African Coding Network

African youth unemployment is high, while the rapidly growing tech sector struggles to find the local skills it needs. Tech training opportunities in Africa are too few, and those that do exist exacerbate inequality, excluding women, the poor and those without access to the internet and devices.

To address the tech skills AND inequality gaps, the African Coding Network aggregates and supports three key stakeholder networks - Youth, Coding Schools, Employers - and establishes a shared-value marketplace between supply and demand. 

We support young Africans to select quality learning-to-earning pathways, train in in-demand digital skills and accelerate their careers in tech.  

This youth-centred talent pipeline approach focuses on the end-to-end support needed to get African youth economically active in tech careers, at scale.

Youth account for 60% of Africa’s unemployed. The youth population is expected to double by 2050. Africa needs to meet the current and growing future needs of economic activity for African youth.

One economic opportunity exists in Africa's rapidly growing technology sector, where the need for local tech skills is growing. Yet, traditional education is failing to keep pace with the growing tech skills needed. Existing opportunities exacerbate inequality, favouring males, financially excluding the poor and benefitting those few with access to the internet. 

Specifically, it’s no secret that women experience exclusion from STEM careers. This is true even in highly developed countries, and to a much greater extent in Africa. Male-dominated social structures and cultural gender stereotypes erode women’s confidence and create barriers to entry. Women in the field are often discouraged by constant discrimination, sexism and lack of support, and attrition is high.

Addressing the tech skills AND inequality gaps, the African Coding Network aggregates and supports three key stakeholder networks - Youth, Coding Schools, Employers - and establishes a shared-value marketplace between supply and demand:

• Select: Generating awareness of tech careers with African youth - specifically marginalised youth and women. Identifying high-potential, underserved talent, and guiding them toward the right tech learning opportunities. 

• Train: Linking youth to African coding schools, and enabling schools to deliver high-quality training programmes through open-source edtech training software and curated curriculums. 

• Accelerate: Meeting scarce skills needs of the market, by linking work-ready youth to economic activity, be it local, global or self-employment. 

The youth-centred talent pipeline approach focuses on the end-to-end support needed to get African youth economically active in tech careers, at scale. African Coding Network introduces unique features to the tech skills development landscape that address multiple challenges simultaneously, including youth unemployment, tech skills shortages AND issues of gender inclusion/access. Our method uses remote, asynchronous, peer-led learning, removing many obstacles faced by women. Learning in their own time accommodates domestic demands. Women are empowered by the modular format, which provides positive feedback and helps dispel crises of confidence often experienced in classroom environments.

Our key focus is to ensure programmes don't only focus on the skills gap, but the inequality gap too. We are working to increase access to tech careers for marginalised African youth. Emphasis is placed on African women. A secondary focus group is displaced youth, whether they are internally displaced, economically displaced or politically displaced (refugees). Other marginalised groups, such as those with disabilities, LGBTQI and economic minorities will also be prioritised. 

The youth-focused pipeline views the integration of an understanding of youth needs as a key element every step of the way, to inform how we build and iterate local and regional support on a case-by-case basis. Each phase for the pilot is set up to test key assumptions about youth and gain insights in a hypothesis-driven, evidence-based approach: 

Select

1. Through digital marketing and “youth challenges”, youth learn about careers in tech. Through these campaigns and challenges, we’re testing how to reach marginalised youth segments, and whether or not they know of, and are interested in, tech careers. 

2. Youth with whom a career in tech resonates can indicate interest to receive more information, take short courses and are invited to apply to a programme. As part of the application, youth complete a survey telling us more about themselves, their context, baseline and aspirations. 

Train

1. Marginalised youth who score well on our aptitude test are invited to a part-time remote learning programme, supported by the African Coding Network, and delivered in partnership with Coursera and Grow with Google. These programmes are short, with a lower barrier to entry. The four selected courses (IT Support, Automation with Python, UX Design, Data Analytics) teach basic and in-demand tech skills that can lead to immediate entry-level economic activity in the digital economy as well as prepare candidates for more advanced, professional training offered by local coding schools. We assess the ability of youth to participate, gathering feedback along the learning journey to understand drop-out and success rates. 

2. Youth who show strong ability to learn and progress are invited to further upskilling, in a full-time, professional Coding School tech training programme (Web Development, Data Engineering, UI/X Design, Data Science) accredited with the African Coding Network. Learners receive a monthly stipend to supplement living costs and cover the cost of data and devices, to remove barriers to learning and the potential opportunity cost of studying full-time. The edtech platform tracks their performance, flags learners falling behind and matches learners based on their strengths. 

Accelerate 

1. Many youth, from both the Grow with Google programme and Coding School programmes, will likely go on to finding economic opportunities to apply their digital skills. A small portion will be guaranteed work experience, as part of the pilot programme and ecosystem development, to build confidence with employers and create a strong proof of concept. These initial sponsored opportunities will be used to crowd in employer partners to host, and pay for, further work experience opportunities. This is a key step, to understand how youth manage to integrate into roles. 

Solves focuses on digital inclusion, not only on unlocking the potential - '$6.7 trillion’- but recognising its ability to ‘lift 500 million people out of poverty’. 

However, we’re narrowing in on what we believe to be the biggest economic opportunity for digital inclusion in Africa: tech skills. We believe the gateway to digital inclusion starts with tech skills, where digital products and services built for Africa are made in Africa, with a deep understanding of local contexts and unique needs, while capturing the full potential of the sector's economic growth, with the fruits shared in an inclusive manner.

Umuzi has been training in digital and tech skills for over a decade in South Africa. We've built processes, systems and technologies that have allowed us to become an industry leader for empowering marginalised youth with digital skills in South Africa. 

As Africa's tech industry grows, so too does the demand for skills. In order to scale our impact to reach more marginalised youth, bridging the skills gap will tackling inequalities in tech, we formed the African Coding Network. 

We've embarked on the journey to empower others to deliver the same high-quality tech training that has become a benchmark in South Africa. This scalable approach creates an indirect impact- where our organisation enables training, rather than being solely responsible for the training itself. 

Tested model in South Africa, now in pilots across multiple countries in partnership with Unicef, GIZ and Google.org, we're confident that we're now entering the growth phase. 

African Coding Network introduces unique features to the tech skills development landscape, addressing multiple challenges simultaneously: youth unemployment and disengagement; tech skills shortages in companies; gender imbalance in STEM careers; and socio-economic inequality in access to tech careers. This happens via:

Potential to scale: Our collaborative, partner-driven approach with a distributed network reaches more youth, creates more opportunities. This systems-driven view, leading to indirect impact, is highly scalable. 

End-to-end youth support: This is not stand-alone training. We’ve learned that effort must go into supporting youth end to end - Selecting, Training and Accelerating - to ensure economic activity. 

Open source: The EdTech platform enables local coding schools to efficiently and effectively transfer hard and soft skills to produce work-ready learners, via (i) quality of content; (ii) collaborative code review; and (iii) management and reporting.

Multi-stakeholder: With a focus on creative value for Youth, Coding Schools and Employers, each stakeholder is incentivised to work collaboratively to a functioning ecosystem or marketplace. 

Our proprietary award-winning EdTech platform has supported three coding schools to deliver professional tech training in Nigeria and South Africa, with >500 learners. The technology reduces the costs of training professional developers, increases the quality of training and expands access to tech careers for learners outside of major tech hubs. Our platform facilitates remote, asynchronous and peer-driven learning, enabling learners to work from anywhere, at their own pace, collaboratively. It allows coding schools to offer training to more people without the need for expensive office space, equipment, or additional staff.

Current (pilot, evidence generation): 

• 50,000 African youth engaged, with an improved awareness of in-demand tech careers 

• 5000 learners' aptitudes assessed and needs mapped, focused on marginalised youth

• 2,500 learners in a basic training programme (assisted Grow with Google professional certificates)

• 50 learners in professional training programmes

• > 50% economically active post-training

• Partnered with 3 coding schools

Countries:

Partnerhsips: 

Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria (biggest tech sectors)

Learners From: 

Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, Ghana, Morocco, Tanzania, Ethiopia 

One year (Growth): 

• 1,000,000 Engaged + Awareness 

• 50,000 Assessed + Mapped

• 50,000 Basic training (GwG)

• 1,000 Professional training 

• 10 Coding Schools Supported

• 65% women representation 

• > 50% (conservative) economically active post-training

Countries (partnership):

Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya, Burundi, Ghana, Tanzania, Ethiopia 

Five years (Scale) 

• 10,000,000 Engaged + Awareness 

• 100,000 Assessed + Mapped

• 500,000 Basic training (GwG)

• 10,000 Professional training 

• 100 Coding Schools Supported

• 65% women 

• > 50% (conservative) economically active post-training

Select:

• Proportion of youth applying not in education, employment or training.

• Proportion of youth applying considered marginalised by: gender, displacement, ethnicity (country dependent) and disability. 

• Marketing metrics test reach to marginalised youth target audiences.  

• Standardised assessment test reveals the correct entry point to training for each high-aptitude candidate. 

Train: Tech Education Management Team uses our Edtech platform to monitor all applicants and learners’ progress. Key metrics:

• attendance (participating in daily stand-ups)

• learner activity (starting and completing tasks)

• learner performance (number of tasks completed, up to standard, below standard)

• peer-to-peer support (number of peer code reviews done)

• professionalism (any concerns from peers or managers re poor work, attendance, communication, behaviour)

• regular online tests (to demonstrate skills)

• Manager evaluations (pair programming exercises check learners are mastering their work, and highlight areas where they might be struggling)

Accelerate:

Youths:  

• Comparire pre-training (applicants) to post-training (in work): Proportion of people living below 50 per cent of median income, by age, sex and persons with disabilities

• Youth placed in work within 1 month of completion.  

• Youth career growth within 1, 5, 10 years based on salary growth as an indicator. 

• Employment rate, by sex, age and persons with disabilities of learners post-training. 

Employers: 

• Compare: Average hourly earnings of female and male employees, by occupation, age and persons with disabilities;

• Follow-up with employers post job placement to identify learners’ strengths and weaknesses, which informs the training curriculum and programme. 

• Compare: tech stacks taught vs tech stacks used at employers s a ratio. 

33, full time. 

8, part-time. 

Umuzi has over a decade of experience supporting marginalised youth to select, train in and accelerate their digital careers. 

We’ve deeply understood both sides of the story - the skills the employers are looking for, and the challenges marginalised youth face to get them. We’ve incorporated these lessons into our innovative EdTech solution, and are ready to share best practices, processes and ways of working to enable African coding schools to support many more marginalised African youth.

Our coding-specific open source EdTech platform is a first of its kind, unlocking youth tech skills in an equitable learning environment, designed for bringing marginalised youth into professional work. 

Our partners illustrate the quality of our work. We’ve played a crucial role in supporting UNICEF/GIZ’s yoma project. Piloting as a key partner in Unicef’s yoma project also has the potential to unlock scale aspects of the ACN, linking youth and opportunities. 

Through this partnership, ACN taps into Unicef's and GIZ's expert network with experience of delivering education-based projects in multiple African countries with links to, and offices based, in each- while we offer expertise and experience in the practical delivery of tech skills training to marginalised youth.

Our organisation walks the talk, with gender-balanced leadership and, at the helm, our female CTO, the mastermind of the EdTech and evangelist for women inclusion. 

A testament to the quality of alumni and our insistence on diversity in our workforce, 77% of tech training staff are alumni, 50% of which are women. 

Our proudly women-driven team: 

Head of Tech: Sheena o’Connel

Head of Data: Samantha Hampton

Head of UX/UI: Carly Whitaker

Head of Learner Experience: Liezel Voster

Learning Specialist: Lyndi Lawson-Smith

Head of Operations: Catherine Bailey

Our developmental partners are also women lead: 

Unicef: ESAR Prospects Programme Lead: Kimberly Davis 

GIZ: Digital Learning and Transformation Specialist: Franziska Seiffarth

Google.org: Program Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa: 'Tamilore Oni 

The network, and access of expertise the MIT Solves give us to is the real attraction. To tackle our very real local African challenges, with more strategic guidance, more partners and greater diversity in collaboration. 

Problem Framed: finance
Resource needed: Financial

To unlock the sustainable finance model proposed: capturing the economic value of the growing tech sector, shifting the cost of training to industry.  We've outlined a couple of theoretical concepts (income sharing agreement, Impact investment fund, Kickstarter grant fund) but we require financial expertees to brining the scalable financing model to life. 

Problem Framed: Partnership with coding school
Resource: Technology

We need to further development of innovative edtech platform, as a fully-fledged SAAS platform. 

Problem Framed: Reach marginalised youth
Resource: Service distribution

• Supply: Overcoming some of the barriers of reaching more marginalised youth. 
• Demand: Building more "clients" in employers are looking for scarce skills

Tech companies

Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Salesforce, ect. 

• Support with the development of the edtech platform and future innovation such as SSI (self Soverine Identity) and DeCert (decentralised certification) Blockchain technology. 
• Support in training: volunteer programmes for mentorship code review and peer coding sessions. 
• Host learners from work experience
• Hire talent, build talent pipelines into organisations. 

Developmental Orgs. 

• Pool resource to work towards making scalable tech education in Africa a reality. 
• Links to government education department to build support for tech education. 
• Links to existing networks of youth, and local implementation capacity such as country offices.  

With developmental partners UNICEF, our pilot programme focuses 50% on refugees and displaced youth in an effort to only address the tech skills gap, but the inequality gap.
Refugees are an important focus group, along with women. 

This is extremely well aligned. Our solution focuses on tech skills in an inclusive manner without exacerbating inequalities.

Problem:

Youth account for 60% of Africa’s unemployed. The youth population is expected to double by 2050. Africa needs to meet the current and growing future needs of economic activity for African Youth.

One economic opportunity exists in Africa's rapidly growing technology sector, where the need for local tech skills is growing. Yet, traditional education is failing to keep pace with the growth tech skills needed. Existing opportunities exacerbate inequality, favouring males, financially excludes the poor and benefits those few with access to the internet.

Solution: 

'To address the tech skills AND inequality gaps, the African Coding Network aggregates and supports three key stakeholder networks - Youth, Coding Schools, Employers - and establishes a shared-value marketplace between supply and demand'

It’s no secret that women experience exclusion from STEM careers. This is true even in highly developed countries, and to a much greater extent in Africa. Male-dominated social structures and cultural gender stereotypes erode women’s confidence and create barriers to entry. Women in the field are often discouraged by constant discrimination, sexism and lack of support, and attrition is high.

African Coding Network introduces unique features to the tech skills development landscape that address multiple challenges simultaneously, including youth unemployment and tech skills shortages AND issues of gender inclusion and access. Our method uses remote, asynchronous, peer-led learning, removing many obstacles faced by women. Learning in their own time accommodates domestic demands, i.e. young children. Online peer review is anonymous, eliminating risk of discrimination from male peers. Women are empowered by the modular format, which provides positive feedback and helps dispel crises of confidence often experienced in classroom environments.

We're looking to build decentralised certification using blockchain to make a more equitable tech skills marketplace in Africa. 

From our concept note: 

'Blockchain technology is creating tremendous value by removing inefficient intermediaries and decentralising finance. It could be used in a similar way to link employers directly to young people who have the specific skills they require, decentrally certified by common standards and recorded on a blockchain. This could reduce inefficiencies and inequalities associated with elite education institutions, on whom employers currently rely for centralisation verification of skills.'