5 years, we forecast to be operating in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Nigeria- which brings our total addressable market to approximately 300 million. 

• Data Sensitivity 
• Knowledge Gap on the Executive Level
• Gender Balance 
• Expansion to Francophone West Africa 

Data Sensitivity - Local SME partners frequently grow concerned about their customer data getting into the possession of their competitors. We address this by censoring sensitive information from datasets before sharing with our students.

Knowledge Gap on the Executive Level - We periodically organize corporate workshops to educate executives on the importance of analytics for their organizations. This also helps increase career placement rates for our graduates. 

Gender Balance - We reach out directly to professors to recommend their best female graduates. We also partner/sponsor events focused on “Women In STEM” in order to attract more women applicants.  

Expansion to Francophone West Africa - An in-depth analysis of Github profiles reveals how under-represented Francophone West Africa is when it comes to tech talent. Although language will be a barrier, we've started upskilling local French speaking professionals virtually in order to conduct our training sessions. 

Not Applicable. 

Data is an integral part of every successful business. Regardless of industry, companies need to learn how to harness data to make critical decisions. Appropriately, we envision expanding our training programs to underserved markets in the United States where specifically immigrant populations will gain a robust and marketable skill set,.

The August 2018 LinkedIn Workforce Report found that there were more than 151,000 data scientist jobs going unfilled across the U.S, with “acute” shortages in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Coincidentally, these are cities with large immigrant populations. 

In addition to such a dire statistic, IBM estimates that more than 2.7 million data job openings are expected in the U.S by 2020, and the need for data-driven decision makers and functional analysts will be most acute. Democratizing data science for every underserved immigrant in the United States will help propel financial inclusion and increase economic equality.

Not Applicable. 

Full-time staff - 3

Part-time staff - 1

Contractors - 7

Prior to founding Blossom, CEO Jeph Acheampong (www.jacheampong.com) worked on Wall Street, where he advised multinationals on their data strategy. His role is centered around business strategy and partnerships. The  Chief Data Officer, Jeremy Banning, works as a Data Science & Analytics Senior Manager at United Technologies Digital Accelerator, where he develops machine learning models to identify high risk commercial airline jet engines susceptible to premature failure. His role is centered around co-curriculum development and project management. Our Programs Director,  Mercedes Asamani, and our Community Relations Manager, Lawrence Adjei Larbi, have both led high-impact program initiatives at the CommonWealth Youth Council and the United Nations. Their roles are primarily centered around program management, operations, and alumni engagement.

Advisory Team

Wale Akinfaderin - Senior Data Scientist, Duke Energy

Funmi Duro - Director of Data Engineering, BuzzFeed

Shingai Manjengwa - Technical Education Specialist, Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence

Bart Poulson - Founder, datalab.cc

Tian Zheng - Chair, Columbia University Department of Statistics

Based on our collective years of experience, amounting to over 50 years, and a deep local understanding of product relevance and scalability, we are committed to training one million African analytics professionals and connecting them to decent work by 2030.

Our trusted partners include:

• Microsoft 4Afrika - As part of the Microsoft SkillsLab, we are provided with educational resources and Microsoft professionals to enhance our programs.

• Expo 2020 Dubai - We were awarded a $100,000 grant in 2019 to help fulfill our vision of training 1 million African analytics professionals and connecting them to decent work by 2030. 

• The International Labour Organization - We are a commitment maker of the Decent jobs For Youth Campaign, a global initiative to scale up action and impact on youth employment in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

• The University of Ghana, Legon - We work with professors and the career center to recruit graduates directly from the university.

• DataCamp - We partnered with DataCamp for access to their premium educational content. Every student who goes through Blossom Academy automatically gets a one-year subscription.

• Datalab.cc - We partnered with datalab.cc to provide world-class data science online courses to African youth across the continent. 

Our business model is structured as follows: 

Training Program - Students learn analytics skills via several specializations

Community - Graduates join our network, where they are connected to on-demand job opportunities across Africa, and ultimately, globally. We also periodically engage them in alumni events. 

Digital Nomads - Graduates, also known as consultants, can take advantage of opportunities within the emerging markets/economy to work remotely and outsource their technical talent within the African continent.

Our two-sided business model aims to share the cost of training between our students and employers. Students  pay a subsidized fee for our training programs. We surveyed students from our pilot program and graduates across Ghana, who are receptive to this model. Our employer partners pay a fee for access to vetted graduates. Each employer we work with has a major pain-point that goes unsolved; their inability to extract relevant insights from data. By offering them graduates at a lower cost than previously possible, we help them become data-driven. 

Near future revenue streams will come from a flat fee in two areas;  (1) corporate offerings and (2) freelance platform, where we plan to take a small commission fee from each worker’s payment. As we scale into other markets, we anticipate securing grants to make the expansion as smooth as possible. 

Partnering with the Digital Workforce Challenge:

The main focus of applying for the challenge is to get the capital and mentorship required to increase the number of students trained and workshops offered; in order to achieve this there is a need for additional personnel under several focus areas such as program management, curriculum development, and leadership development.

Additionally, expertise on a contractual basis are required to support and assist in the student training programs. Every weekend, several students from the Volta Region of Ghana commute for more than 10 hours for our Saturday class sessions. To make our immersive training program accessible to youth in rural areas, Blossom Academy will allocate part of the funding to expansion. This will be made possible and be cost effective through partnerships with local universities. 

We would be very interested in partnering with the MasterCard Center for Inclusive Growth for access to additional capital (social capital and financial capital) and The Rockefeller Foundation for access to opportunities for our graduate and for support in scaling to other markets. We are specially intrigued by their new partnership; https://data.org/.